[pdf leaflet]
So Wall Street has their cake and gets to eat it too. No surprise. And the politicians of all stripes wring their hands and make grandiloquent sound-bites of how they should be listened to.
It’s just so much noise. Both Democrats and Republicans are shocked. SHOCKED! So much for the reputation of Ivy League education being excellent. Most of us could have seen it coming.
Most pathetic are the various leftist groups coming up with more and more ludicrous slogans and demands. They call themselves “socialist” but advocate for the government to administer capitalism, an option which can only fail.
We’ll make no such pretense. The WSP can only speak some truths and watch as the chips fall. Or more accurately, watch as the chips are raked in.
The bail out of the US investment banking industry illustrates one of the major lies which justifies the whole of capitalism. The capitalists - stock and bond holders - deserve their money because they “take risks”. What risks do they take when the government comes to their rescue? How does the “risk” of massive stock incentives and tens of millions of dollars of CEO severance packages compare to workers’ losing their pensions and their homes?
Capitalists take no risk. Workers do. Workers create the wealth of society through real work. Capitalists amass wealth through legal con games. For their failings, the capitalists will receive $4750 in public wealth from each worker in the US. The money working people invested in their foreclosed houses also go to the same capitalists. As do the homes.
Capitalism is a racket, a confidence game. That’s why we are socialists. Once you see how the game is rigged it’s pretty simple to make new choices. As more people accept socialism, it becomes possible to create new movements to stop the capitalist game once and for all. Check it out.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Conventional Logic
A demagogue, H.L. Mencken once said, is someone "who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." This is a pretty good description of the US presidential candidates in action at their late-summer conventions. Although, to be fair to those who listened to the convention speeches, it was more a case of preaching idiotic ideas to people who wished those ideas were true.
The contrast between the gassy rhetoric of the politicians and the weighty problems facing workers was particularly striking at this year's conventions, highlighted further by the juxtaposition between jubilant delegates inside the convention hall and the pepper-sprayed protestors outside.
The candidates from both parties employed the same basic template for demagoguery in writing their convention speeches. We encounter the same sorts of rhetorical techniques and the logic of "pubic relations" shapes every line. The candidates are less interested in conveying ideas than manipulating them to fashion images to sell the product – in this case, the candidates themselves.
Family lies
The first chapter of Convention Speeches for Dummies, if such a book were ever to be written, would probably be entitled: "Making the Most of the Family." Each candidate, without exception, began with extravagant praise for the family – the candidate's own family, that is. The candidates informed the American people that they too have spouses who are loving and loyal, children and grandchildren they are proud of, and hardworking parents as wise as they are kind. (Perhaps this convinced the skeptics who thought that the candidates had been hatched in a secret laboratory in North Dakota.)
Behind my plastic exterior, each candidate seemed to be saying, is a real live human being, just like you. Just like us, but even better. Thanks to the "quintessentially American" values of hard work, perseverance and personal integrity that the candidates acquired as children from their saintly mothers.
In his speech, Joe Biden described his 90-year-old mother as a person "defined by her sense of honor" who "believes bravery lives in every heart" and that "it will be summoned." She taught little Joey the "dignity of work" and that "anyone can make it if they try" and emphasized that it is important to "live our faith and treasure our family." Biden said that his "mother's creed is the American creed: No one is better than you; you are everyone's equal; and everyone is equal to you." (And US Senators are more equal than most.)
McCain mentioned his mother too, saying: "I wouldn't be here tonight but for the strength of her character." Thankfully he was not as long-winded as Biden – perhaps to secure adequate time for another thrilling episode of "John McCain: War Hero" – but he did mention that his mother taught him some patriotic claptrap about how "we're all meant to use our opportunities to make ourselves useful to our country."
Obama praised his mother "who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships." For good measure, Obama threw in his grandmother too, "who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-management" and taught him "about hard work."
The mother featured in Palin's speech was Palin herself, who "was just your average hockey mom" whose political career began when she "signed up for the PTA" because she "wanted to make my kids' public education better." Palin had a small-town upbringing that encouraged "honesty, sincerity and dignity" and she thanked her parents for teaching her that, "this is America, and every woman can walk through every door of opportunity."
It wasn't just the parents who were mobilized for the cause: children and grandchildren served as useful props too. Palin's 4-month old son, who suffers from Down Syndrome, was brought to the raucous event and passed around on stage for the photo op. Obama made use of his two daughters, who told daddy how much they love him. And Biden said that when he looked at his grandchildren, and at Obama's daughters, he realized: "I'm here for their future." Many watching this strange spectacle must hope that the candidates' love for those little ones will be enough to keep their powerful fingers away from "the button."
But, lest we feel too safe, in the next breath these politicians are talking about their sons who are headed off to war, such as Beau Biden or Jimmy McCain. Palin also got some good mileage out of her son Track, who not only is headed to Iraq but will conveniently ship out on September 11 "in the service of his country" (by securing the Starbucks in the Green Zone).
It is rather sickening to see how willing the candidates are to squeeze out whatever political advantage can be had from their children. Even the pregnancy of Palin's teenage daughter –and shotgun wedding – is good election fodder, appealing to those families who have experienced that common side-effect of "abstinence education."
We feel your pain
Once the family motif had been fully exploited, right down to the last grandchild, the candidates shared some snapshots of "less fortunate" families and individuals in the US. Luckily for them, there are literally millions of hard-luck stories to choose from!
Obama, for instance, spoke of "a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement [who] finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work" and "a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he's worked on for twenty years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news."
Notice how careful Obama was to choose examples from crucial "swing states" (and also throw in China as a convenient scapegoat). One can easily imagine political advisors sifting through such evidence of capitalist misery to get to the political gold, weighing each situation carefully.
Biden said in his speech that he looks out at people's homes during his evening train ride home from work and "can almost hear what they're talking about at the kitchen table after they put the kids to bed," imagining the following sorts of conversations:
"Winter's coming. How we gonna pay the heating bills? Another year and no raise? Did you hear the company may be cutting our health care? Now, we owe more on the house than it's worth. How are we going to send the kids to college? How are we gonna be able to retire?"
Biden's little story (punctuated with his "gonna's") is meant to highlight his compassion and solidarity for working folk – and he is so proud that he rides a train that he had Obama mention it too! – but the image of a powerful US Senator breezing through town, as he daydreams about stick-figure citizens in between sips of coffee, only underscores the distance separating him from those kitchen-table conversations.
McCain tried his hand at this compassion stuff too, recognizing that "these are tough times for many of you." Unfortunately there was no train window separating him from a heckler (and Iraq War veteran) who proceeded to berate the candidate for his poor record on veteran's rights. After the ungrateful citizen had been dragged out of the hall, and the chants of "U.S.A! U.S.A.!" to drown out his heckling had subsided, McCain continued reading from his teleprompter: "You're worried about keeping your job or finding a new one," the monotone voice intoned, "and you're struggling to put food on the table and stay in your home." And later, McCain threw in a few swing-state stories of his own, such as "Bill and Sue Nebe from Farmington Hills, Michigan, who lost their real estate investments in the bad housing market" so that now Bill has a temporary job and "Sue works three jobs to help pay the bills."
In recounting these stories, the candidates showed no hint that their own political parties bear any responsibility, nor did they recognize any connection between such problems and our current social system. The whole point was just to show off their own compassion, which Bush Sr. tried to do on campaign trail back in 1992 when he succinctly said, "Message: I care."
Policy promises
Only around the middle of their speeches did the candidates finally begin to sketch some of the policies they plan to implement if elected. But these promises are so vague as to almost defy analysis.
For the few ideas that they did discuss in any detail – regarding taxation, education and foreign policy – the similarities between the candidates far outweighed the differences. Both McCain and Obama pledged to lower taxes for the "middle class," improve education, and somehow win the war in Afghanistan (while keeping Iran and Russian in their place).
Obama kicked off his list of policy solutions with the vow to reform the tax code so as to "cut taxes for 95% of all working families." Even setting aside the question of whether sweeping tax cuts will be possible, while waging two wars in the midst of deep recession, it is telling that Obama and the Democrats focused so much of their attention on the issue of taxation, which is not a working-class issue to begin with (as taxes ultimately come out of the surplus-value created in production). Moreover, Obama is quietly stepping back from an earlier promise to rescind Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy in recent months.
After listing many of the grave problems facing the country earlier in his speech – and harping on the need for "change" throughout his campaign – ultimately the best that Obama can come up with is to steal a page from the Republican playbook and call for tax cuts as an economic cure-all. This is change that John McCain can believe in, who also promised to cut taxes in his speech.
And the two candidates are on the same page for other issues as well. Both call for something called "energy independence" and made the usual pledge to root out corruption and eliminate corporate loopholes as a means of securing the necessary government funds.
Both also promised to improve education, although there was a difference between Obama's promise to "recruit an army of new teachers and pay them higher salaries" and McCain's vow to "shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition [and] empower parents with choice." Still, Obama is reluctant to veer off too sharply from the current administration and in his speech he threw in a line about calling for "higher standards and more accountability," which indicated his agreement with aspects of Bush's "No Child Left Behind" policy.
Perhaps the biggest policy difference concerned health care. McCain ignored the issue, except to say that he opposes "government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor," while Obama emphasized the need for improvements. Yet Obama only calls for an expansion of access to medical insurance, not a reform that would drive out the private insurance companies.
The candidates seemed a little bored by such domestic issues, but warmed up when it came to demonstrating that they are reckless and bloodthirsty enough to be "Commander-in-Chief." Both promised, repeatedly, to keep America and its people safe. Neither expressed any hesitation in sending troops to war and pledged to strengthen the armed forces. Both vowed to continue the fight against Al-Qaeda and issued threats to Iran and Russia. It seems that Obama's days as the "anti-war candidate" are long gone.
This discussion of policy, which should have made the distinction between the two candidates clear, only underscored their similarities, while again revealing the enormous gap between the severity of the problems faced – whether economic, diplomatic or environmental – and the meager "solutions" that both parties are offering.
Orchestrated response
No sooner had the candidate uttered the obligatory "God bless America" to end the convention speech than TV commentators were breathlessly informing viewers that it was a "homerun" that electrified the crowd and will energize the base of the party. It was as if the pundits were frightened that, if given a split-second for reflection, viewers might reach the alternative conclusion that the speech was rather pointless and insipid.
Both parties made every effort to generate the most favorable reaction to their candidate's speech. Even before it was delivered, there were newspaper articles revealing what the speech would discuss, with titles like: "Obama to Get Specific" or "McCain to Strike a Bipartisan Note." At first glance this custom of disclosing the content of the speech in advance seems rather bizarre, as it makes the speeches even less interesting to watch, but it gives the TV commentators an idea of how they should frame the discussion.
The entire process surrounding the convention speeches is hermetically sealed from the public and from reality itself. If the candidates manage to "hit one out of the park," as the cliché goes, it is only because US politics is a game played on a narrow field of little-league proportions.
The contrast between the gassy rhetoric of the politicians and the weighty problems facing workers was particularly striking at this year's conventions, highlighted further by the juxtaposition between jubilant delegates inside the convention hall and the pepper-sprayed protestors outside.
The candidates from both parties employed the same basic template for demagoguery in writing their convention speeches. We encounter the same sorts of rhetorical techniques and the logic of "pubic relations" shapes every line. The candidates are less interested in conveying ideas than manipulating them to fashion images to sell the product – in this case, the candidates themselves.
Family lies
The first chapter of Convention Speeches for Dummies, if such a book were ever to be written, would probably be entitled: "Making the Most of the Family." Each candidate, without exception, began with extravagant praise for the family – the candidate's own family, that is. The candidates informed the American people that they too have spouses who are loving and loyal, children and grandchildren they are proud of, and hardworking parents as wise as they are kind. (Perhaps this convinced the skeptics who thought that the candidates had been hatched in a secret laboratory in North Dakota.)
Behind my plastic exterior, each candidate seemed to be saying, is a real live human being, just like you. Just like us, but even better. Thanks to the "quintessentially American" values of hard work, perseverance and personal integrity that the candidates acquired as children from their saintly mothers.
In his speech, Joe Biden described his 90-year-old mother as a person "defined by her sense of honor" who "believes bravery lives in every heart" and that "it will be summoned." She taught little Joey the "dignity of work" and that "anyone can make it if they try" and emphasized that it is important to "live our faith and treasure our family." Biden said that his "mother's creed is the American creed: No one is better than you; you are everyone's equal; and everyone is equal to you." (And US Senators are more equal than most.)
McCain mentioned his mother too, saying: "I wouldn't be here tonight but for the strength of her character." Thankfully he was not as long-winded as Biden – perhaps to secure adequate time for another thrilling episode of "John McCain: War Hero" – but he did mention that his mother taught him some patriotic claptrap about how "we're all meant to use our opportunities to make ourselves useful to our country."
Obama praised his mother "who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships." For good measure, Obama threw in his grandmother too, "who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-management" and taught him "about hard work."
The mother featured in Palin's speech was Palin herself, who "was just your average hockey mom" whose political career began when she "signed up for the PTA" because she "wanted to make my kids' public education better." Palin had a small-town upbringing that encouraged "honesty, sincerity and dignity" and she thanked her parents for teaching her that, "this is America, and every woman can walk through every door of opportunity."
It wasn't just the parents who were mobilized for the cause: children and grandchildren served as useful props too. Palin's 4-month old son, who suffers from Down Syndrome, was brought to the raucous event and passed around on stage for the photo op. Obama made use of his two daughters, who told daddy how much they love him. And Biden said that when he looked at his grandchildren, and at Obama's daughters, he realized: "I'm here for their future." Many watching this strange spectacle must hope that the candidates' love for those little ones will be enough to keep their powerful fingers away from "the button."
But, lest we feel too safe, in the next breath these politicians are talking about their sons who are headed off to war, such as Beau Biden or Jimmy McCain. Palin also got some good mileage out of her son Track, who not only is headed to Iraq but will conveniently ship out on September 11 "in the service of his country" (by securing the Starbucks in the Green Zone).
It is rather sickening to see how willing the candidates are to squeeze out whatever political advantage can be had from their children. Even the pregnancy of Palin's teenage daughter –and shotgun wedding – is good election fodder, appealing to those families who have experienced that common side-effect of "abstinence education."
We feel your pain
Once the family motif had been fully exploited, right down to the last grandchild, the candidates shared some snapshots of "less fortunate" families and individuals in the US. Luckily for them, there are literally millions of hard-luck stories to choose from!
Obama, for instance, spoke of "a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement [who] finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work" and "a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he's worked on for twenty years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news."
Notice how careful Obama was to choose examples from crucial "swing states" (and also throw in China as a convenient scapegoat). One can easily imagine political advisors sifting through such evidence of capitalist misery to get to the political gold, weighing each situation carefully.
Biden said in his speech that he looks out at people's homes during his evening train ride home from work and "can almost hear what they're talking about at the kitchen table after they put the kids to bed," imagining the following sorts of conversations:
"Winter's coming. How we gonna pay the heating bills? Another year and no raise? Did you hear the company may be cutting our health care? Now, we owe more on the house than it's worth. How are we going to send the kids to college? How are we gonna be able to retire?"
Biden's little story (punctuated with his "gonna's") is meant to highlight his compassion and solidarity for working folk – and he is so proud that he rides a train that he had Obama mention it too! – but the image of a powerful US Senator breezing through town, as he daydreams about stick-figure citizens in between sips of coffee, only underscores the distance separating him from those kitchen-table conversations.
McCain tried his hand at this compassion stuff too, recognizing that "these are tough times for many of you." Unfortunately there was no train window separating him from a heckler (and Iraq War veteran) who proceeded to berate the candidate for his poor record on veteran's rights. After the ungrateful citizen had been dragged out of the hall, and the chants of "U.S.A! U.S.A.!" to drown out his heckling had subsided, McCain continued reading from his teleprompter: "You're worried about keeping your job or finding a new one," the monotone voice intoned, "and you're struggling to put food on the table and stay in your home." And later, McCain threw in a few swing-state stories of his own, such as "Bill and Sue Nebe from Farmington Hills, Michigan, who lost their real estate investments in the bad housing market" so that now Bill has a temporary job and "Sue works three jobs to help pay the bills."
In recounting these stories, the candidates showed no hint that their own political parties bear any responsibility, nor did they recognize any connection between such problems and our current social system. The whole point was just to show off their own compassion, which Bush Sr. tried to do on campaign trail back in 1992 when he succinctly said, "Message: I care."
Policy promises
Only around the middle of their speeches did the candidates finally begin to sketch some of the policies they plan to implement if elected. But these promises are so vague as to almost defy analysis.
For the few ideas that they did discuss in any detail – regarding taxation, education and foreign policy – the similarities between the candidates far outweighed the differences. Both McCain and Obama pledged to lower taxes for the "middle class," improve education, and somehow win the war in Afghanistan (while keeping Iran and Russian in their place).
Obama kicked off his list of policy solutions with the vow to reform the tax code so as to "cut taxes for 95% of all working families." Even setting aside the question of whether sweeping tax cuts will be possible, while waging two wars in the midst of deep recession, it is telling that Obama and the Democrats focused so much of their attention on the issue of taxation, which is not a working-class issue to begin with (as taxes ultimately come out of the surplus-value created in production). Moreover, Obama is quietly stepping back from an earlier promise to rescind Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy in recent months.
After listing many of the grave problems facing the country earlier in his speech – and harping on the need for "change" throughout his campaign – ultimately the best that Obama can come up with is to steal a page from the Republican playbook and call for tax cuts as an economic cure-all. This is change that John McCain can believe in, who also promised to cut taxes in his speech.
And the two candidates are on the same page for other issues as well. Both call for something called "energy independence" and made the usual pledge to root out corruption and eliminate corporate loopholes as a means of securing the necessary government funds.
Both also promised to improve education, although there was a difference between Obama's promise to "recruit an army of new teachers and pay them higher salaries" and McCain's vow to "shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition [and] empower parents with choice." Still, Obama is reluctant to veer off too sharply from the current administration and in his speech he threw in a line about calling for "higher standards and more accountability," which indicated his agreement with aspects of Bush's "No Child Left Behind" policy.
Perhaps the biggest policy difference concerned health care. McCain ignored the issue, except to say that he opposes "government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor," while Obama emphasized the need for improvements. Yet Obama only calls for an expansion of access to medical insurance, not a reform that would drive out the private insurance companies.
The candidates seemed a little bored by such domestic issues, but warmed up when it came to demonstrating that they are reckless and bloodthirsty enough to be "Commander-in-Chief." Both promised, repeatedly, to keep America and its people safe. Neither expressed any hesitation in sending troops to war and pledged to strengthen the armed forces. Both vowed to continue the fight against Al-Qaeda and issued threats to Iran and Russia. It seems that Obama's days as the "anti-war candidate" are long gone.
This discussion of policy, which should have made the distinction between the two candidates clear, only underscored their similarities, while again revealing the enormous gap between the severity of the problems faced – whether economic, diplomatic or environmental – and the meager "solutions" that both parties are offering.
Orchestrated response
No sooner had the candidate uttered the obligatory "God bless America" to end the convention speech than TV commentators were breathlessly informing viewers that it was a "homerun" that electrified the crowd and will energize the base of the party. It was as if the pundits were frightened that, if given a split-second for reflection, viewers might reach the alternative conclusion that the speech was rather pointless and insipid.
Both parties made every effort to generate the most favorable reaction to their candidate's speech. Even before it was delivered, there were newspaper articles revealing what the speech would discuss, with titles like: "Obama to Get Specific" or "McCain to Strike a Bipartisan Note." At first glance this custom of disclosing the content of the speech in advance seems rather bizarre, as it makes the speeches even less interesting to watch, but it gives the TV commentators an idea of how they should frame the discussion.
The entire process surrounding the convention speeches is hermetically sealed from the public and from reality itself. If the candidates manage to "hit one out of the park," as the cliché goes, it is only because US politics is a game played on a narrow field of little-league proportions.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Is Obama Socialist?
We got an e-mail recently from some right-wing blogger for the New York Times who asked if we considered Barak Obama a socialist and if we supported his tax plans. blah, blah, blah. We won't pass judgement on an article which may or may not see the light of day. But most likely this was another piece attempting to get someone calling themselves socialist to endorse Obama or one of his policies. Once that confession is procured, it will be widely touted as proof of Obama being a socialist, an elitist, etc.
But is Obama a socialist? OMF no-G no.
Obama isn't anymore a socialist than McCain is a fascist, a leprechaun or sincere. Sure, Obama wants more government control of economic matters. But as even Obama said if you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig. Capitalism administered by the state is still capitalism. Duh.
No one's calling Bush a socialist because he nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Because it's not socialism. So why call Obama a sociaiist?
This election is all about two factions of capitalism competing for power with each-other.
The methods each faction uses to mobilize the working class to support them says much about the lack of class-consciousness in the US today.
The Democratic faction uses appeals for "justice" and "equality", for tax breaks for workers even though most workers don't "pay" enough taxes to make the breaks more than pavlovian whistles. Sure "equality" sounds nice, but it cannot happen in class society. The vast majority of people are workers for a reason - to create wealth for new rounds of capital growth. Those who benefit from that capital growth can be individual capitalists or state functionaries, but it's workers who do the physical labor which creates the wealth. there can be no equality or justice in capitalism. Even if the capitalist class has now opened it's membership roles to non-whites and females.
For being so slavish to Christian zealots, one would think the Republicans would "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's". But being able to pay for such things as public infrastructure - ie highways, electric system, etc. takes a backseat to the accumulation of capital for massive investment in China, Mexico and India. So like the Democratic faction, they seek to slash public spending and taxes. Of course, underscoring their religious hypocracy, the Republicans have spent more than any other administration building US federal debts to record highs. It is fortunate that US federal bonds which pay for all that debt are held by those whose taxes were cut - the capitalists. Kaching! profit on both transactions!
But is Obama a socialist? OMF no-G no.
Obama isn't anymore a socialist than McCain is a fascist, a leprechaun or sincere. Sure, Obama wants more government control of economic matters. But as even Obama said if you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig. Capitalism administered by the state is still capitalism. Duh.
No one's calling Bush a socialist because he nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Because it's not socialism. So why call Obama a sociaiist?
This election is all about two factions of capitalism competing for power with each-other.
The methods each faction uses to mobilize the working class to support them says much about the lack of class-consciousness in the US today.
The Democratic faction uses appeals for "justice" and "equality", for tax breaks for workers even though most workers don't "pay" enough taxes to make the breaks more than pavlovian whistles. Sure "equality" sounds nice, but it cannot happen in class society. The vast majority of people are workers for a reason - to create wealth for new rounds of capital growth. Those who benefit from that capital growth can be individual capitalists or state functionaries, but it's workers who do the physical labor which creates the wealth. there can be no equality or justice in capitalism. Even if the capitalist class has now opened it's membership roles to non-whites and females.
For being so slavish to Christian zealots, one would think the Republicans would "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's". But being able to pay for such things as public infrastructure - ie highways, electric system, etc. takes a backseat to the accumulation of capital for massive investment in China, Mexico and India. So like the Democratic faction, they seek to slash public spending and taxes. Of course, underscoring their religious hypocracy, the Republicans have spent more than any other administration building US federal debts to record highs. It is fortunate that US federal bonds which pay for all that debt are held by those whose taxes were cut - the capitalists. Kaching! profit on both transactions!
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Stephen Jay Gould
On the anniversary on the birth of the famous scientist Stephen Jay Gould, who sadly died in 2002 at the young age of sixty, readers might like to see what Socialists have to say about his work, evolutionary theory and related matters:
Gould v. Dawkins
Dawkins wars (1 & 2)
Socialism & Darwinism
Why Gould was wrong, and why Dawkins might be even more wrong
Are we prisioners of our genes?
Gould v. Dawkins
Dawkins wars (1 & 2)
Socialism & Darwinism
Why Gould was wrong, and why Dawkins might be even more wrong
Are we prisioners of our genes?
Poles Apart - New World Socialist Video
Poles Apart is the new video from the WSPUS’ companion party in the UK. It’s a filmed debate between a reform advocate for “Arctic Voice” and a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. The contention is if Global Warming can be constrained within capitalism.
It’s available via bit-torrent in 2 parts: Part 1 and Part 2 Its also available on youtube in 14 parts DVD copies should be available in North America soon…
It’s available via bit-torrent in 2 parts: Part 1 and Part 2 Its also available on youtube in 14 parts DVD copies should be available in North America soon…
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The Function of Money
From the Western Socialist, No. 5 - 1968
Money - its origins, its nature, and its functions - is a subject laden with superstition and wild theory. Even those who are supposed to know all that is worth knowing about it, the economics experts, frequently find themselves tangled in the intricacies of their explanations. To the nonprofessional students of Marxian economics the confusions are based primarily on the fact that the training to which the "legitimate" theorists are subjected is geared to the needs of capitalism. To understand the real nature of capitalism, in general, and money, in particular, would inhibit ones effectiveness as an expert and a hired analyst of a society such as capitalism. It is better for those who own the means of wealth production and who hire the experts that inhibiting factors in their expertise be not encouraged.
Somewhere in my studies when a boy in school I learned that money was "invented" by some ruler or other in the periphery of Ancient Greece. The statement is made bluntly and, as I remember, with no equivocation and is probably widely believed today. The truth of the matter is that money was not invented by anybody but developed at a time ante-dating the particular ruler who gets the credit as a normal and natural consequence of a development in primitive trading. Early domesticators of animals had an advantage over other less developed tribes. Their goats, their sheep, and their cattle gave them a relative abundance of food and materials that could be fasioned into clothing and footwear. It is easy to envisage nomadic tribes as having surplus goods which they would seek to exchange for other types of goods more common to agricultural communities. So important an article of exchange was the cow to early people that it became accepted as an equivalent value for anything else - in proper quantity - and it became money. The Latin word for money, pecunia, meaning cattle, preserves this ancient fact.
Trading or exchanging in its most primitive forms required no equivalent. Simple barter was sufficient. But eventually simple barter is impossible when trading develops to the point where a number of commodities are traded during the same period. So as trading developed under the impetus given it by the wandering herdsman, money became necessary and such primitive commodities as animals snd even - on occasion - human slaves were used as money. A number of other commodities over the years took the form of money but eventually the universal equivalent became the precious metals. Silver and gold had many advantages. They are portable; they can be cut readily into bars and are relatively scarce; gold does not deteriorate in air or water; and most important of all reasons, they have a great deal of socially necessary labor time wrapped up in small amounts.
The most important point to grasp about money, then, is that a specific commodity becomes required to effectuate the exchange of other commodities and is real money. But it is also of utmost importance to understand that it is not the fact that money is a commodity, and has a value, that imparts value to the commodities with which it exchanges. It is the other way around. The fact that the commodities have value, and must find a universal equivalent to express their value, is what causes money to exchange with them. The reason this point is so important is that almost everybody seems to put the function of money on its head and endow it with a mystical power it doesn't possess. All that is needed, it is widely believed, to put commodities into circulation is to put more money into circulation. It should go without saying that were this true the only explanation for business slow-downs and depressions is stupidity on the part of those with large amounts of money. Why keep their money in hiding when the mere act of investment can bring prosperity? The fact is that it is not money money that brings into being the circulation of commodities, it is the other way around. Despite the widespread fetichism attatched to money it has no magical qualities, and a mere throwing into circulation of money in an attempt to stimulate trade can only result in such phenomena as a rasing of prices and/or a direct devaluation of currency, i.e., the money tokens.
Money Today
In its earlier stages of development, capitalism could function well enough on the gold standard. There have been times and areas where silver functioned side by side with gold as money but it follows as a necessity that silver would have to be considered in ratio to gold and ultimately be used as tokens in the form of currency - in lieu of real money. A silver quarter or half or even a silver dollar as minted in the United States until recently was certainly not worth anywhere near its equivalent weight in gold. In fact, the price of silver itself was artificially pegged for many years by the U.S. government as a concession to silver capitalists. So gold has been - and still is - the only real money and this despite government embargo on its use by U.S. citizens unless licensed to purchase it for use in industry. With all of the theories and plans to demonetize gold and create some new medium, gold remains. It would seem that short of some new discovery of a method of cheapening gold production and making it as plentiful as other metals, gold must continue to lurk in the background as money.
As capitalist trade expanded, particularly in the period following the end of World War I, the volume reached a peak so great that it is no longer feasible to permit gold to circulate as money in the more highly developed nations. There just isn't enough of it. So a gold exchange standard system was substituted for the old gold standard and British and American currencies were accepted on a basis that they were as good as gold. So trade could now be carried on without the necessity of demanding hard money providing one had U.S. dollars or British pounds. There was enough stability in the economies of these two nations to guarantee that the gold could be had at any time. But, as we all know, this system had not been doing so well as of late and new schemes are now in force and on the drawing boards to attempt stabilization of the world money system. The vaunted currencies of Britain, America, and now France are not as universally acceptable as they were despite economic strength or even despite relatively high gold reserves. If it can be argued - which it can be - that American balance of payments deficits are the cheif cause of America's economic bind; that the outflow of gold is gradually throttling American capitalism; then how explain the economic miseries of France that led to the recent political convulsions there despite her accumulation of gold which - relative to the French economy - was vast in comparison to other countires. Once again, if all it takes is a throwing into circulation of money to bring prosperity what stupidity could have impelled the rulers of France to sit on their gold reserves rather than to throw more money into industry? Could it be that the economists really do understand that there is really nothing magical about money?
The fact is that nothing can make capitalism operate smoothly for the majority. Great Britain and France are now both out of the empire business. Since the end of World War II it was the costs involved in maintaining their empires that was supposed to have been the direct cause of working class poverty in those countires - according to popular belief. So what explains working class poverty in Britain and France today? Does it make sense to believe that if and when the United States gets out of the empire business the American workers will benefit? Could even the return of Uncle Sam's disapearing gold, together with the return of his fighting workingmen help economic conditions for the United States population, generally? Again we have the example of Britain and France before our eyes.
A Value Measure
Let us look at money from anothyer angle. One of its several functions is as a measure of value. To measure value, however, it is not necessary to have hard - or even soft - cash and it is this fact that lends credence to the fanciful view that gold is really not so important to capitalism. A recent issue of Fortune Magazine researched the present crop of American capitalists. Oilman J. Paul Getty and financier Howard Hughes, like a pair of Abou ben Adhems, lead all the rest and are classed as billionaires. But there are a number of others that are not that far behind that it makes a great deal of diffrerence. Fortune tells us that:
"All told, 45 persons in the U.S. were identified then (in 1957) as having fortunes over $100 million. In the decade since, the centimillionaire population has more than tripled and tose with $150 million or more has grown to 66." (Bostion Herald Traveler, April 29, 1968.)
It should be obvious that no actuall money is needed in arriving at the estimated financial worth of these gentlemen. Nor can one conceive of Mr. Getty or Mr. Hughes selling their holdings and storing the money in their own Fort Knoxes, even were they able to get actual gold rather than bank notes. Money, with the exception of the relatvely small percentage of it required to procure their personal consumption needs - their homes, jewels, yachts, limousines, private planes etc. - is of no use to the capitalists unless it can be used as capital. When money is invested in the precess of producing more wealth through the exploitation of the working class it serves its chief function for the capitalists. Lying in hiding, it has no more use than idle machinery and idle factories, yet unless opportunities exist for further exploitation of the working class (a market that can obsorb the result of such exploitation) not all the money in the world can convert slow trade conditions into good ones.
What, then, is the final destiny of money? So long as production is designed for the purpose of sale on the market with a view to profit money will be necessary. Value will have to be estimated in order that the commodities can exchange, one with another. A universal equivalent will also be needed as a standard of price and as a means of payment. Given a new and different type of social system, however, money will no longer be required. How can one measure value for exchange when goods are produced for use and not for exchange? The very concept of value will not arise. For what reason is a standard of price required when goods will have no price? Wherein lies the need for a means of payment when all the earth is commonly owned by all mankind instead of - as now - the property of a minority? Socialism will have no need to abolish money. The need for money will have vanished with the abolition of capitalism.
-Harmo
Money - its origins, its nature, and its functions - is a subject laden with superstition and wild theory. Even those who are supposed to know all that is worth knowing about it, the economics experts, frequently find themselves tangled in the intricacies of their explanations. To the nonprofessional students of Marxian economics the confusions are based primarily on the fact that the training to which the "legitimate" theorists are subjected is geared to the needs of capitalism. To understand the real nature of capitalism, in general, and money, in particular, would inhibit ones effectiveness as an expert and a hired analyst of a society such as capitalism. It is better for those who own the means of wealth production and who hire the experts that inhibiting factors in their expertise be not encouraged.
Somewhere in my studies when a boy in school I learned that money was "invented" by some ruler or other in the periphery of Ancient Greece. The statement is made bluntly and, as I remember, with no equivocation and is probably widely believed today. The truth of the matter is that money was not invented by anybody but developed at a time ante-dating the particular ruler who gets the credit as a normal and natural consequence of a development in primitive trading. Early domesticators of animals had an advantage over other less developed tribes. Their goats, their sheep, and their cattle gave them a relative abundance of food and materials that could be fasioned into clothing and footwear. It is easy to envisage nomadic tribes as having surplus goods which they would seek to exchange for other types of goods more common to agricultural communities. So important an article of exchange was the cow to early people that it became accepted as an equivalent value for anything else - in proper quantity - and it became money. The Latin word for money, pecunia, meaning cattle, preserves this ancient fact.
Trading or exchanging in its most primitive forms required no equivalent. Simple barter was sufficient. But eventually simple barter is impossible when trading develops to the point where a number of commodities are traded during the same period. So as trading developed under the impetus given it by the wandering herdsman, money became necessary and such primitive commodities as animals snd even - on occasion - human slaves were used as money. A number of other commodities over the years took the form of money but eventually the universal equivalent became the precious metals. Silver and gold had many advantages. They are portable; they can be cut readily into bars and are relatively scarce; gold does not deteriorate in air or water; and most important of all reasons, they have a great deal of socially necessary labor time wrapped up in small amounts.
The most important point to grasp about money, then, is that a specific commodity becomes required to effectuate the exchange of other commodities and is real money. But it is also of utmost importance to understand that it is not the fact that money is a commodity, and has a value, that imparts value to the commodities with which it exchanges. It is the other way around. The fact that the commodities have value, and must find a universal equivalent to express their value, is what causes money to exchange with them. The reason this point is so important is that almost everybody seems to put the function of money on its head and endow it with a mystical power it doesn't possess. All that is needed, it is widely believed, to put commodities into circulation is to put more money into circulation. It should go without saying that were this true the only explanation for business slow-downs and depressions is stupidity on the part of those with large amounts of money. Why keep their money in hiding when the mere act of investment can bring prosperity? The fact is that it is not money money that brings into being the circulation of commodities, it is the other way around. Despite the widespread fetichism attatched to money it has no magical qualities, and a mere throwing into circulation of money in an attempt to stimulate trade can only result in such phenomena as a rasing of prices and/or a direct devaluation of currency, i.e., the money tokens.
Money Today
In its earlier stages of development, capitalism could function well enough on the gold standard. There have been times and areas where silver functioned side by side with gold as money but it follows as a necessity that silver would have to be considered in ratio to gold and ultimately be used as tokens in the form of currency - in lieu of real money. A silver quarter or half or even a silver dollar as minted in the United States until recently was certainly not worth anywhere near its equivalent weight in gold. In fact, the price of silver itself was artificially pegged for many years by the U.S. government as a concession to silver capitalists. So gold has been - and still is - the only real money and this despite government embargo on its use by U.S. citizens unless licensed to purchase it for use in industry. With all of the theories and plans to demonetize gold and create some new medium, gold remains. It would seem that short of some new discovery of a method of cheapening gold production and making it as plentiful as other metals, gold must continue to lurk in the background as money.
As capitalist trade expanded, particularly in the period following the end of World War I, the volume reached a peak so great that it is no longer feasible to permit gold to circulate as money in the more highly developed nations. There just isn't enough of it. So a gold exchange standard system was substituted for the old gold standard and British and American currencies were accepted on a basis that they were as good as gold. So trade could now be carried on without the necessity of demanding hard money providing one had U.S. dollars or British pounds. There was enough stability in the economies of these two nations to guarantee that the gold could be had at any time. But, as we all know, this system had not been doing so well as of late and new schemes are now in force and on the drawing boards to attempt stabilization of the world money system. The vaunted currencies of Britain, America, and now France are not as universally acceptable as they were despite economic strength or even despite relatively high gold reserves. If it can be argued - which it can be - that American balance of payments deficits are the cheif cause of America's economic bind; that the outflow of gold is gradually throttling American capitalism; then how explain the economic miseries of France that led to the recent political convulsions there despite her accumulation of gold which - relative to the French economy - was vast in comparison to other countires. Once again, if all it takes is a throwing into circulation of money to bring prosperity what stupidity could have impelled the rulers of France to sit on their gold reserves rather than to throw more money into industry? Could it be that the economists really do understand that there is really nothing magical about money?
The fact is that nothing can make capitalism operate smoothly for the majority. Great Britain and France are now both out of the empire business. Since the end of World War II it was the costs involved in maintaining their empires that was supposed to have been the direct cause of working class poverty in those countires - according to popular belief. So what explains working class poverty in Britain and France today? Does it make sense to believe that if and when the United States gets out of the empire business the American workers will benefit? Could even the return of Uncle Sam's disapearing gold, together with the return of his fighting workingmen help economic conditions for the United States population, generally? Again we have the example of Britain and France before our eyes.
A Value Measure
Let us look at money from anothyer angle. One of its several functions is as a measure of value. To measure value, however, it is not necessary to have hard - or even soft - cash and it is this fact that lends credence to the fanciful view that gold is really not so important to capitalism. A recent issue of Fortune Magazine researched the present crop of American capitalists. Oilman J. Paul Getty and financier Howard Hughes, like a pair of Abou ben Adhems, lead all the rest and are classed as billionaires. But there are a number of others that are not that far behind that it makes a great deal of diffrerence. Fortune tells us that:
"All told, 45 persons in the U.S. were identified then (in 1957) as having fortunes over $100 million. In the decade since, the centimillionaire population has more than tripled and tose with $150 million or more has grown to 66." (Bostion Herald Traveler, April 29, 1968.)
It should be obvious that no actuall money is needed in arriving at the estimated financial worth of these gentlemen. Nor can one conceive of Mr. Getty or Mr. Hughes selling their holdings and storing the money in their own Fort Knoxes, even were they able to get actual gold rather than bank notes. Money, with the exception of the relatvely small percentage of it required to procure their personal consumption needs - their homes, jewels, yachts, limousines, private planes etc. - is of no use to the capitalists unless it can be used as capital. When money is invested in the precess of producing more wealth through the exploitation of the working class it serves its chief function for the capitalists. Lying in hiding, it has no more use than idle machinery and idle factories, yet unless opportunities exist for further exploitation of the working class (a market that can obsorb the result of such exploitation) not all the money in the world can convert slow trade conditions into good ones.
What, then, is the final destiny of money? So long as production is designed for the purpose of sale on the market with a view to profit money will be necessary. Value will have to be estimated in order that the commodities can exchange, one with another. A universal equivalent will also be needed as a standard of price and as a means of payment. Given a new and different type of social system, however, money will no longer be required. How can one measure value for exchange when goods are produced for use and not for exchange? The very concept of value will not arise. For what reason is a standard of price required when goods will have no price? Wherein lies the need for a means of payment when all the earth is commonly owned by all mankind instead of - as now - the property of a minority? Socialism will have no need to abolish money. The need for money will have vanished with the abolition of capitalism.
-Harmo
Friday, August 8, 2008
Free work versus forced employment
Why do you go to work? Is it because you enjoy what you do? Did you choose to work at what you do in the way you do? Would you do your job were it not for the money?
A few lucky people can do what they like. These include a certain class of people who have the economic privilege of not needing to work. They can live by exploiting the work of others. This exploitation enables them to live by appropriating rent, interest and profit. They can do what they like with their lives. They can sleep all day. They can travel. They can spend their time shooting animals for fun or shooting drugs into their bodies. If they wish, they can be philanthropists and "do good" for the poor—who are poor only because the rich are rich.
While the capitalist minority who own and control the means of producing and distributing wealth are free not to have to work, the majority of us are unfree. We are dependent upon working in order to obtain a wage or salary. We sell our mental and physical abilities in a relationship called employment.
Work and employment are not the same. Humans need to work because work is the expenditure of energy and unless we use some of it we rot away. Even the most parasitical aristocratic layabout occasionally does the odd stroke of work. Looking after a garden or painting pictures or cooking fine food are all work activities, but if you do them freely they are not employment. To be employed is to work for someone else: to be at their beck and call; to be given money by them in return for producing values for them. Capitalists will only employ workers if there is a prospect of them making a profit out of us. They make their profit by receiving from us more value than the value of our wages or salaries. Without this surplus value they would not employ us - which is why millions of able-bodied and skilled people who want to find jobs are unemployed; there is no prospect of a profit in making them work. There is no point in asking the capitalists to give everyone employment regardless of profit. That would not be in their interests and we should not expect them to invest in us unless they can exploit us.
So, the majority works not by choice but in an unfree relationship of employment. We are wage or salary slaves. We are employed not for the good of our health but so that capitalists can live in luxury without working. Employment is a form of institutionalised exploitation - or legalised robbery.
Increasing Misery—How Work's Getting Worse
Karl Marx, who was the first to explain scientifically how capitalism turned the producers of wealth into exploited wage slaves, argued in the last century that conditions for workers would get worse: the increasing misery of the working class. Some reformists believe that Marx was wrong: that life under capitalism has been greatly improved for the workers as a result of philanthropic legislation and higher wages. Even certain pseudo-Marxists have declared that Marx was wrong about this and that capitalism has produced a working class which, though technically exploited, is pretty affluent and no longer in poverty. Even discounting the condition of the majority of the world's working class who live in conditions of poverty comparable to those suffered in Victorian Britain (which such pseudo-Marxists do, because they are essentially only interested in British rather then global capitalism), it is nonsense to suppose that the exploited working class is now somehow well off. In fact, in many respects, the late 1990s are one of the worst times to be employed this century.
Employment is the sale of time. Capitalists want to be sure that they get their full chunk of our lives, down to the last second. So they've invented new electronic timesheets, such as Tempo, VizTopia and Carpe Diem, which measure what we are doing during every minute of their day. Arthur Andersen, the management consultants (the new holders of the foreman's whip) have invented a new 70-unit day, divided up into six-minute periods, each of which must be accounted for by the employee. At a recent socialist meeting we heard from a worker at one of the major banks whose useless job was to sit in front of a computer transferring money. There is a button labelled "More Work" which she had to press on her computer each time she had completed a task. By comparison, the Victorian factory sounds pretty civilised--certainly no worse. The New Labour-supporting Daily Mirror reports enthusiastically on the Nissan factory in Sunderland where workers have a fixed 35-minute lunch break (16 July).
The "good old days" when even the humblest wage slave got an hour off for dinner and a chat have been replaced. All over the industrialised world workers are being encouraged to arrive on the job earlier, stay later and take less time out for a pee or a pie. Little wonder then that the same newspaper reported that "soaring stress levels at work are making it Britain's biggest health hazard . . . It is affecting a third of the country's workforce and costing industry 90 million working days a year" (19 October) The TUC report from which the newspaper quoted this information also stated that nearly a quarter of Britain's firms were not meeting legally required safety obligations. And with trade-union membership having fallen--largely due to the smaller full-time workforce and increased job insecurity—most workers simply have to grin and bear it. Without organisation for self-defence the bosses can impose whatever lousy conditions they think they can get away with
In the Post Office in North London workers, whose paid job began at 6 am, were arriving half an hour early in order to complete the extra workload that management was expecting of them. They didn't arrive early because they were insomniacs and couldn't sleep; they were scared that unless they delivered what the managers were demanding they'd be replaced by other wage slaves fresh off the dole queue. Now the managers (who are merely the errand boys for Capital) have insisted that the official working day must begin at 5.30—after all, most workers are arriving then anyway. So, more work will be piled upon them and the next step will be for some to have to arrive at 5 am to deliver their pounds of flesh. This is the increasing misery of the working class.
A World Without Wages
Most of us want to work. What we hate is employment. We want to work for ourselves, our families and friends, our community, not some thieving parasite who can laugh as long as we're dependent on his wages.
The abolition of wage slavery is no less than the abolition of class society. Because there are only two main classes left in society today--capitalists and workers—the abolition of capitalist exploitation must mean the beginning of free labour.
How will work be organised in a socialist society? Everyone who can work will work. They will work at what they do best, not for wages but as co-operative contributors to society. In return for giving according to their abilities they will be free to take from the common store according to their needs. There will be no wages. There will be no money. Instead of the market there will be free access for all to goods and services. It will be a more relaxed society. People in a socialist society will not have jobs but will do work. It is unlikely that any of us will choose to do only one kind of work all week or between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five. It is quite probable that the hours each week that each of us will be needed to work will be less than at present. Certainly, working conditions will be pleasant--because the object of work will be social satisfaction and not pumping as much toil out of each person as is humanly possible. People in a socialist society will have much more control than now over how their work is organised; the labour process will be democratised and no longer under the dictatorship of Capital and its managerial Gestapo.
Under capitalism what we call leisure is a snatched period of free time to use for rest and relaxation. In a socialist society the distinction between work and leisure will diminish—perhaps even disappear. People will have an opportunity to use their hobbies and enthusiasms for the social good: to enjoy being useful. Whereas now much of the work that most workers perform is totally useless—from counting money to making munitions to guarding property—every human in a socialist society will know that their work is part of a process of producing for use.
We are not presenting the socialist alternative of a world without wages as a utopian dream for the century after next. This is practical now. Socialism is the sensible next step for humankind to take, away from a social system that wastes our energies, abuses or skills and stunts or creativity.
SC
From the Socialist Standard, December 1998.
A few lucky people can do what they like. These include a certain class of people who have the economic privilege of not needing to work. They can live by exploiting the work of others. This exploitation enables them to live by appropriating rent, interest and profit. They can do what they like with their lives. They can sleep all day. They can travel. They can spend their time shooting animals for fun or shooting drugs into their bodies. If they wish, they can be philanthropists and "do good" for the poor—who are poor only because the rich are rich.
While the capitalist minority who own and control the means of producing and distributing wealth are free not to have to work, the majority of us are unfree. We are dependent upon working in order to obtain a wage or salary. We sell our mental and physical abilities in a relationship called employment.
Work and employment are not the same. Humans need to work because work is the expenditure of energy and unless we use some of it we rot away. Even the most parasitical aristocratic layabout occasionally does the odd stroke of work. Looking after a garden or painting pictures or cooking fine food are all work activities, but if you do them freely they are not employment. To be employed is to work for someone else: to be at their beck and call; to be given money by them in return for producing values for them. Capitalists will only employ workers if there is a prospect of them making a profit out of us. They make their profit by receiving from us more value than the value of our wages or salaries. Without this surplus value they would not employ us - which is why millions of able-bodied and skilled people who want to find jobs are unemployed; there is no prospect of a profit in making them work. There is no point in asking the capitalists to give everyone employment regardless of profit. That would not be in their interests and we should not expect them to invest in us unless they can exploit us.
So, the majority works not by choice but in an unfree relationship of employment. We are wage or salary slaves. We are employed not for the good of our health but so that capitalists can live in luxury without working. Employment is a form of institutionalised exploitation - or legalised robbery.
Increasing Misery—How Work's Getting Worse
Karl Marx, who was the first to explain scientifically how capitalism turned the producers of wealth into exploited wage slaves, argued in the last century that conditions for workers would get worse: the increasing misery of the working class. Some reformists believe that Marx was wrong: that life under capitalism has been greatly improved for the workers as a result of philanthropic legislation and higher wages. Even certain pseudo-Marxists have declared that Marx was wrong about this and that capitalism has produced a working class which, though technically exploited, is pretty affluent and no longer in poverty. Even discounting the condition of the majority of the world's working class who live in conditions of poverty comparable to those suffered in Victorian Britain (which such pseudo-Marxists do, because they are essentially only interested in British rather then global capitalism), it is nonsense to suppose that the exploited working class is now somehow well off. In fact, in many respects, the late 1990s are one of the worst times to be employed this century.
Employment is the sale of time. Capitalists want to be sure that they get their full chunk of our lives, down to the last second. So they've invented new electronic timesheets, such as Tempo, VizTopia and Carpe Diem, which measure what we are doing during every minute of their day. Arthur Andersen, the management consultants (the new holders of the foreman's whip) have invented a new 70-unit day, divided up into six-minute periods, each of which must be accounted for by the employee. At a recent socialist meeting we heard from a worker at one of the major banks whose useless job was to sit in front of a computer transferring money. There is a button labelled "More Work" which she had to press on her computer each time she had completed a task. By comparison, the Victorian factory sounds pretty civilised--certainly no worse. The New Labour-supporting Daily Mirror reports enthusiastically on the Nissan factory in Sunderland where workers have a fixed 35-minute lunch break (16 July).
The "good old days" when even the humblest wage slave got an hour off for dinner and a chat have been replaced. All over the industrialised world workers are being encouraged to arrive on the job earlier, stay later and take less time out for a pee or a pie. Little wonder then that the same newspaper reported that "soaring stress levels at work are making it Britain's biggest health hazard . . . It is affecting a third of the country's workforce and costing industry 90 million working days a year" (19 October) The TUC report from which the newspaper quoted this information also stated that nearly a quarter of Britain's firms were not meeting legally required safety obligations. And with trade-union membership having fallen--largely due to the smaller full-time workforce and increased job insecurity—most workers simply have to grin and bear it. Without organisation for self-defence the bosses can impose whatever lousy conditions they think they can get away with
In the Post Office in North London workers, whose paid job began at 6 am, were arriving half an hour early in order to complete the extra workload that management was expecting of them. They didn't arrive early because they were insomniacs and couldn't sleep; they were scared that unless they delivered what the managers were demanding they'd be replaced by other wage slaves fresh off the dole queue. Now the managers (who are merely the errand boys for Capital) have insisted that the official working day must begin at 5.30—after all, most workers are arriving then anyway. So, more work will be piled upon them and the next step will be for some to have to arrive at 5 am to deliver their pounds of flesh. This is the increasing misery of the working class.
A World Without Wages
Most of us want to work. What we hate is employment. We want to work for ourselves, our families and friends, our community, not some thieving parasite who can laugh as long as we're dependent on his wages.
The abolition of wage slavery is no less than the abolition of class society. Because there are only two main classes left in society today--capitalists and workers—the abolition of capitalist exploitation must mean the beginning of free labour.
How will work be organised in a socialist society? Everyone who can work will work. They will work at what they do best, not for wages but as co-operative contributors to society. In return for giving according to their abilities they will be free to take from the common store according to their needs. There will be no wages. There will be no money. Instead of the market there will be free access for all to goods and services. It will be a more relaxed society. People in a socialist society will not have jobs but will do work. It is unlikely that any of us will choose to do only one kind of work all week or between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five. It is quite probable that the hours each week that each of us will be needed to work will be less than at present. Certainly, working conditions will be pleasant--because the object of work will be social satisfaction and not pumping as much toil out of each person as is humanly possible. People in a socialist society will have much more control than now over how their work is organised; the labour process will be democratised and no longer under the dictatorship of Capital and its managerial Gestapo.
Under capitalism what we call leisure is a snatched period of free time to use for rest and relaxation. In a socialist society the distinction between work and leisure will diminish—perhaps even disappear. People will have an opportunity to use their hobbies and enthusiasms for the social good: to enjoy being useful. Whereas now much of the work that most workers perform is totally useless—from counting money to making munitions to guarding property—every human in a socialist society will know that their work is part of a process of producing for use.
We are not presenting the socialist alternative of a world without wages as a utopian dream for the century after next. This is practical now. Socialism is the sensible next step for humankind to take, away from a social system that wastes our energies, abuses or skills and stunts or creativity.
SC
From the Socialist Standard, December 1998.
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