NB.
See Also My More Recent Response To. Dr. Paul Cockshott
Further to my blog yesterday I haven't received a reply to my E-Mail to Jerry Levy concerning the debate over the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Rise. In the meantime I have been reading soem of the arguments put forward by the academics involved See: here and put together some initial responses.
Paul Cockshott writes, “He fails to consider what happens if say 50% of profit on capital is reinvested each year,
can the working population grow fast enough?”
Its difficult to respond to this point as no argument is given as to what Paul believes the consequences are. There are several answers to this point as far as it stands.
Firstly, my argument in respect of the TFRPR is not an abstract theoretical construct, but an empirical observation based on current conditions arising from the nature of the productive forces, and the productive relations. I am not saying this is what COULD happen. I am saying that this is what IS happening, and happening for these reasons that can be theorised within the context of Marx’s Value theory. In short, Marx set out the Theoretical reasons why there should be a Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall over the longer term due to the rising Organic Composition of Capital – an argument I would not dispute over the longer term – whereas I am saying that due to the development of new technology, and due to the changing nature of Consumption i.e. an increasing proprtion of Consumption going to commodities with a high complex labour content, there is a strong argument that the Organic Composition of Capital in the most rapidly growing sector of the economy is falling, and for the obverse reasons given by Marx means a Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Rise.
Secondly, if we take the purely theoretical aspect of Paul’s argument I fail to see his point. Clearly, a requirement for Capital Accumulation within a capitalist economy is that there is a sufficiently large reserve of Labour for this new Capital to exploit. If there is not sufficient Labour to exploit then Paul’s assumption itself falls, because then the Capital Accumulation itself could not occur, and so its effect on the Rate of Profit one way or another would be moot. Marx set out a whole series of countervailing factors for the Falling Rate of Profit, and similarly I have no doubt that these factors and others can be adduced as to why a tendency of the Rate of Profit to Rise is attenuated. But, let’s look at the actual point Paul makes.
Firstly, is there any evidence that Capital has EVER had a problem with an ABSOLUTE as opposed to a relative shortage of Labour Power to exploit? No. Secondly, are there any reasons to believe that Capital is or could face such a problem, thereby, frustrating any tendency for the Rate of profit to Rise? No. The consequences of the very factors I have outlined relating to the more rapid development of technology is not only rapidly reducing the Cost of Fixed capital, but is also more rapidly creating a relative surplus population. The consequences of globalisation,and the spread of Capitalist production – replacing Peasant, artisanal and handicraft production particular in China and other parts of Asia – has created a vast reserve army of Labour on a global scale allowing traditional manufacturing processes to use that simple Labour, and thereby freeing Labour in the developed economies for employment as complex Labour in the very spheres I have mentioned, OR ELSE, in the context of simple Labour to be employed in those areas of the service industry where the organic composition of Capital is lower than the average.
In the next post on the thread Jurriaan Bendien writes on the issue of the Value of Labour Power whilst not actually taking issue with anything I had written. Therefore, I will only make some passing comments in respect of the Value of Labour Power, Wages and the Cost of Living, the issues raised in his comments. A number of the issues here are also discussed in another context in my debate with Mike McNair over the nature of Complex Labour. See; those discussions here .
First of all it is necessary to distinguish between what Marx says about the value of labour power, and the value of the commodities produced by that Labour Power. Jurriaan, is quite correct that Marx asserts that the former is objectively determinable a priori. But, Marx in his discussion on Complex Labour argues that the relation between this complex Labour and Simple Labour can only be determined post facto i.e. we can openly know how much consumers Value the complex Labour compared to simple Labour when we see how much they are prepared to pay for its product. There is the crucial difference here between the Value of Labour Power and the Value of Labour without which Adam Smith and Ricardo fell into error, and without which you indeed do end up in a circular argument about values.
Marx its true didn’t provide a theory of the Labour market. The plan of his completed work shows that he would have done along with him dealing with other market relations, and Demand and Supply. But, he does make a distinction between the Value of labour power and wages just as he makes a distinction between Exchange Values and prices. As Marx outlines it is quite possible for Wages to be either below or above the Value of labour power at any one time even if we do not take into consideration the question of the transformation of Values to prices. The reasons for that can be due to a number of factors – for example, as I have been writing in a number of blogs the Long Wave cycle causes changes in the relative demand for Labour Power with a consequent effect on Supply and Demand. Because Supply and Demand is a phenomena of Price,and because wages are a Price, those changes affect wages – whilst leaving underlying Values unaffected. In order to understand Marx’s theory in relation to the Value of Labour Power fully, it is necessary to read what he says in the Grundrisse about the “Civilising Mission of Capital”, about the way in which Capital has to continually expand the scale and scope of the Use Values it produces, and consequently, because workers form a majority – and growing proportion – of consumers, Capital is continually forced to expand the workers horizons in order that this growing mass of use values can be consumed. This forms one part of the historical component of the Value of Labour Power. But, it is possible to enumerate other objective determinants too. For example, a modern economy needs healthy and educated workers. The Labour-time required to ensure that the necessary level of health and education are embedded in a sufficent number of workers also forms part of that Value.
At the same time the converse is true. Marx in the Critique of the Gotha Programme is scathing of the Lassalleans and Statists who argued for “Equal” education, and so on. He points out that “Right” can never be higher than what the economy can provide at any moment, and what it can provide is not some subjective matter, but is determined by the Rate of Accumulation, which is itself a function of competition between Capitals.
However, in a further post Jurrian does take up the argument about the Rising Rate of profit. He says there is nothing new in my argument. To some extent agreed, I began by outlining Marx’s theory and the countervailing tendencies he outlined. As the main thrust of my argument is the current role of those countrevailing tendencies there is clearly nothing new in what I am saying. The whole point is that what I am saying is not intended to be some new theory, but an understanding of current conditions within the context of marx’s theory. To say, however, that the same thing was written in the 1960’s, is, therefore, wrong, precisely because this is not the 1960’s. The very technological developments etc. I am referring to as specific for the present conjuncture were not present in the 1960’s.
Jurrian says, “Marx however wasn't talking about the rate of profit of "everything", he was talking only about industrial profitability. If there is a sustained recovery of industrial profitability now, where is the evidence?”
This is not correct. Marx was concerned with the Circuit of capital as a whole not just with Productive Capital or Industrial Capital as Jurrian puts it. The same argument in respect of a rising Organic Composition of Capital applies to Money Capital, or Merchants Capital or Capital employed in Agriculture and so on as applies in Industry. Moreover, Marx’s theory on the Average Rate of Profit can only be taken in the context of ALL Capital.
“What Marxists ignore in their "reproduction schemes" is that they leave out some results of the accumulation process. They act as though the output of capitalist production simply disappears in consumption, whether productive consumption or final consumption.
But this is a fallacy, because fixed assets and durables are being produced, imported and maintained. You can easily show that the value of the total stock of fixed assets and durables increases year after year. The effect is that in many OECD countries nowadays, the value of the stock of non-productive fixed capital assets is larger than the stock of productive fixed capital.”
What utter nonsense. Jurrian talks as though Marx only set out a schema of simple reproduction, and forget that he went on to set out his schemas of Extended Reproduction, which in fact form the basis of modern day Harrod-Domar growth models. The whole point about Extended Reproduction is that a proprtion of Surplus Value goes not to meet the unproductive consumption needs of Capitalists, but is invested in new Capital both in Fixed Capital assets, and in Circulating Capital (Constant Capital in the form of materials, and variable Capital in the form of Labour power). The whole point of Marx’s economics is that because he can explain where Profit comes from – which orthodox economics even today cannot explain, indeed neo-classical economics tells us that Profit CANNOT exist for an economy as a whole(!) – he is able to explain how growth is possible, something which escaped both Smith and Ricardo.
“But just because the larger part of fixed capital assets is now non-productive, doesn't mean that it plays no role in accumulation. That would also be a fallacy.”
Jurrian doesn’t make clear what he means by “non-productive” here, but I take it from what he said earlier, and what he goes on to say, that he means “non-industrial” fixed assets. But, this is false because of what Is aid earlier. Marx is NOT talking only about Industrial Capital, but Capital as a whole. Marx does not have a version of a Physiocratic view of Value creation in which only Capital employed in inustry is productive. He talks for example about Actors. For Marx, the determinant of “Productive” is the interrelation with Capital i.e. is it productive of Surplus Value. Indeed, the thrust of my argument was that precisely because of the growing aspect of these types of activity within the economy, the degree to which they employ highly complex Labour is the source of the Rising Rate of profit.
“Marxists claim that capitalism started when British peasants were thrown off the land in the 18th century, but this is a mythical fiction which does no justice to Marx at all, never mind economic history.”
No they don’t. But, Industrial Capitalism can only take off from that point for the reasons Marx elaborates i.e. until the peasants were thrown off the land there was a shortage of Labour Power, wages were too high for Industrial Capitalists to make sufficent Profit to accumulate. True, all of the things that Marx outlines such as the role of piracy, of the slave trade etc. enable Primitive Accummulation to occur, but as marx outlines that Primitive Accummulation is small compared to the Secondary accummulation that resuults from Capitalist production proper.
“Non-productive assets do play a role in capital accumulation, and profits are made from it, in the form of capital gains and property income, interest and rent.”
This is thoroughly confused. You should know that Profit and Capital Gain are two different things. Property Income, interest and rent are yet differeent again. I had this argument with an adherent of the “Austrian School” some time ago who wanted to get away with this shell game. In order that any non-inflationary Capital Gain can arise – that is not equally cancelled by some other Capital Loss – an economy must first generate the fund from which that Capital Gain can arise. If say, there are two houses in an economy – to take your example of non-productive assets – each with a market price of £100,000 then the market price of either or both of these houses can rise in real terms – thereby creating a Capital gain – only if some new value arises which enables that higher price to be paid. Without that the owners of these houses can place whatever price tag on them they care to mention, but if they are exchanged no Capital Gain can arise. Only if in the productive sector of the economy some new Value arises so that either or both of the owners of these assets has an extra fund to expend can their price rise and a Capital Gain arise. Consequently, it is not these non-productive assets that create any new Value, but the productive activity, and without it no accummulation could arise. Similarly, such assets can only earn property income, interest or rent if some fund out of which those payments are made is created, and that can only be created by production. Of course, as with primitive Accummulation its possible that some new Accummulation could arise through the same means, for example some form of piracy, theft, or unequal Exchange.
“In addition, if we consider the total stock of capital assets of all kinds, an increasing proportion of that stock consists not of physical assets, but purely of financial assets. This is capital not invested in production or physical assets, which just earns interest or rent or some other form of property income.”
But, as I said above that Financial Capital can only receive those payments if some fund from which they can be paid is generated. What is happening here is not the creation of new Value or Surplus Value, but its transferrence from where it arises in production to where it is realised in the sphere of Fianncial Capital as marx outlined in the way in which ALL Capital shares in the total Surplus Value created in production. The idea you seem to be adducing here that this fictitious Capital can somehow create new Value and Surplus Value out of thina air, simply through Exchange has I think been amply demolished in practice by the Credit Crunch and financial meltdown of recent months.
“The effect of all that is, that the total generic profit volume realised can increase, although industrial profit (newly created surplus value) stagnates or falls.”
If you restrict “Productive” Capital merely to “Industrial” Capital that might theoretically be true. But Marxist theory does NOT restrict “Productive” capital to only “Industrial” Capital. Capital employed in a Theatre, which consists of fixed Capital in the form of a building of circulating Capital in the form of costumes, and of variable Capital in the form of the Labour Power of the actors, stage hands etc., which produces a new commodity in the form of a play or other entertainment consumed by an audience is just as much productive capital as that employed on a production line. The surplus Value created by the Labour Power employed just as real as that produced by a car worker, and the resultant accummulation as new Capital just as valid. But, without, that production of new values, and surplus value the Money Capitalist who lends to the producer can be paid no interest on his loan. So, again as the current fianncial crisis has demonstrated, it is impossible for the “total generic profit” to increase without that increase in Surplus Value arising in production.
“So the famous Law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall may be quite correct, while at the same time the generic profit volume increases. This reality is missed by the Marxists.”
This confuses two things which neither I nor Marx, nor as far as I am aware other marxist economists confuse in the way Jurrian suggests. Of course it is possible – even likely – that the absolute volumne of profit rises whilst the rate of profit falls. The only requirement is, as Marx set out, that the volume of surplus value rises slower than the volume of Capital employed. No Marxist has missed that reality as far as I am aware.
“Many Marxists say, "ah profitability is increasing, so therefore the law must be false, or, there are countertendencies operating" but this mistakes the real situation, which they haven't researched. Their analysis is based on 19th century capitalism instead of 21st century capitalism, they just try to find superficial analogies with 19th century capitalism.”
But, the whole point of my argument in relation to the RISING Rate of profit is that it IS based on curent conditions now in the 21st century!
“Marx cited foreign trade as one countertendency to the TRPF. What is "globalisation" if not an enormous expansion of the international trade in money, commodities and capital? Essentially what sustains generic profitability these days is extensive, structural unequal exchange globally. The inevitable effect of that, is a gigantic increase in socio-economic inequality.”
REALLY? I thought that one of the clearest expressions of current relations was a massive shift of economic power towards the East manifested by stagnant and even falling real wage levels in the US and other developed Western Economies alongside rapidly rising real wage levels in China, India and other Asian economies. I thought, that what was clear was the extent to which even those living standrads particularly in the US were based on a money fiction arising from huge borrowing at a Public and Private level, a borrrowing financed only by those very same Chinese and other Asians. Isn’t that clear from the events of the last few months??? And simply quoting to us the data for the incomes of the top 1% of housheolds in the US simply will not do in that context.
The reply took the form of forwarding your message to the
ReplyDeleteOPE-L mailing list so that the members of the list could decide for themselves if they wished to accept your invitation to discuss your perspectives here. I again forwarded your 2nd message to the list for the same reason.
I will decline your ivitation to critique and debate, though. Your description of OPE-L posters - all but a couple of whom are Marxians -as "learned bourgeois academics" has poisoned the possibility for meaningful and honest discussion.
Jerry
What a cop out from Jerry Levy. Let's not have any robust debate here, sheesh, "poisoned the possibility for meaningful and honest discussion".
ReplyDeleteThere's an exercise in moral relativism. He called me the Iron Lady, off with his head.:)
It is not an exercise in moral relativism. Quite the contrary. It is an exercise in SOCIALIST ETHICS. There is no point in having a discussion with someone who has labeled you a "bourgeois" academic. What sort of a "discussion" what you have with someone who labelled you, let's say, a "capitalist pig"? THIS question - how socialists have come to relate to each other in a sectarian way and the dishonest ways in which they "debate" - is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than the theoretical questions which were raised in the Blog entry.
ReplyDeleteWayniac,
ReplyDeleteGood to hear from you. I think you would be much more at hme here than debating with the numbskull anarcho-capitalists at the DR Board.
However, at least the bouregois non-intellectuals there are not so prissy as to be deflected from defending their ideas because someone puts a label on them. Jerry, talks about the way "socialists" relate to each other. Well, what are we to make of "socialists" who take the ideas of a Marxist and pick over it amongst themselves, and with anti-Marxists such as Jurrian without inviting the auothor of those ideas to take part in that discussion???? What are we to make of the principles or the intellectual rigour of people who once their ideas are challenged run away from a debate on the pretext of being offended like some innocent schoolgirl?
Read some of the texts of some of those that went before of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and even of the non-Marxists and see how they characterised intellectuals who had that approach of sitting in their ivory towers commenting on the ideas of others, but afraid to engage in serious polemic. I think you will find that the description bourgeois is not at all an insult or epithet, but no more than a correct sociological description.
You have thoroughly confirmed my wisdom in deciding not to debate topics in political economy with you. From your defense of "putting a [false] label" on others, to what most feminists would consider to be sexist, to your appeal to authority ("read some of the texts ... Marx, Lenin, Trotsky ...."), to your thoroughly anti-working class perspective that if you are a wage-worker in a college (which many in OPE-L, including Jurriaan, are not, btw) then "bourgeois" is a "correct sociological description" - all of your response could not have been written by someone who is serious about engaging in debate.
ReplyDeleteAs for calling the attention of others to your blog entry, that's what YOU invited when you posted it in a blog which is available to the public and has no restrictions on citation. It was YOU who acted improperly when you identified the authors when you quoted posts - as anyone can see if they go to the OPE-L archives page: http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/
~cottrell/ope/archive. In so doing, you gave no consideration to either the participants in OPE-L or the readers of the archives since their continued readership is potentially imperilled by YOUR reckless action.
Over and out.
Jerry,
ReplyDeleteWhat unadulterated quackery. You accused me of "sectarianism" I will not be so insulted as to refuse to discuss with you for having slung out this "false label". Rather I will respond in the way that a proletarian and a Marxist does. By challenging your contention. A sectarian is soemone who refuses to work with or discuss with others simply on the basis of some political disagreement. I would say that if anything is clear here it is that the sectarianism is all yours.
Secondly, my definition of bourgeois and its use as a description was not at all determined by your Occupation or any of your colleagues. To be honest I have no idea who you are, or what you do. The definition was based on the ideas contained in your discussions, and the approach which that took. Your further behaviour here confirms that the definition of "bourgeois" is perfectly appropriate. If as you claim you are a "Marxian" then you will know that Marx's definition of class is not at all an economic determinist one resting solely upon what job you do.
Thirdly, as for my use of fairly well-known metaphores in relation to school-girls I am sure that some feminists with the same bourgeois sensibilities as yourself might take offence. Very few proletarians would be so prissy. But, again I susepect your objection is nothing more than a charade.
Nor could the reference to Marx and others be classed as an appeal to Authority in the way you try to portray. Nowhere was a I saying Marx said this so it must be correct.
Fourthly, I have no objection to people discussing my blog. I wasn't the one professing to be oh so concerned with "Socialist Ethics" and the way we relate to other socialists, if you remember that was you. For a Marxist I found your original comment that amounted to "here is an idea by a Marxist would anyone like to knock it down", rather odd. It did indeed smack of all those bourgeois Professors that have made a lifetime's work out of such endeavours. I was asked to leave the AWL site because I challenged ideas at their source. That to me is what a Marxist should do. To be prepared to challenge ideas where they disagree with them, not run away to some Coffee Morning Discussion Club and exchange gossip.
Fifthly, as for me behaving irresponsibly by citing the comments freely available to anyone visiting the same web page that I did, that can be found with a simple Google Search what bunkum. The authors of those comments are as plain to see there as in my blog, and nothing in that web page says anything about you being some secretive Leninist organisation whose membership has to be a closely guarded secret. If it was then why post your commenst on the Internet for all to see????
As I said the behaviour of a bourgeois or perhaps worse of a petit-bouregois, a bourgeois would not be so precious.
"Paul Cockshott writes, “He fails to consider what happens if say 50% of profit on capital is reinvested each year,
ReplyDeletecan the working population grow fast enough?”
Its difficult to respond to this point as no argument is given as to what Paul believes the consequences are. There are several answers to this point as far as it stands."
I dont have space to develop the full demographic argument here but follow this link http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/merged.html
Paul,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments. I have posted a reply to your article in a new separate blog here .
Regarding your metaphores in relation to school girls,
ReplyDeleteMany of the proletariat would not take offence if you used used racist language, it does not, however, make you bourgeois if you find such langauge repugnant.
You seem to think being a stupid, ingorant, flag waving moron is something to aspire to.
Surely one of the reasons Marx wanted to change society was the kind of people it produced.
No it does not make you bourgeois if you object to overtly racist or sexist comments. That misses the point. The point was that the metaphor used is one you can find used by Lenin and other writers. I find nothing in it that is overtly sexist. That was my point. It is a feature of the bouregois, and more particularly of the petit-bourgeois that they focus on such trivia as a means of avoiding dealing with the real issues of the class struggle. They can embroil themselves on such niceties in their after dinner discussions, precisely because they do not have to deal with the full harshness of life that the working class has to endure, and lead it to focus on what is really important.
ReplyDeleteIt is this kind of attitude that prevents workers from engaging with the Left for fear that they might put their foot in it, and by some comment unintentionally offend some petit-bourgeois sensibility. It is what then allows groups such as the SWP to brand others on the Left as racists if they so much as venture criticism of Islam or Islamism etc.
In short it is a means of limiting free discussion and avoiding dealing with the real political issues. That is what Jerry did here. I am glad that Paul Cockshott decided to engage with the actual issue udner discussion even if he has not been able to answer the refutation I have given to his argument.
Forgot to mention that I actually agreed with much of your article.
ReplyDeleteI just believe that sometimes Socialists can glorify the proletariat and their condition unthinkingly as a kind of solidarity but if the proletariat are so great, why change anything?
I also believe that soldiers are class traitors and excusing them is treating the proletariat as unthinking idiots.( I'am referring to another article here but I think it ties in with your Bourgoise assumptions about the Proletariat)
Marko,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you agreed with much of the substantive article. That after all is what was important. I agree about the glorification of the proletariat, or placing it on a pedestal. I have said so on many occasions here. It is usually done, by petit-bouregois revolutionaries who think that by putting the word "worker" in front of anything it acts like some kind of Philosopher's Stone, which purifies whatever comes after it.
I have particularly, referred to that in relation to the debate over the class nature of the USSR, in relation to those who say this could not have been a workers state, because look at how terrible some of the things it did were. It is a view of workers as some form of perfection that they could only become in some socialist future. As Lenin said, we have to work with the real workers we have. It is a reflection of the sectarian nature of the left, and the reason so many of them are disengaged with work amongst real workers who do not come up to that standard they require.
But more. Although we have to work with the real workers we have, I do not at all beleieve as the Leninists do that workers cannot change prior to that socialist future. Indeed, I beleive that unless they do change a real socialist revolution is impossible. That is why as a historical materialist I beleive that the necessary change inw orkers conscioussness can only come about through changes in their material conditions, in the economic and social relations of society. It is why I beleive as Marx did that those changes in material conditions have to be brought about within the womb of Capitalism by estabolishing Co-operatives, and other forms of workers ownership, control and democracy.
On soldiers I cannot agree, anymore than I can agree that workers are traitors to their class for working for Capitalists and producing profits for them.
ReplyDeleteAs Trotsky put it, we oppose bouregois wars, and militarism, but until we are strong enough to overthrow Capitalism we will have them, just as until we are strong enough to overthrow Capitalism workers will have to work for Capitalists and produce profits for them.
In working for Capitalists we produce the means, and learn the techniques necessary to own and control our own means of production. In fighting in the bosses armies we learn the military skills, and have the potential to acquire the weapons necessary to overthrow the bosses when they attempt to prevent us by violent means.
I regard soldiers as class traitors because of their strike breaking and their murder of other workers in foreigh lands, I would not join the army for this reason, why then do others?
ReplyDeleteI also think the role of armies in revolutions has been over exaggerated, they start off by shooting at the revolutionaries and like the italians in world war 2 suddenly see the error of their ways once the battle is lost.
Sometimes because of conscription, often because of economic conscription. Workers frequently do things which Marxists consider to be reactionary, and as I said all workers except those who work for themselves, or for a Co-operative work for Capitalists. Until we are strong enough to change that workers will be forced to do those things, will be infused with reactionary ideas.
ReplyDeleteThe job of a Marxist is to recognis ehte reasons why workers do those things, hold such ideas, and to find means of overcoming them, it is not to simply dismiss the workers who hold those ideas, or who are forced into such actions as reactionaries, simply because they are in fact the victims of the system. The working class is the revoluitonary agent of historical change udner Capitalism, but it is not automatically so, workers do not automatically become socialists. That you have done so is good, you are lucky, but our task is not to preach to the converted it is to win over the unconverted.
On soldiers in revolutions, you are right to say that they should not be relied upon. But I would suggest that the experience in most revoluitons is not that you describe. Certainly in the greatest revolution of the last century, in Russia, that is not the case. A few soldiers shot at workers, but it was the return of vast numbers of soldiers from the front that made the revolution in February possible. It was the soldiers and sailors of Kronstadt and elsewhere that made the October Revolution possible when it was far from clear the Bolsheviks would win, and who enabled the victory in the Civil War.
ReplyDeletePreaching to the unconverted would be preaching to almost all the working class.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I only have Britain in mind, but I really don't see Soldiers as being that important to socialism and I think like Policeman they are unreceptive to socialist ideas due to their unique place within society. Ordinary workers tend to constantly fight Capitalism, be it through strikes to just slacking at work, whereas Soldiers fight for the bosses.
Do you think Stock brokers could or should be persuaded to join the socialist cause?
I accept that history has provided examples of soldiers standing up to be counted but I'm struggling with the idea that soldiers are part of the proletariat.
Just to go completely off topic, I am not an economics expert so I need some advice, (my expertise is in computing) do you believe in a Planned economy with some regional democracy or do you believe in a system of unplanned workers co-operatives. ( I believe in the former). -couldnt quite tell from reading some of your articles.
Marko,
ReplyDelete"Preaching to the unconverted would be preaching to almost all the working class."
I agree, but that is precisely the task of Marxists. Socialism is impossible without winning the majority, as Marx called it "Winning the battle of demcoracy".
"Maybe I only have Britain in mind, but I really don't see Soldiers as being that important to socialism and I think like Policeman they are unreceptive to socialist ideas due to their unique place within society. Ordinary workers tend to constantly fight Capitalism, be it through strikes to just slacking at work, whereas Soldiers fight for the bosses."
I would agree that soldiers like the police because of their specific function are less susceptible to socialist ideas than other workers. But, it depends uponthe circumstances. In a War, the opposite can become true.
Its not true that all other workers continually fight Capitalism. In fact, few workers take industrial action outside big class struggles. And as lenin pointed out such actions as strikes do not create class conscioussness. A strike simply creates a sectional conscioussness that can lead to reactionary or reformist rather than progressive ideas. Its one reason I disagree with the semi syndicalist politics of much of the left, and why I beleive in the importance of Co-operatives as a means of changing workers material condiiotns, social relations, and creating the condition for building class conscioussness in a way that a strike never can.
I'm sure that the odd stockbroker might join the socialist cause. TRotsky argued that it would be necessary for Communists to learn how to use the Stock Market. But, I'm not that bothered if they do or don't. They are such a minority that they could have no influecne one way or another. There are many highly (relative term) paid workers, and what could be described as middle class people, however, who will have to be won to socialist ideas for it to be possible. In a couple of years time, there will be a third of the population in Britain with a Net Worth of over half a million pounds. When Co-operative industry proves its superiority, and when on the back of it socialist ideas, become more dominant, those sections of society can be won over.
"I accept that history has provided examples of soldiers standing up to be counted but I'm struggling with the idea that soldiers are part of the proletariat."
But in developed countries they are. In less developed countries they tend to be from the peasantry, with perhaps some of the more technical posts being held by workers.
I am a marxist so I beleive that the higher phase of Socialism, or Communism is only possible on the basis of a demcoratically planned economy. However, Marx said that he was not sure that such a society was even possible. Given some of the problems we now know in terms of limited natural resources etc. such a society as originally envisaged of effective plenty for all, seems even more problematic, though I would probably still be more optimistic than many.
But, either way there is a long road to travel between the repalcement of a capitalist Mode of production, and the establishment of a Socialist Mode of production. Engels recounts in one of his letters that both he and marx saw Co-operatives playing a central role in that phase of transition, as well as them seeing Co-operatives as a transiitonal phase within Capitalism itself.
My basic outline would be this. Large Capitalist enterprises already use planning as an integral aspect of the way they do business. They organise market research, demographic study and so on, and draw up multi-year business plans based on the findings. The Capitalist State, which today accounts for more than 50% of all economic activity also employs planning to a considerable degree alongside intervention into the economy. None of this is "socialist" because it is geared not to meeting the needs of workers, but to maximising profits.
In creating Co-operatives, workers will begin with operating inside the Capitralist system using the same techniques of planning, and meeting the needs of the market. But these Co-operatives, if a Workers party exists to eductae and organise the workers will increasingly integrate their activities and plans, in just the same way that a Co-operative would do internally, and indeed the way large Capitalist eneterprises co-ordinate the activities of their various Departments.
Increasingly, this personal contact with workers in other Co-operatives, the fusing together of plans, the sharing of ideas and best practices, and the joint struggle against the bouregoisie - both by supporting other workers in struggle, and by resisting the inevitable attempts of the bouregoisie to frustrate the spread of Co-operative industry - will lead to more and more production being not for the market, but for other Co-operatives, and for workers. It will increasingly be production of use values based on planned and foreseen need.
Within each Co-operative workers will not only have to participate on a daily basis in decision making, but they will be incentivised to participate in decision making on a wider scale, because upon it will depend the success of the Co-operative which will in a real sense be their property. On this basis their whole culture and ideas change, a new form of workers democracy is implanted in a way which cannot arise via a political revolution from above.
Similarly, other co-operative forms will devlop within neighbourhoods, linked to the enterprises in their area, as we have witness in South America in recent years. The workers demcoracy built within the Co-operatives will be mirrored within the Community. It will provide the basis for the establishment on a regional, then national then Coninental basis of a hierarchy of Workers Councils.
In this way the integration and planning of all economic activity proceeds organically from the ground up on a democratic basis, the market being repalced as and when the technical ability arises to do so - though its likely that some use of a price mechanism to ration shortages might still be necessary.
Surley the point about Capitalist planning is that it is not co-orinated and therefore it's not really planning in the sense we would use the word. I think you give too much credit to Capitalism for allocating so called scarce resources, look at all the useless products created as a result of Capitalist competition. An example would be the de-tox products that doctors have shown to be of no use value. Imagine the scarce resources used to produce them.
ReplyDeleteMarx said that Socialism would control the productive forces created by Capitalism better and I think he was right.
Having a disparate collection of worker co-operatives will not solve this problem and would be prone to crises which could threaten its survival, though I accept that the transition period is a problem.
I have to disagree that the technology does not exist to run a planned economy, innovations in databases and computer technology in general are making it entirley feasible.
Capitalism is a fettered economic system clinging on by the power of ideology.
Please feel free to tear me to shreds as I'am looking to expand my knowledge.
Marko,
ReplyDeleteI don't want to tear anyone to shreds as part of a comradely discussion.
I don't disagree with most of what you say. I wasn't saying that Capitalism is socialism or that its planning was socialist or anything like that. I was merely pointing out that Capitalism itself has been forced to adopt planning techniques for its own ends rather than the market. What I was saying was that those quite well developed planning techniques such as market research, demographics etc. are a powerful tool here and now by which Co-operatives can begin to plan their individual production rather than reliance on market prices for signals etc.
I thought, however, that I had made clear that although as Marx says such Co-operatives will operate within a Capitalist environment, and so are susceptible to all of he vicissitudes of Capitalism, the whole point is that they SHOUL NOT remain as islands of socialism, but that it is vital that they link up, and increasingly integrate their activities, their individual production plans etc., and in so doing an increasing amount of prodution is taken out of the sphere of commodity production i.e. production of commodities for the market, and becomes a production of use values as part of a plan. End consumer products would necessarily continue to be sold on the market, but all of the inputs from Co-operatives, producing materials and means of production, together with Co-operatives in distribution and transport would be producing in accordance with known requirements dictated to them not by the market, but by a plan drawn up within the Co-operative sector.
The point is that what currently exists as unco-ordinated capitalist planning is transformed by the very fact of Co-operation into co-ordinated planning.
I agree about the waste of Capitalist production. I don't think I was saying any different. Co-operative production in so far as it was both horizontally and vertically integrated would be able to make a lot of savings. As long as Capitalism exists and there is demand for some products that we might think useless, it would be a matter for workers to determine within the Co-operatives whether they shouyld meet that demand - remember any demand not met by the Co-operative sector the Capitalist sector would be happy to profit from. Some things would need to be left to after the abolition of Capitalism, and a time when workers as consumers could be educated about how Capitalist amrketing dupes them.
You cannot go straight to socialism and the planning of all production. Its not a problem of technology. Its a problem of technique, and a problem of democracy and alienation.
Planning in the USSR led to farcical results. Some of that was due to the centralised and bureaucratic nature of planning, but by no means all.
The Question of democracy.
The vast majority of workers do not take part in their union etc. Even after the Russian revolution the vast majority of workers did not take part in running their enterprises. This is why a bureaucracy could arise within the factory and state that ultimately usurped political power.
You can't change the culture of workers overnight, and make them feel they have to engage in such activity. If the factory belongs to the State and not to them, why should an ordinary worker feel they have to put themselves out to attend meetings etc. They don't now, they won't then. Only by workers going through a process of actually owning the property and seeing the need to participate will such a culture and set of ideas become embedded.
Without that decision making at all levels becomes bureaucratised. Moreoever, the problem identified by Marx of alienation is not dealt with. The worker in the tractor factory is likely to have little different attitude than a worker now. There might be some form of democracy by which workers express their preferences of what they want to see produced, but it could only be superficial. Every worker cannot vote on how many Mars Bars to produce compared to how many tractors. So decisions will be taken by planners centrally based on some kind of democratic consultation. But then those decisions are distributed down after what is usually described as an iterative planning process, whereby you go round and round solving sets of equations of what can be produced given the resources. As a computer specialist you will be aware of iteration.
But, when those decision come down to the individual worker in the individual factory those decisions and instructions are so removed from his original intervention as to be meaningless. It will not matter to him how that decision has been a rrived at. It is an instruction from on high. He can have no more connection to it than now producing for the market, the recipient of his product is as remote from him as now. So the worker will as now try to do as little work for as much money as possible. And the individual worker, and groups of workers idea of how much they should be paid for their labour may well differ from the idea contained in the plan of what they should be paid. So even such planning will be bound to reproduce similar frictions as those which exist under Capitalism.
There must arise udner such circumstances some mechanism for resolving such conflicts, and it is likely that soemthing similar to the targets established in the USSR, or now in the NHS and Government will be introduced. But such targets are precisely what lead to the lunacies as people produce in such a way as to maximise their benefit within the context of the targets not to maximise the use value and well-being of society.
The only way to overcome these problems is by a long process by which workers are conditioned by soemthing like market relations to participate in decision making, to produce efficiently and of good quality - because initially their livelihhod will depend upon it - and then as Co-operatives integrate their activity one with another, as workers in their Co-operative community organisations link in to these enterprises telling them what they want etc. it will no longer be a matter of producing goods and services for some alien consumer, but for people who are thought of as real living human beings, freinds, family neighbours etc., and so the conditioning of producing good quality products, efficiently will change from one based on market discipline to one based on mutual interest. Essentially in the same way that members of a family work for each other.
It is impossible even given the best computer technology in the world to know how many Mars Bars should be produced in a year in a planned economy, compared to other products. Resources short of communism are scarce, labour is scarce. Choices have to be made about how to allocate. Planning can proceed soemthing like this.
a) You democratically decide some overall strategic requirements for the economy - you want to build so many hospitals, so many new rail tracks and so on. You calculate the resources required and allocate the necessary resources accordingly. That can be done by either direct allocation by the State, or else the State can raise taxes or other forms of finance to buy these resources.
b) The resources left over can then be used for all otehr production. Co-operatives producing consumer goods draw up plans of consumer requirements for a five year period, much as they do now. They plan for the inputs required, and pass these on to the Co-operatives that produce these inputs, who can then also in outline draw up their own production plans. Similarly for distribuiton and transport of consumer and producer goods providers.
This provides a level of co-ordination and stability that the unco-ordinated activity of competing Capitalist eneterprises canot provide. It means that an environment is created in which the decisions of consumers and producers are more stable, giving greater predictability. But, resources will be scarce so competition for these resources will take the form of market prices.
c) Within this process long term shifts in conumer preferences will be identified so that although prices ration demand in the short term, a planned investment in those areas under supplied can be introduced.
d) Some strategic investments i.e. those which are fundamental to the fucntioning of the economy - the production of sufficient power, of steel and other raw materials will also begin to become predictable over a longer term, and so at the level of a State Plan decisions can be made on what resources will be required in these industries to ensure that the economy can function smoothly into the longer term.
d) The increasing ability to predict these areas of planned production, and to allocate resources to them together with the increased ability of society to produce brought about by the efficiency of socialist production will facilitate a growing planned sector of the economy, alongside a semiplanned consumer goods sector, where prices will continue to ration goods where the plan has not adequately allocated resources to meet changes in consumer requirements. As time goes on, and productive capacity increases so that surpluses exist to allow greater and greater flexibility within the planning model, prices will perform less and less even of a rationing function.
e) The extension of socialist production on an international then global scale will not only make available even greater producive capacity, but immediate shortages in one area will be able to be met by simply importing those needs from elsewhere.
Feel free to come back.
Thanks for this, I need some time to digest it but will come back with my observations.
ReplyDeleteI can’t believe you have such a clear vision of the future, though I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.
Just some initial reactive points to your article to help me more clearly understand your position:
Do you believe in workers taking over state apparatus or Capitalist enterprises, such as nationalisation? What’s your view on political parties, the dictatorship of the proletariat?
What’s your view of Mondragon and what that tells us about your theory?
Marko,
ReplyDeleteWorkers cannot take over the Capitalist State for a number of reasons. Firstly, what does it mean to take over the Capitalist State. The normal udnerstanding of this is that workers win an election, and a Workers Government then has "control" of the State apparatus. We have plenty of experience to show why this is a mirage. Labour and Social Democratic Governments have won elections, but have not "controlled" the State. I was for 8 years a County Councillor. I can tell you that Councillors certainly do not control the local state. And as someone who also worked for a local Council I know even more definitely that control lies with the full-time state burueacracy. That is even more true of a huge central state bureaucracy of millions over which a few hundred politicians could never exert control.
Where they have attempted even moderately Left-wing programs they have been frsutrated by that State bureaucracy. The ruling class even considered a coup against Harold Wilson. In Chile the Chilean ruling class DID organise a coup against Allende.
To control the State, the people who make up that State apparatus MUST be imbued with the ideas of the ruling class. Only if the working class is the ruling class would that apply. But, although ideas are a function of material conditions they are not mechanically so. It takes time for that material reality to be reflected in the dominant ideas. To become the ruling class the working class would itself have to have control of th means of production, its wealth and power would have to reign supreme throughout society. That is the very nature of a social revolution.
But, if the working class becomes the ruling class in society, if it owns the means of production and so on, the very nature of that ownership, of co-operative production, means that the way these means of production are managed, the way workers manage their own co-p[erative communities would necessarily be differnt from the way democracy and political institutions work udner Capitalism. Co-operatives could only fucntion on the basis of active particpation in their control by all the workers in the factory. Co-operative communities likewise. In short, direct, participative demcoracy, which coudl only function on the bais of a series of different workers Councils meeting regularly on a thoroughgoing democratic basis. But this form of democracy where decisions are taken, and then acted upon is itself a nascent state apparatus that develops embryonically within and against the existing state apparatus. It develops its own forms, and its on personnel immediately commited to the ideas of the working class. It creates precisely that basis of a Worekrs State whose personnel are commited to the ideas of the working class as ruling class, and immediately accountable to it. It will repeatedly find itself in conflict with the existing state and its organisational forms, which is why workers will also have to continue to relate to, and send representatives into the Council Chambers and into Parliament until such time as the Workers State usurps the power of the bourgeois state.
That should explain in part my ideas on Workers Parties and the Dictatorship of the proletariat. Just as bouregois parties emerged within bouregois democratic institutions to reflect the different interests of different sections of the Capitalist and landlord Classes, so within the organs of workers control workers parties will emerge represwsneting different streams of thought within the workers movement. But, just as the bouregois parties unite to oppose the interests of workers the workers parties will through the functioning of the organs of the nascent workers state forge a common front to represent the interests of workers as against the bosses and their parties, will stand common slates in bourgeois elections etc.
The Dictatorship of the proletariat is merely that phase when this workers state becomes he dominant political force within society superceding the bouregois state, and which uses its power to prevent any attempt by the bouregoise to overthorw the workers power by force. The more the workers power is estaboliished the more that coercive fucntion of this state will decline, and the more it will become simply an administrative body by which the decisions of society are taken and executed.
I have given my attitude to Nationalisation and State Capitalism here and in the linked posts. In short Marxists do not demand nationalisation by the bouregois state or raise any other demands which call on that State to act in locus of the working class. The marxist programme is a program for the workers themselves to act or it is nothing.
I think the repeated attempts over the last century and a half of workers - and sometimes peasants - to establish Co-operative industries and forms, shows that Marx was right to identify them as the transitional form to socialism, as the means by which workers begin to become the owners of the means of productoin, necessary for the transformation of society. Of course, many of these ventures have failed. They have failed for a variety of reasons not least the attitude often of "Marxists" towards them. But, there are otther material reasons such as udner-capitalisation, a failure to link co-operatives together, attempts to run Co-operatives as "socialist" enterprises, and therefore to place impossible burens on them within an existing Capitalist enviornment. Even so many have succeeed, or at least survived. I read the other day a surprsing fact that in the US 1 person in 4 is a member of a Co-operative of some sort.
In Britain the Co-op established over 150 years ago survives, despite a bureaucratic management. It is the country's biggest farmer. Tower Colliery in South Wales operated at a profit under workers ownership until its coal was exhausted, despite the fact that private Capital had been unable to turn a profit, and so on.
If workers were to mobilise the funds available in their Pension funds, as I have suggested, to Capitalise potentially profitable Co-operatives in new dynamic areas of the economy, if they were to buy up majority shares in large profitable strategic companies, and turn them into Co-operatives, if they were to link these together, particularly on a COntinentla or global scale, not only would it be demonstrated that an alternative to private or state capitalist ownership is possible, but the success of such ventures would prove that it is more than possible - it is desirable.
Sorry for the delay, Man Flu!
ReplyDeleteFirst thing to say , the future socialist planned economy will not be perfect, not by any stretch but it will be far less imperfect than capitalism. By criticizing socialism for not being perfect we are in danger of inadvertently saying that capitalism is effective.
I think too many people on the left give credit to capitalism for its efficiency and allocation of resources. Some socialists are even market enthusiasts, I regard these areas as some of capitalism’s weakest areas and let’s face it; capitalism swims in an ocean of weaknesses. I think that while the errors of the USSR must be learned we must recognise that we are far more advanced and the technology we have gives us a much better base from which to start. Maybe I am overly optimistic but I believe a planned economy will be far more efficient, productive and effective than the out-moded system we have now, which is efficient only in turning workers into robots.
Capitalist production is anarchy; this anarchy creates reckless waste and criminal misuse of resources.
Now let’s go onto the path to the Promised Land and the ideas to get us there.
We arrive at a moment in history when society is beginning to question some fundamental gospels of capitalist propaganda. The financial breakdown has accelerated this movement and fuelled intense debate. It is no great leap forward to imagine a situation where the banks are at least partially publicly owned and the idea of public ownership is no longer seen as some backward step to the dark ages. (RBS is now 70% state owned). Now under the current political establishment this means nothing for the advancement of socialism but under a future socialist controlled state these publicly owned banks could be used to capitalise workers co-operatives and generally be directed towards socialist goals. These would not be state owned co-operatives but of the character you have described. The vanguard in this situation would not lead the people but facilitate the people leading themselves. (Hope this doesn’t sound too Orwellian).
Now before I go on with the rest of my ideas I would like to briefly comment on yours. Your idea for a “bottom up” approach of workers spontaneously setting up their own co-ops to compete in the market place would I believe have serious problems with capitalisation, never mind the idea of workers acting spontaneously in the way you described. Your impressively conceived vision would require some sort of Cultural Revolution, from an atomised, defeatist proletariat to a combative, communal one. How do you conceive of this happening?
These co-ops would have to be small time enterprises and would be vulnerable to the vagaries of the “free” market and would be in many cases likely to fail. This could lead to antagonism between workers, especially those that have lost their pension funds and probably their life savings, tarnishing the co-operative movement in its embryonic stage. The choices that some of these enterprises would have to make may not be in the interests of the members of the co-op. I’m not entirely convinced you have answered some of the criticisms of Rosa Luxembourg, what would be your argument to counter this.
However, I’m willing to indulge in my hybrid solution for the purposes of this debate.
Basically without the visible hand of a socialist government I cannot see your idea working in the world of the invisible hand.
I will again continue with my ideas,
I guess the debate I would have with you is that a socialist party needs to take power first to help facilitate the process and this brings us to an important issue. Do we try to “take back” the labour party with its extensive networks, union links, election successes and contacts etc etc and move it towards socialism or do we set up a new party which is not tainted with the stench of past failures. I would argue that the new party idea has been tried and failed and that we have to use the Labour party to achieve our goals, whether we like it or not.
Now to what this socialist party can do once in power.
An elected socialist party, which would be a great milestone in the real movement, would have command of the tax revenues and could use some of this to direct the future you described. Capitalism would not be abolished overnight, on the contrary, the more profit they make the more money for the party to direct towards the socialist future.
I would create a fund to build computer models/applications to assist in the planning process. Socialist planning needs to be turned into a science. The school curriculum needs to be tailored to socialist priorities and the banks and tax system must be used to provide incentives to the co-ops that would be encouraged to start up. This kind of social re engineering is not uncommon among previous governments and has almost reached a zenith under new labour.
The government could promote internationalism by holding conferences and setting up international networks and help fund socialist organisations in other countries.
I agree about the importance of democracy at every level but I would argue that some use of expertise would be needed.
Now let’s venture out farther into the future and the realm of science fiction,
Being a programmer I am more than aware of iteration but this would not be the problem, building the models and co-ordinating the various systems would be the biggest technical challenges and who knows what technologies are around the corner. Whatever those technologies are it makes logical sense that they will aid socialism and fetter capitalism.
To quote Marx, “The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill society with the industrial capitalist” and can I be so bold as to add “The advanced computer gives you a socialist society”.
During the transition, which would essentially be state capitalist, you would have a base for what capitalism produces and for whom, this base would be a starting point for Socialist production, if the capitalist economy produced 1 million mars bars per year this would be the base socialism would have to start from. A socialist led government can compile the relevant statistical data even if it doesn’t already exist.
Gradually decisions based more on need and not on competition would replace many of the useless products of competition. I don’t see this leading to a future without entertainment or consumer goods but a more rational approach and improved social goods would be inevitable. The reality will be that the vast majority of people will be better off under these circumstances and therefore a counter-revolution will fail.
This will all free up resources so humans can live a more fulfilled life, not being chained to one job, having the freedom to be creative etc etc.
Many of the bureaucratic jobs under capitalism will also gradually disappear and free up more resources still, technology now directed to human need will create the conditions for the alienation you speak of to wither away.
The much bigger social challenges will dictate the pace of the transition I suspect but I don’t have your imagination to speculate on those. Socialist planning would, like capitalist planning, utilise all available technology to aid it, I would imagine the basic needs of society would have to be provided for first and foremost and certain surpluses would also be created in these areas. I would also point out the need for trial and error in the process, a cornerstone of any scientific endeavour but not readily admitted for reasons of ego I suspect. Certainly as a computer programmer, pre planning is all important but there is a certain amount of making it up as you go along, always with the end goal in mind of course!
However, only the science of socialist planning could paint a fuller picture.
Now in the short term we cannot lecture people about what is needed and what is not but over time I would imagine a gradual re evaluating of these needs. I would certainly think if this process did not take place then what would be the point of socialism?
Now the road to socialism will be filled with potholes, car crashes, road blocks and any number of obstacles you care to name for as Marx says, “The past lies like a nightmare upon the present”.
The only conceivable route to socialism I can see is a victorious party first and a nurtured co-op society to follow and from there society can finally ascribe to its banners “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.
I invite you to come back for further discussion on our meta-theories.
Marko,
ReplyDeleteHope you are feeling better. This reply will have to be brief, because I am trying to finish a multi-part article on Co-operatives, which will I hope, answer in more detail some of the questions you raise here.
“First thing to say , the future socialist planned economy will not be perfect, not by any stretch but it will be far less imperfect than capitalism. By criticizing socialism for not being perfect we are in danger of inadvertently saying that capitalism is effective.”
Depends what you mean by socialism. I certainly don’t regard what existed in the USSR etc. as socialism, and the association of those societies with socialism does us great harm. It is part of my task not only to demonstrate why they were not, but also to demonstrate why they went wrong, and thereby what mistakes we should avoid. In general I tend to agree, but our first task as Trotsky said, is to tell the truth. There has been a long tradition going back to Lassalle of painting up Capitalism in the worst colours e.g. his Iron Law of Wages, which was heavily criticised by Marx. It was after all Marx who lauded the accomplishments of Capitalism, and who spoke of its “Civilising Mission” in raising workers living standards and level of education and culture, without which he said socialism would be impossible. The Stalinists as Ernest Mandel relates in his book “Marxist Economic Theory” went into all kinds of contortions trying to show that workers wages were falling in developed Capitalist countries, not just relatively, but absolutely. That kind of nonsense does us no credit, because workers can see for themselves its not true, and if they can’t believ you on that why should they believe you on anything else. Yet, today I see Trotskyist groups proclaiming this nonsense in their “What We Stand For” columns with statements such as “Capitalism Causes Poverty”, which whilst true in a restricted sense is far from true in the sense that most workers understand. It stems from a catastrophist view. Bereft of any real ideas about how to take the workers movement forward – especially that would involve less romantic activity than most revolutionaries ideas of what the Revolution consists of – they create for themselves a fantasy world in which some growing crisis will suddenly lift the veil from workers eyes, and they will flock to their banner. Far more likely, of course that if such a crisis does erupt that under current conditions they will flock to the banner of the BNP, and other such groups.
”I think too many people on the left give credit to capitalism for its efficiency and allocation of resources. Some socialists are even market enthusiasts, I regard these areas as some of capitalism’s weakest areas and let’s face it; capitalism swims in an ocean of weaknesses.”
I think that what I would regard as the Left has the opposite failing as stated above. There are reformists of course who hold the views you set out, but I would not count them as Left. Yes, we should point out what you say. I have always countered the arguments of the free marketers and Miseans who attack the concept of planning with precisely the point that they argue as though the things they point out, shortages and gluts, are not at all a feature also of the free market!
“I think that while the errors of the USSR must be learned we must recognise that we are far more advanced and the technology we have gives us a much better base from which to start.”
But as I’ve said before the problem is not specifically that of technology, or even mathematical technique. In the 1920’s and 30’s some economists, including non-Marxist economists, Paretian economists such as Oskar Lange, demonstrated that it was perfectly possible to plan an economy without the need for a price mechanism. It really comes down the solving of a number of simultaneous equations. Th technical knowledge to do that has existed for a long time. That is not the problem, the problem is how you arrive at the literally billions of decisions of WHAT the society to produce, and in what quantities. A COMMAND economy such as that of the USSR resolves that problem easily, the upmost hierarchy decides that on behalf of society. But, necessarily those decisions are not the decisions that society itself would arrive at. A conflict of interest arises, and from that a whole series of contradictions within such a society arise that lead to the kind of lunacies that were seen in the planning system of the Stalinist states.
But, the traditional Trotskyist solution to that simply will not do either. Simply saying we will replace bureaucratic planning with democratic planning with democratic planning does not solve the problem. For one thing, the Vizhkel that was under the control of Trotsky and his supporters was just as bureaucratic as any of the ministries and enterprises under the control of the Stalinists. The Left Opposition’s answer to the scissors crisis was just as much a top down, rather than a bottom up, democratic solution, as was the Stalinist and Bukharinist solution. More importantly, they do not explain how this democratic planning would possibly be able to make the billions of decisions about WHAT to produce, what the wages of different workers in this process would be and so on. Indeed, it seems bound to me to be prone were it to be attempted, to lead to what political theorists call the “tyranny of democracy”, whereby a minority would end up getting screwed by the majority, or else it would lead to that other flaw of democracy, a complete inability to arrive at a decision due to the multiplicity of conflicting interests.
The fact is if you look back to the ideas of Marx and Engels, and indeed to Lenin and Trotsky, there is a recognition of these problems, and that is why they all recognised that for some time such decisions would have to continue to be taken by the market, but this is a market under completely different conditions than exists under Capitalism. For one thing, it is a market operating under conditions where the means of production are no longer in the hands of a tiny minority, but are in the hands of the vast majority, and where all of the implications in respect of Distribution are thereby fundamentally changed. No longer is the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the Capitalists decisive in determining what shall be produced. That power has passed to the working class. Moreover, it is a market operating under the rules now of a Workers State, a State that is consciously directing some resources to meet the most pressing needs of society, because it is quite possible to arrive at those limited decisions on a democratic basis e.g. to spend X amount on building hospitals over the next 5 years, and so on, whereas it is not possible to democratically decide to produce X million Mars Bars as opposed to Y million Aeros.
But, we do have techniques for making these latter decisions. They are used by the existing Capitalist monopolies via Market Research and so on. But having done so they then compete for resources, and in doing so those planned decisions are refracted through that competition in demand and supply for inputs, which have a myriad consequences for all other consumers of those inputs, and for the producers of the inputs of those inputs. It is my belief that Co-operatives taking over those Monopolies and establishing others would have to initially use those same techniques of planning, and continue to operate through a market, gradually integrating and co-ordinating activity with others.
A large company that absorbs another does not immediately integrate its activities. Where vertical integration occurs that is a firm is taken over that is a provider of inputs or a recipient of outputs, it takes time before that other firm becomes merely another department within the overall enterprise, where the former market relations between the two, are replaced with planned relations.
“Maybe I am overly optimistic but I believe a planned economy will be far more efficient, productive and effective than the out-moded system we have now, which is efficient only in turning workers into robots.
Capitalist production is anarchy; this anarchy creates reckless waste and criminal misuse of resources.”
I agree. The rapid advance of the USSR shows the advantages of planning versus the market even in a bureaucratic form. But, even in its most dynamic period in the 1930’s and 1940’s, that planning produced more, and worse waste than does modern Capitalism, and the limits of that bureaucratic planning was demonstrated when the USSR had to go from simply extensive development, to intensive development. A command economy can be very good at making decision such as dig more coal, produce more steel and so on. But, it proved very bad at raising the quality of what was produced, especially where it was the production of consumer goods. Only in those areas of specific interest to the bureaucracy such as military production and associated fields such as space production and scientific developments was it possible to divert the necessary resources, and exert the necessary supervision to achieve that kind of improvement.
I we simply assume planning is good the market is bad, we stand the chance of messing it up again, and that might be our last chance.
”We arrive at a moment in history when society is beginning to question some fundamental gospels of capitalist propaganda. The financial breakdown has accelerated this movement and fuelled intense debate. It is no great leap forward to imagine a situation where the banks are at least partially publicly owned and the idea of public ownership is no longer seen as some backward step to the dark ages. (RBS is now 70% state owned). Now under the current political establishment this means nothing for the advancement of socialism but under a future socialist controlled state”
Let’s stop there. You make a big leap having said that this nationalisation has nothing to do with socialism to a situation where that socialism has arrived. I think that the nationalisation of these banks is a retrograde step in that movement towards socialism. Many of the workers I speak to see this nationalisation as just bailing out the bankers – which it is – see the demonstrations in France today for instance on that, and many in Britain DO remember the inefficiency and bureaucratism of the nationalised industries. These current nationalisations will again remind workers of that, and turn them away from the idea of collective ownership, at least by the state.
“these publicly owned banks could be used to capitalise workers co-operatives and generally be directed towards socialist goals. These would not be state owned co-operatives but of the character you have described. The vanguard in this situation would not lead the people but facilitate the people leading themselves. (Hope this doesn’t sound too Orwellian).”
I agree, but this begs the question of how we arrive at this socialist society. Moreoever, I have to ask why do we have to wait until then, when we have the facility within our own hands to achieve this now? Not only, that but in doing so goes a long way to the above question, how do we arrive at this socialist society. We have a Co-op Bank, we have Unity Trust, we have a multiplicity of Mutually Owned Building Societies, we have hundreds of billions of pounds in workers pension funds. Why not workers take over these banks now, why not establish them as Co-operatives run by Joint Boards of their workers, and workers organisations that fund them? Why not then use that control of these banks to do precisely what you say, help fund the establishment of other Co-operatives, help fund workers when they are on strike etc.
”Your idea for a “bottom up” approach of workers spontaneously setting up their own co-ops to compete in the market place would I believe have serious problems with capitalisation, never mind the idea of workers acting spontaneously in the way you described.”
It’s the other way around. I am not at all suggesting that workers “spontaneously” establish Co-operatives. The reason more Co-operatives have not been formed is because Marxists have not popularised and argued for them within the Labour Movement, because it conflicts with the dominant statist, Leninist ideology within the movement. It contrasts sharply with the ideas of Marx and his followers in the 19th century as my upcoming article will demonstrate. Workers have spontaneously created Co-operatives, but they have usually been in response to the closure of their factory. That is, of course, the worst conditions under which they can be established. Even so, the experience of the Lancashire Textile Co-operatives admired by Marx, or more recently of Tower Colliery shows that even in these adverse conditions the advantages of Co-operative industry can sometimes overcome these difficulties. It is not me that relies on spontaneity, but the Leninists and Luxemburgists, who look to some spontaneous revelation of the working class that leads them out on to the streets, ready to seize power. As for capitalisation, Marx showed how that could be overcome by the use of Credit. More importantly, as I have demonstrated if workers utilised the Capital in their Pension Funds there would, in fact, be no such problem in buying up a whole series of strategic enterprises.
The argument about Capitalisation is often raised, but I think it’s a red herring. The Co-op itself was able to develop within a sea of Capitalist competition. It has survived and grown over the last 150 years. The Co-op is the biggest farmer in Britain. Moreoever, as I have argued elsewhere, the new types of production, the high value intellectual production that increasingly dominates Capitalist economy is NOT Capital intensive, it is marked by a reliance on highly skilled intellectual labour. Your own industry is a good example. Look at the development of Linux on the basis of Open Source, Co-operative Labour. And as I have said elsewhere, Thinking Outside the Box , and Porn Free the media industry is a perfect example, of where we are seeing a multiplicity of providers.
Indeed, I think that given the many, many prominent socialist writers, film directors, actors and so on, they could do the socialist cause a great service by putting their money where there mouth is, and establishing such a large media Co-operative that could challenge the monopoly of the bourgeois media. But, I guess that too many of them form the most aristocratic of aristocracies of labour, in the huge payments they receive from that bourgeois media to engage in such a project.
“Your impressively conceived vision would require some sort of Cultural Revolution, from an atomised, defeatist proletariat to a combative, communal one. How do you conceive of this happening?”
No not at all. Workers have shown that they naturally look to such a solution in the number of Co-operatives that have been established. I do not suggest that these Co-operatives would be established all at once. As Marx said, the bourgeois mode of production evolved slowly, and its replacement would do likewise. But, as a preview of my upcoming article let me refer you to this piece by one of Marx and Engels associates in the First International, and a leading Chartist, Ernest Jones, in a letter sent to the Co-operative Movement, in which I think he expresses clearly the views of Marx.
Ernest Jones A Letter to the Advocates of the Co-operative Principle, AND TO THE MEMBERS OF CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES
“These co-ops would have to be small time enterprises and would be vulnerable to the vagaries of the “free” market and would be in many cases likely to fail.”
Why? The Co-op is not small, it’s the largest farmer in Britain. Tower Colliery succeeded where private ownership failed, and they even increased the employment at the colliery. The huge amount of Capital workers have at their disposal means that even large firms could be taken over, or established. And as stated above why does small have to mean doomed to failure. Microsoft began in Bill Gates’ parents shed. Google and most of the others the same. Indeed, most enterprises in new dynamic industries begin in this way. Its only when an area of production/commodity becomes established that large scale production, and a high organic composition of Capital becomes decisive.
“This could lead to antagonism between workers, especially those that have lost their pension funds and probably their life savings, tarnishing the co-operative movement in its embryonic stage.”
At least it would have been on the basis of a democratic decision of those workers to so invest their money, and a lesson to be more careful how they invest in future. At the moment they have no say, in the billions of pounds they have lost by Capitalist managers of those funds investing in Banks and finance houses, in CDO’s and other financial derivatives.
“The choices that some of these enterprises would have to make may not be in the interests of the members of the co-op. I’m not entirely convinced you have answered some of the criticisms of Rosa Luxembourg, what would be your argument to counter this.”
The decisions that workers will have to make in a socialist society will not be in the interests of some workers either. Better to get used to that fact now, and find ways of dealing with it than lead workers into the belief that socialism will solve everything.
”I guess the debate I would have with you is that a socialist party needs to take power first to help facilitate the process and this brings us to an important issue.”
Ah, but now it is you that requires the working class to undergo a “Cultural Revolution” to spontaneously arrive at a socialist consciousness, for how else is this socialist government to come to power either by Parliamentary or revolutionary means? My strategy requires only that groups of workers arrive at this consciousness at any one time, sufficient to establish individual Co-operatives, and that these link up with the other workers who have already passed through this process. Yours requires that all, or the vast majority arrive at this consciousness at the same time, and spontaneously. To arrive at a consciousness of hatred of Capitalism might be conceivable, though there is outside the exceptional conditions of the USSR and a few countries in a similarly dire condition, little evidence of it, but such a consciousness is not at all the same thing as them having a socialist consciousness as the failure of workers in those countries in their vast majority, to show any interest in taking over the running of society, rather than leaving it to someone else, demonstrates.
“Do we try to “take back” the labour party with its extensive networks, union links, election successes and contacts etc etc and move it towards socialism or do we set up a new party which is not tainted with the stench of past failures. I would argue that the new party idea has been tried and failed and that we have to use the Labour party to achieve our goals, whether we like it or not.”
I agree, but a look through my various blogs will show that my conception of this is not at all to do with “winning the party” on the basis purely of electoral, organisational, and resolution mongering methods. It is by using the members at a Branch level to encourage and develop self-organisation of the class within the communities and the workplaces.
”An elected socialist party, which would be a great milestone in the real movement, would have command of the tax revenues and could use some of this to direct the future you described. Capitalism would not be abolished overnight, on the contrary, the more profit they make the more money for the party to direct towards the socialist future.
I would create a fund to build computer models/applications to assist in the planning process. Socialist planning needs to be turned into a science. The school curriculum needs to be tailored to socialist priorities and the banks and tax system must be used to provide incentives to the co-ops that would be encouraged to start up. This kind of social re engineering is not uncommon among previous governments and has almost reached a zenith under new labour.
The government could promote internationalism by holding conferences and setting up international networks and help fund socialist organisations in other countries.
I agree about the importance of democracy at every level but I would argue that some use of expertise would be needed.”
I’ve covered above why this requires workers to “spontaneously” arrive at a socialist consciousness for the election of this Government. More importantly, I would point out what every Marxist has previously pointed out, that the bourgeoisie would not simply sit back and allow this to happen. They were plotting a coup against Wilson, they overthrew Allende, and so on.
”Being a programmer I am more than aware of iteration but this would not be the problem, building the models and co-ordinating the various systems would be the biggest technical challenges and who knows what technologies are around the corner. Whatever those technologies are it makes logical sense that they will aid socialism and fetter capitalism.
To quote Marx, “The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill society with the industrial capitalist” and can I be so bold as to add “The advanced computer gives you a socialist society”.”
Actually, I am not at all sure this is true. As I wrote in my blog linked to above “porn Free”, what we now have increasingly is an atomisation of Labour, turning it back from being a socialised and collectivised class of producers into a class more approximating the peasantry, but now sitting at home on a computer producing and selling their product via the Net, and paying a Rent to a Virtual Landlord. Many of the new productive techniques that science is developing, for example the use of Nano-Technology that will enable atomic level fabrication, are not as far away as many people believe, and these will indeed change the productive relations in society with the consequent change in social relations that grow upon them. We may have a limited window of opportunity in which the working class as an agent of historical change continues to exist.
”During the transition, which would essentially be state capitalist, you would have a base for what capitalism produces and for whom, this base would be a starting point for Socialist production,”
But, the continued existence of this Capitalist production would necessarily reproduce capitalist social relations. This is where I disagree with the plannism of much of the left. The significant element in Marx’s ideas is not the replacement of the market with the plan, but the replacement of ownership of the means of production by Capitalists, including a State Capitalist, with the ownership of those means of production by workers. That is the material base which changes workers consciousness, and makes socialism possible, that is the material basis on which planned relations grow and replace the market.
“Now in the short term we cannot lecture people about what is needed and what is not but over time I would imagine a gradual re evaluating of these needs. I would certainly think if this process did not take place then what would be the point of socialism?”
I agree, but Marx’s method was not to suck his theory out of his thumb, but to look at how problems were being resolved in the real world. That is how he saw the working class as the vehicle of change, that is how he saw workers forming Co-operatives, as the means for resolving that basic question of productive and social relations, it is how he saw the Paris Commune providing the means by which workers rule would work. By the same token I look at the examples of both Parliamentary Socialism which have failed, and of Leninist Revolutions which have failed even more disastrously, and come back to the solution offered by Marx.
I will look forward to your article, without wishing to appear like a sycophant, if it is on the same level as the rest of your work then it will be a valuable and insightful contribution to current Marxist thought.
ReplyDeleteI don’t necessarily disagree with your ideas but by making the points I do it helps me understand your position more clearly.
I will withhold the planning arguments until I have seen your article and fully absorbed your previous post but below are some brief observations from your reply.
While I take on board some of your descriptions about the positive aspects of Capitalism, I still think that in relative terms Capitalism does impoverish people and that this leads to a negation of democracy etc etc. Now in a time when people still remember some of the absolute poverty in previous decades this relative poverty really has no significance, but in the future this could become more of an issue.
Also we have to remember that many of the commodities produced are done outside the UK and in less than perfect conditions, how do you see a rising living standard among these important contributors to the economy affecting workers here?
Don’t forget that Marx said “All we have to loose are our chains”, not exactly a ringing endorsement of Capitalism!
As for workers flocking to the BNP and other rightist groups, that makes it doubly important that when workers become disillusioned with the system they at least have the choice to go right or left.
I was thinking about your friends at the OPE-L site when I mentioned leftists talking about “Efficiency”, they are always banging on about it.
I believe that it’s the nature of the nationalisation that people are so angry about and I certainly wish the English working class were as active as their French counterparts. I think many people understand that banks play such a crucial role in the economy that to let the market take its natural course was not an option. It’s the compromised third way new labour solution that people are fed up with.
Now I have spent 15 years in a working environment and for 14 ¾ of those years it was painful being on the left, as the apathy about things in general was at such a level, even Thatcher would have been amazed. In recent months however I have noticed more questioning of the system and while I don’t see the revolution around the corner it certainly makes me believe that such a notion in the future is no longer a hopeless fantasy. For example, I have a friend at work, a right wing anti union ex army guy and even he said that maybe it was time to look at socialism and he wasn’t saying it completely with tongue in cheek.
So I would have to reject your idea that workers are hostile to public ownership.
I don’t think you fully grasped what I meant by a “Cultural Revolution”, it wasn’t that I believe workers to be hostile to change or socialism but that they don’t currently have the “spirit” or “will” to make these things happen for themselves. (Forgive the Nietzsche).
I think what you describe requires some “get up and go”, some taking the initiative, maybe I have become overly negative about the working class but I believe that at this moment in time they look to others to do things for them, at least in the UK, my knowledge of other countries is very limited. Maybe the revolution you talk about will occur elsewhere and spread to our shores.
However, I don’t see it as being far fetched that sometime in the next century a genuine socialist party can make grounds on the electoral landscape, precisely because people can let this party do the work for them, at least in the short term. Electing a party is a lot easier and less risky than starting up a business. Did Marx not say that electoral success was possible for socialism in England?
I cannot agree with your analysis that the current technological advancements don’t make Capitalism fettered, these technologies mean that the enormous anarchy and waste of Capitalism can be overcome. Capitalism will always try to sell “sand to the Arabs”, it’s an inevitable outcome of capitalist competition and as environmental issue’s intensify these shortcomings will be ever more exposed.
Now about your inventions of the future , I have these conversations with colleagues all the time and I always laugh at the future they describe. The “Atomic level Fabricator” you describe is a form of religion, it is the sigh of the oppressed/idle/star trek obsessed creature, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen but you have to look into the reasons for these claims to exist. It’s similar to when the news covers a “cure for cancer” story; there is much wishful thinking involved.
Sorry I should have said the early stages would be state capitalist, albeit directed by socialists and would provide the conditions for the co-op society you described to flourish.
“I will look forward to your article, without wishing to appear like a sycophant, if it is on the same level as the rest of your work then it will be a valuable and insightful contribution to current Marxist thought.”
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words. I don’t think given the thoughtful points you have raised here that you could be described as sycophantic, and nor would I as a Marxist want anyone here to be so. The Christians have some saying about, “There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth…” I think that agreement that arises out of thoughtful discussion is far more important and significant than agreement that arises out of simple acceptance.
”While I take on board some of your descriptions about the positive aspects of Capitalism, I still think that in relative terms Capitalism does impoverish people and that this leads to a negation of democracy etc etc.”
Largely, I would have to disagree. When Marx talks about poverty he does not mean poverty as we would understand it. He means poverty in terms of ownership of the means of production. He makes this clear in the Grundrisse talking about workers becoming more affluent – that is higher incomes better living standards – but more poor – meaning more divorced from ownership of the means of production. Indeed, he argues that Capitalism HAS to increase workers living standards, HAS to extend the workers horizons thorough access to education and culture, (a process he describes as the “civilising mission of Capitalism”) because Capitalist production is forced to continually increase the range of Use Values (products) it produces and sells to consumers (a majority of which are workers), because the increasing productivity of labour means that the demand for many of these use values becomes sated, and to make more profit, to expand Capital, it has to create a new demand, has to employ labour in some other sphere. He extends this argument about RELATIVE reductions in wages, by showing that over time the proportion of total production that goes to being the equivalent of the exchange Value paid out as wages falls. But, that would be true under socialism too. Indeed it is likely that this could be even more true. The reason is that an increasing amount of production goes towards producing machinery to replace Labour Power, and because that machinery raises productivity greatly it requires more Capital to go towards the buying of raw materials to be processed by it. But, this does not at all mean real falls in workers living standards, on the contrary it often means the exact opposite. The introduction of vast amounts of Capital in the form of machinery and automation, and the increase in production that has brought about is one of the main reasons that workers living standards have risen so much during the last century.
As for democracy I think the lesson is clear. The greater affluence that Capitalism has brought, the more it is able to establish a greater bourgeois democratic framework. It was, and has been wherever Capitalism has developed, in the early stages of development that workers were denied the right to be in a Trade Union, to vote etc. The more affluence develops the more Capitalism ties workers to it by ideological means, and bourgeois democracy is a powerful tool of ideological control, providing the illusion of the ability to exert political control. Look at Latin America, and the way the extension of bourgeois democracy has gone hand in hand with economic development in the last 30 years or so. Capitalism prefers bourgeois democracy, and as Lenin says, once established as its form of government the bourgeoisie is loathe to give it up. Only when its back is against the wall such as in Germany in the 1930’s will it substitute some form of Bonapartism or fascism for it.
“Now in a time when people still remember some of the absolute poverty in previous decades this relative poverty really has no significance, but in the future this could become more of an issue.”
It could, but as I have pointed out elsewhere, even during the 1930’s living standards did not fall to the level of the 19th century. At some point Capitalism could, and Marxists believe WILL become absolutely reactionary, that is it will actually begin to reduce productive potential rather than increase it. Marxists at the beginning of the twentieth century thought that moment had arrived. The depression confirmed their belief, but they were wrong. Capitalism has increased productive potential far more in the last century than it did in the first century of its dominance.
”Also we have to remember that many of the commodities produced are done outside the UK and in less than perfect conditions, how do you see a rising living standard among these important contributors to the economy affecting workers here?”
My blog on the current strikes at refineries etc. deals with this to some extent as does my replies to Cluffy in his comments in the thread on “The lessons of Gaza”. The position of Marxists has in the past been quite clear, but has become muddled more recently by the infiltration of ideas which are essentially petit-bourgeois, moralist and liberal in nature. Marx condemned the terrible actions of Britain in India, but at the same time he argued that from a purely objective historical standpoint its actions were progressive. The old Village Industry on which arose the oppression of the Caste System, was stagnant, it was incapable of real development. By smashing it and introducing Capitalist relations British Colonialism not only established the basis on which productive relations could be revolutionised in India, but it created a working class, the force which would ultimately overturn those relations and create socialism.
As Marxists we condemn the subjective methods that Capitalism uses in industrialising less developed economies, but we welcome the fact that it DOES industrialise them, does create a working class, and thereby the fundamental requirement for creating Socialism. As Marx put it, “what Capitalism creates above all else is its own grave diggers.” By which he meant the working class. And Marx was not at all as squeamish as modern day petit-bourgeois moralists in this respect. He wrote criticising the Gotha programme of the German socialists attacking their call for the abolition of all child labour. Such a demand he argued was completely impossible for Capitalism based on large scale production, and in any case was reactionary, because the combination of child labour with education would be a great force in revolutionising society. Of course, that was then this is now. Capitalism has developed greatly in the West to an extent that the abolition of child labour is compatible with the functioning of developed capitalism. But, the argument still applies to less developed economies. Moreover, many children and families in these countries would starve or be reduced to beggary if children DID NOT work. Our argument as was Marx’s should not be in such situations to call for an abolition of child labour, but should rather be for assistance to these workers to organise, to fight for appropriate conditions that limit what work children of different ages can do, to fight for higher wages and better conditions for all workers in these countries.
”Don’t forget that Marx said “All we have to loose are our chains”, not exactly a ringing endorsement of Capitalism!”
You have to distinguish between Marx the propagandist and revolutionary, and Marx the theorist sometimes. In the same work he says that socialism is inevitable, but in fact, Marx didn’t believe that. He believed it was inevitable if the historical laws and forces that created the working class played out, that workers organised and fought for socialism then it was inevitable, but nothing is automatic. And you have to remember what I said above about Marx’s distinction between “poverty” and “affluence”. In many ways the more affluent a worker becomes the more they can be “chained” to Capitalism, precisely because having adapted their life style to that affluence they have to continue to work to maintain that lifestyle. It is those chains that Marx alludes to.
”As for workers flocking to the BNP and other rightist groups, that makes it doubly important that when workers become disillusioned with the system they at least have the choice to go right or left.”
I am all in favour of workers being able to choose, but as a socialist I was simply pointing out that under current conditions the likely consequence of any downturn will be a move to the Right. The current strikes over the refinery dispute demonstrate that clearly.
”I was thinking about your friends at the OPE-L site when I mentioned leftists talking about “Efficiency”, they are always banging on about it.”
But Marxists are intensely interested in efficiency. It is the basis of our hopes for a Communist society. A communist society requires that production can be raised to such levels that mankind’s basic requirements – a definition which becomes more extensive as our horizons broaden – can be met easily, so that we no longer have to ration them out by one method or another. But, that cannot be achieved without raising efficiency way beyond what even Capitalism accomplished. In order to go beyond that to enable every human being to develop their individual skills and talents, to experiment in new fields, etc, which will require that the amount of time that each human being spends on production will require that we raise efficiency even higher than that.
”I believe that it’s the nature of the nationalisation that people are so angry about and I certainly wish the English working class were as active as their French counterparts. I think many people understand that banks play such a crucial role in the economy that to let the market take its natural course was not an option. It’s the compromised third way new labour solution that people are fed up with.”
Well, two things. The form of nationalisation is determined by the fact that it is “Capitalist” nationalisation. As long as Capitalism exists that form of nationalisation will exist. That is why I don’t support calls for nationalisation by the Capitalist state, nor did Marx. If the Banks collapsed then that would have had a serious consequence for the Capitalist economy. My response to that is three-fold. Banks have collapsed in the past without Capitalism completely collapsing. Its not our job to propose solutions for the saving of Capitalism, and finally, there was another option, that I have put forward, the Banks or some of them, could have been bought up, or taken over by workers and run as Co-operatives, merged with the Co-op Bank, Unity Trust, and other Mutual Financial organisations. Its on the basis of such workers ownership that workers COULD demand and introduce workers control of those institutions. Demanding workers Control of businesses nationalised by the Capitalist State is pointless. It will not do it.
”Now I have spent 15 years in a working environment and for 14 ¾ of those years it was painful being on the left, as the apathy about things in general was at such a level, even Thatcher would have been amazed. In recent months however I have noticed more questioning of the system and while I don’t see the revolution around the corner it certainly makes me believe that such a notion in the future is no longer a hopeless fantasy. For example, I have a friend at work, a right wing anti union ex army guy and even he said that maybe it was time to look at socialism and he wasn’t saying it completely with tongue in cheek.”
In my post on the current strikes I included a link to a blog I posted last year, which was essentially a copy of something I wrote 3 years ago forecasting precisely the kind of developments we are seeing now. Those developments are not a result of the current crisis, but a result of the growing strength of workers over the last decade as the demand for labour has risen. The current reversal has merely provided the spark that has allowed that growing confidence and militancy to manifest itself. I am not at all surprised by what is happening. I forecast it three years ago.
”So I would have to reject your idea that workers are hostile to public ownership.”
According to some recent polls two-thirds of people think that it was wrong to bail-out the banks. It could be that if private enterprise capitalism seems to be causing a lot of problems people will look to an alternative, just as when they are fed up with one bourgeois government they vote for another that seems different. Then they find that nothing is different, get disillusioned and switch back again. That is why Marxists have to give workers a different option. Look now the strikers at these refineries are choosing a different option, but it is not a progressive option it’s a reactionary option based on protectionism and effectively racism, or at least nationalism. It will prove no solution to their problems, but will in fact make things worse. State capitalist nationalisation will not solve workers problems it will make them worse, and to the extent that it then acts to disillusion them again with the idea of socialism it will have been a terribly retrograde step. We have the opportunity with what is almost a new working class generation to put behind us all of the bad baggage of Stalinism and Statist socialism that dragged down our movement, and instead to provide workers with a real revolutionary alternative.
”I think what you describe requires some “get up and go”, some taking the initiative, maybe I have become overly negative about the working class but I believe that at this moment in time they look to others to do things for them, at least in the UK, my knowledge of other countries is very limited. Maybe the revolution you talk about will occur elsewhere and spread to our shores.”
Everything requires that someone take some initiative. Just look at the number of workers each year who try to set up their own businesses, despite the fact that most fail. If they could be persuaded to join together and set up co-operatives they would have a greater chance of success. Yes, I think its true that the majority of people look to someone else to do things for them. The expression of that is representative democracy, in which people give up the most important thing, control over the decisions that determine their life, to someone else, in return for only having to cast a vote every four years. But, in part its capitalism that fosters such a mentality, it is in the Capitalists interests. Not entirely, because it is obviously easier to simply sit back, and let others spend their time at meetings and so on. As I’ve said elsewhere, that was true for the vast majority of workers after the Russian revolution too. That’s why the bureaucrats were able to take over the running of the factories and the State. Its why consumer Co-ops tend to become run by the bureaucrats rather than the members, its why workers sit at home and watch TV rather than going to their union meeting. And without that changing socialism is impossible. The Leninists, and this also seems to be your argument see this changing AFTER the revolution. That requires faith, and I see no reason why this transformation would be likely any time soon after a revolution. And before it could arise, bureaucrats would already have consolidated power in their own hands, and would then prevent it.
We have to change that culture now, and the only way to do that is for workers to have some reason to be involved in controlling their lives on a daily basis. State owned industries can’t do that, consumer Co-operatives can’t do it either. Only a workers co-operative where the workers livelihood depends upon his daily active involvement in decision making can do that.
”However, I don’t see it as being far fetched that sometime in the next century a genuine socialist party can make grounds on the electoral landscape, precisely because people can let this party do the work for them, at least in the short term. Electing a party is a lot easier and less risky than starting up a business. Did Marx not say that electoral success was possible for socialism in England?”
Yes, he did, but he also said that the bourgeoisie would resist this government, and that it would be necessary for the workers to put down a “slaveholders revolt.” I can only see a REAL socialist party making electoral advance on the basis of real changes in the nature of the workers and their consciousness. As a historical materialist I believe that those changes can only arise on the basis of material changes in the workers condition, changes which foster the ideas of Co-operation. The development of workers Co-operatives will create not only changes in workers consciousness, but new forms of direct democracy required for those new forms of production. Carried into other areas of life such as Co-operative housing and estate management these new structures of workers democracy will all the time come into conflict with the bourgeois forms of democracy. And so long as Capitalism remains that bourgeois democracy will be dominant. It will not be possible to simply ignore it. But, a more active working class, more class consciousness, more willing and more able to call its representatives to account through these new structures of workers democracy will press down more heavily on them when they are sent into the local Council Chamber to represent its interests, or into Parliament.
I used to be a shop steward for many years in the 1970’s. I was able to get the bosses to agree to many things for one simple reason. Day after day for a few years I worked to develop in my workplace a group of people who supported me, and together we worked with the rest of the workplace to understand their concerns, involve them in our discussions, and as best we could put them forward. The Management agreed to demands because they knew that when I went to ask for something, it was not me and a few people being stroppy, but the entire workforce standing behind me. On one occasion when they refused, the entire workplace walked out including non-union members. That is the kind of working-class self reliance we have to rebuild in the workplaces, in the communities etc., and it is that kind of democracy that has to be used to ensure that we elect real working class fighters, and that we have the mechanisms to keep them accountable.
”I cannot agree with your analysis that the current technological advancements don’t make Capitalism fettered, these technologies mean that the enormous anarchy and waste of Capitalism can be overcome. Capitalism will always try to sell “sand to the Arabs”, it’s an inevitable outcome of capitalist competition and as environmental issue’s intensify these shortcomings will be ever more exposed.”
Depends what you mean. Compared with what a socialist, co-operative economy could achieve yes, it fetters production, but does it in absolute terms develop production, quite obviously it does. In fact, there used to be a lot of stuff on the left in terms of economic analysis that made a lot about certain new inventions being bought up, and shelved by Capitalism in order that monopolies could continue to make profits out of existing profits. A lot of more recent analysis has cast doubt on many of these charges. A look at all the new inventions that have come on to the market over the last 30 years alone I think is evidence against these ideas. Even monopoly Capitalism is engaged in monopolistic competition. It has an incentive to reduce its costs by introducing new techniques, and precisely in order to avoid price competition it has an incentive to introduce new lines of production, new products, etc.
”Now about your inventions of the future , I have these conversations with colleagues all the time and I always laugh at the future they describe. The “Atomic level Fabricator” you describe is a form of religion, it is the sigh of the oppressed/idle/star trek obsessed creature, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen but you have to look into the reasons for these claims to exist. It’s similar to when the news covers a “cure for cancer” story; there is much wishful thinking involved.”
But, increasingly cures for cancer are being discovered! Cures for many other diseases which once killed more than cancer now does have already been introduced. The fact is we already do have atomic level fabrication, and a multiplicity of nano-machines. Particularly at a time of rising costs of raw materials, often from areas of the world where imperialism needs to spend money to ensure security of supply there is a considerable motive for introducing such technology, not to mention the limits which are being reached in computer processing power now, a factor of production which for modern Capitalism is probably as important as a stable supply of oil. I remember a time when people thought that the use of robots in production was science fiction too!
”Sorry I should have said the early stages would be state capitalist, albeit directed by socialists and would provide the conditions for the co-op society you described to flourish.”
My point remains that you cannot get this socialist government without the change in class consciousness of the vast majority of workers. I ask the question what will bring that change about? You say Co-operatives aren’t possible because it requires workers consciousness to change. I reply it only requires the consciousness of some groups to change at any one time, and that having a cumulative effect. The election of your socialist government requires the consciousness of all or a vast majority of workers to change simultaneously!