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Whether the
incidence of flooding, such as that we are seeing currently is to do
with
global warming or not, it is clear that it is having
serious
consequences for those affected by it. No one can fail to feel
great
sympathy for all
those whose homes are being
flooded, often not for
the first time. The issues surrounding it raise
a number of
questions.
Firstly, a
huge amount of money is being spent through the Environment Agency on
“flood defences”. These seem to be more effective in some places
than in others, but the more important question that should be asked
is whether this money should be being spent at all, or if it is, who
should be funding it. In the United States, there is considerable
evidence, over a long period of time that the construction of flood
defences is counter-productive. Huge amounts of money, for example,
were spent on flood defences along great stretches of the
Mississippi. The consequence, was, however, that it merely made
flooding elsewhere along its length, worse, or resulted in flooding
in areas that previously did not suffer from it. In fact, it was
decided that the better solution was to remove the flood defences, in
order to allow the river to flood naturally, into its flood plain.
That has benefits in depositing natural nutrients to the soil, rather
than those deposits building up as silt elsewhere, itself
contributing to a flooding problem.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh66idThBO-k8gyAGwWuQ8P4Yj8XCJ3c_l5HFbLpC_ssALAynzlaWvk54Lm9Hf5UtzX_d7tV762fu_wRDbk7qczY24a2SM7zcBDTBbOD6A1w0qbePb7sxZEL_yg02bIjfdvsMQcIzsTbGgs/s1600/Capitalist.jpg)
That, of
course,
leads to the question of damage to property in the
flood
plain. But,
for years,
people realised that it was
not a good idea
to build houses or businesses in a flood plain, precisely because
they were
likely to get flooded! Businesses that were established
were
ones that could
take advantage of it being a
flood plain, for
example
appropriate forms of agriculture. In reality, the
cost of
providing flood defences, to prevent
rivers from
doing what they
naturally should do – dissipate their excess water into the flood
plain – is a
direct subsidy by society,
to capitalists who decide
to
build houses, or
businesses in these
high risk areas. Usually,
these
capitalists decide to
build houses etc. in
these areas, because
the
land is cheap, which means they can
make bigger profits. But,
the
land is cheap, precisely because it is a flood plain! Why should
the rest of us, subsidise these capitalists out of our taxes, for
taking
irresponsible decisions about where to build?
The news,
yesterday covered the
story of a
hospital whose
Operating Theatre was
flooding, because the hospital had been
built on top of a stream! Who would have ever thought that if you build on top of a stream, you might suffer from flooding!
The vast
sums of money that go into flood defences would be much better spent
in providing vital services to those who suffer from life's
iniquities for no fault of their own. For example, I can quite
happily accept that it is a good thing to have some form of social
insurance scheme (preferably one created by and controlled by workers
themselves) which provides healthcare for people who fall ill, or who
lose their job, and to provide for them in old age. However, I see
no reason why I should subsidise others for failing to take account
of the consequences of their actions, and who simply expect others to
pick up the tab!
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Oby60jBk9B1OoVFMT23KeRBracnJcqhhnzd_m7fYccRPnYBPUgrN1ULdoPzmoKv04Dt-WvrqYFZFqJJDquwsfTno4GrASqhbOyXpaTPSHJA2yD8KzTeGC10rsm3daAgdGY6EIzV6IVN-/s1600/Gambling.jpg)
If someone
decides rashly to
borrow £100,000 in order to buy
100,000 lottery
tickets in the
mistaken belief they might
win the jackpot, I see
no
reason why I along with other
workers should compensate them for
their almost inevitable
loss of that £100,000. After all, if they
won, they
would not be sharing their winnings with the rest of us.
If,
a builder decides to
build a housing estate on a flood plain, and
can't sell any of the houses, because
no one wants the risk of
regularly having
their house flooded, I equally see
no reason why
workers should compensate that builder
for their gamble either,
because, if the
builder did sell those houses, again they
would not
be sharing their profits with the rest of us.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz7_QFlnkDwbKio2EgyCTOXX1uoa9qNEl0wnJHtR1yFA1HMVS5nICnTyVdtgu9H45dSO48Vu4L3Kw6-OYUh1B5px6QX9G-UhEay6bLbjJ_HfVkshwVrTGCxX9ZBiTmdaKZxsQdbfxL07a0/s1600/Trabants.jpg) |
A field of unwanted Trabants. |
Marx
describes this in
Capital. It is the concept of
socially necessary
labour. In other words, labour is
only socially necessary, only
creates value if it is
expended on production that is
demanded, that
finds a buyer in the market. If it doesn't then the labour expended
was not socially necessary, it created no new value. In fact,
compensating those that make such
mistakes is the
worst thing that
can happen, because it
means that the mistake is not recognised, and
can, therefore,
continue rather than being corrected. It means that
Capital continues to be wasted. A similar thing happened with the
economies of the
USSR and Eastern Europe under
Stalinism. These
economies produced
vast amounts of products that were of
little or no
value, even though they
consumed large amounts of labour in their
production. They had
little value, because the
labour they
consumed
was
not socially necessary labour. That was for several reasons.
Firstly, large amounts of
goods were
produced that
nobody wanted, but
which were
required to meet the
bureaucratic planning targets.
Secondly, even where
products were produced that were demanded they
were of the
wrong type, for example, jeans that nobody wanted
compared to a pair of Levis. Thirdly, the quality of the
goods
produced was shoddy, so that
nobody would pay the price.
That
situation could
continue, because the
bureaucrats who
controlled this
production had
nothing to lose from
producing poor quality goods that
no one wanted. Even
if their
output could
not be
sold, they would
continue to be paid, and their
enterprises would
continue to be paid
by the
State. The
same thing occurs
with State Capitalism.
Businesses that go bust, are sometimes
nationalised, and so the
fact
that those
businesses went bust because they were
producing things no
one or not enough people
wanted, is
ignored, the
businesses are
compensated by
other workers via their
tax contributions, and thereby
the
waste of resources is
allowed to persist. The
same applies with the way that
poor quality of provision continues with the
NHS. That is also what
happened with the Banks.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB1R1lLvssigyud9k8v69QtWlr3gmH4OUzQGSrLeIe_6GTumsqYr2sUS-xuPv4M2ePkx1gR_Fc3RbNEzaIC-VBOCaEf23Aws1hfCVmpe8AEwFiAiBmjDAxGs_G42SHEmz8HCi703dgKR8b/s320/Northern+Rock.jpg)
As with the
example above, the
Banks were
allowed to gamble for years. When
those
gambles paid off, the
rewards went to the Banks bosses, and
some of the
highly skilled traders who produced the profits and
capital gains, as well as to the
banks' shareholders. When the banks
gambles failed, instead of the bank bosses, the traders and the
shareholders suffering the consequences, they were
bailed out by the
State! In fact, as I said at the time of
Northern Rock, and as I've
said at the time of the
Irish Bank collapses, the banks should have
been
allowed to go bust, and the
shareholders in those banks
should
have lost all their money.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOx0NlNkkbb8aeGPrnloW2IW1P9_rtFthFIQsw675YdT5kreQtJ5gjgyF9eIACv0z0eSDPndsjFOhYA3utUzZx3yZbCrACZUkcEdW_g0OXAXy59QqY9IT36dFFyGQGXMk5iBuvG0xKRQX7/s320/Co+op+Bank.jpg)
The
deposits
of all the
savers who put their money in those Banks in the
not
unreasonable belief that they were
taking no risk with their money,
should have been
protected, and having become worthless, the
workers
of those banks should have
taken them over, along with all their
assets in the form of
mortgages and loans, and
run them as
co-operatives. It is
unlikely that any
such gambling would have been
undertaken again in the
near future, and the
shareholders of
other
banks would have an
incentive to
keep control of the
bureaucrats
running them. Had that
collapsed the
share prices of
other companies
with shareholdings in those banks, then as I pointed out in relation
to a default by Greece, that
need not have a negative consequence for
workers. If
share prices fall that in
no way affects the
productiveness of the machines and other capital equipment of the
firms whose
share price has fallen. Consequently, it
implies no real
diminution in the
capacity to create real wealth. Moreover, the
profits created will then represent a
higher proportion of this
now
devalued paper capital.
It means
that workers contributions into their Pension Schemes can buy more of
these shares, giving them a bigger stake, and thereby also a bigger
pension. Pensions are paid out of the revenues of invested funds,
not from Capital Gains.
But, by the
same token there is no reason to bail out builders, or money
capitalists who advance capital to those builders, who gamble by
building houses in flood plains or other high risk areas. Of course,
we are invited to see things not as bailing out these capitalists,
but of the poor home buyers who bought the houses. But, those buyers
only bought, because they too have been conditioned to believe that
they can take decisions without regard for their consequence. I see
no reason why someone who knowingly buys a house in a flood plain
should be subsidised by the rest of us, who wisely chose not to, any
more than we should compensate the person who loses their money on
the lottery or some other form of gambling.
I'm happy
that a gambling addict should be entitled to treatment for their
condition. I'm happy that someone who loses their house due to
flooding should be rehoused in a Council house, but I see no reason
why they should be compensated in any other way out of public funds.
Even less do
I see a
reason why the
insurance companies should also be
subsidised
out of public funds, in order to
provide cheaper insurance for
houses
built in the flood plain. If
buyers did not buy, and
insurers did
not insure houses in the flood plain,
builders would soon
stop
building there, when they
went bust, because they
couldn't sell their
houses. Then,
society could also
divert the
billions of pounds spent
on
unnecessarily preventing flooding, into
areas where it is
really
needed in the
NHS, etc. Of course, if
people wanted to buy houses in
the
flood plain, and
pay the cost of repairing
flood damage, or the
higher cost of
insurance premiums, out of
their own pocket, that
would be
up to them.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWwlghJX-VrQoGs-Ig755jaN93TF1mUeZsKSNvOt5oIaxOIOD2hQd_GyT-4kgvW6E7zCm3QG_AdmraGHvh-90VUHdngFnP8Mxj4A5zuUBvJnQyoEdmE5OVpahUwLK4u19I0po9W3r2YCup/s1600/Friendly+Society.jpg) |
In the 19th Century, workers provided their own
welfare provision via Friendly Societies. They rightly
did not trust the Capitalist State to provide for them. Marx,
Engels and the First International demanded that State
keep its hands off the Friendly Societies for that reason,
and opposed the creation of National Insurance Schemes by it,
that drained the workers own funds. |
A
similar
thing applies to
other areas of life. For example, if we had a
worker owned and controlled Social Insurance scheme, as
advocated by
Marx and Engels, workers would be well advised to arrange it so that
the
Insurance Premiums discouraged unhealthy behaviour, by levying
higher rates on smokers, those
grossly overweight and so on. That is
not just because otherwise, workers would soon
find that their funds
ran out, but because workers
should attempt to create a
health system
that
does not sell health as a commodity, repairing health when it is
damaged,
but which attempts to
prevent ill-health to begin with.
That is
not just because it is far
more efficient, but
more
importantly because a
socialistic health policy should do so for the
well-being of the workers. In doing so, as
Marx sets out, we
unavoidably are
forced to make choices.
Marx
discusses this in the Critique of the Gotha Programme. He writes, of
the first stage of Communism, that although workers of the same type
would continue to be paid the same wages, this apparent equality,
means a real inequality, because no two workers are the same. One
worker will be able to work faster or for longer than another; one
worker will have several children to provide for, whilst another will
not.
“Hence,
equal right here is still in principle --
bourgeois right, although principle and
practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of
equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not
in the individual case.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2a6U-gl1scOFx9urU1vHspl-8Xe5s2CB7XAjckU6ngEezbw3vUj87YnD4eYcFfxzcnyaxrVyuSgjDvwsNG63RQrJUjWXssIRI3y4oOz_rCCZFig8xl_TdYitnP7sFJtzKbKP_7scKWSvO/s1600/Marx.bmp) |
Marx saw no reason why, even
in the first stage of Communism,
simply having children to provide
for, should entitle workers to some
additional payment out of society's
social fund. Its Utopianism to believe
that Capitalism can provide a higher
level of equality than even the first
stage of Communism. "Right can never
be higher than the economic structure
of society and its cultural
development conditioned thereby." |
In spite of this advance, this equal right is
still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of
the producers is proportional to the labour
they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is
made with an equal standard, labour.
But one man is superior to another physically,
or mentally, and supplies more labour in the same time, or can labour
for a longer time; and labour, to serve as a measure, must be defined
by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of
measurement. This equal right is an unequal
right for unequal labour. It recognizes no class differences, because
everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly
recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive
capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of
inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very
nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but
unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if
they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard
insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken
from one definite side only -- for instance, in the present case, are
regarded only as workers and nothing more is
seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is
married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so
on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labour, and hence
an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive
more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To
avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to
be unequal.
But these defects are inevitable in the first
phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after
prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be
higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural
development conditioned thereby.”
So, its obvious that within Capitalist Society it
is Utopianism to believe that a higher degree of equality could
prevail, or that these choices conditioned by the Law of Value could
be averted.
In the same way, workers who owned and controlled
their own social insurance scheme would rightly implement the
principle of Socialism outlined in the above by Marx,
“He who does not work, neither shall he eat.”
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU_cK88b-y_gwa0SmucI0OZbt-W-QEN9CW8Xbfp9UKyjZaD5aAJ3eJXtRRiHEZL7x0llifCIXz7i7PKdqNBarct4HoeAP8o1NQsnX_QT9U4fanlSRZi8gCBpadIohgvtu2Cv5OhsGvf5uk/s1600/Fabians.jpg) |
Rather than Marx's revolutionary strategy of workers
developing their independence from Capital and its State,
by relying on their own self-activity, creating their own
enterprises and structures in opposition to Capital,
the Fabians and their co-thinkers beleived that Socialism
could be built with the help of that State - or even by that State -
by redistributing income. Unfortunately, redistributing income
does not work. It does not redistribute the ownership of
the means of production, which determines income distribution, and
it ends up not a redistribution from Capitalists to workers
but simply one group of workers giving some of their income to
a worse off group of workers. Not surprisingly, that changes nothing,
and the better off workers end up getting pissed off, and voting for
Tories.
|
That is they
would expect those
provided for out of those funds during
periods of
unemployment, to do
work in return for it. This is
not the same as
the
Workfare Systems of
Welfare Capitalism, which
expect workers to
do
work for Capital in return for
payments of dole. This is
work
done for the
benefit of workers, and their
communities, thereby
establishing a
workers economy in
opposition to that of Capital.
The same
applies in relation to other forms of Welfare Benefits.
Unfortunately, the infection of the Labour Movement with various
forms of bourgeois Liberalism, of Lassalleanism and Fabianism have
undermined these aspects of Marx’s teaching. For example, if we
look at Marx’s statement above,
“Further,
one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than
another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of
labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in
fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and
so on.”
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9oGE-3e4sW2QTbYfaoaW0eJoFuT0RTbSdxH1bd69mW91kXLxFjSEJOHZhrtrBIv_b6m7DiBurr3frclQTlybkvEVQ0J51BxvrJRIlg5O51QMQZmv0QzKAeslesKHSGTQqpYIC4_6CJEwq/s1600/Large+Family.jpg)
In other words, if
two workers do a
30 hour week, they will be
entitled to
30 hours of Value from the
social consumption fund. But,
because
one worker will have
children, and the
other will not, the
latter will
effectively be
better off, because
what they take out
will
not have to cover any children. It is clear that this
applies
with
all the more force
under Capitalism. Workers are entitled to
make a choice to have
as many children as they like, but they have
no
right to demand that
other workers compensate them for that decision,
via the
payment of additional benefits, such as
Child Benefit, Tax
Credit and so on. In fact, as
Marx makes clear in
Capital, what
such
payments do, is to
subsidise Capitalists, and in
particular the worst
Capitalists, who are thereby
able to get away with
paying wages
insufficient to sustain the workers needs. For example
Marx writes
about, the way the
hand loom weavers were
sustained in misery for
years as a
result of the payment of relief out of Parish Funds.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM7ggzRFMOjWRWU_IK-dBqtIwZd3bH8_134GZNokX8b0_kDKMil_Lbxf5Q-JTq-HEEOxF1IyVmawd74iofxsYFwgeS4gI839TVDzUcRAOu4zUW_G42IjaRpGkZOZRBcVB-JIXspWyYczJs/s1600/Hand+loom+weaaver.jpg)
“
The
competition between hand-weaving and power-weaving in England, before
the passing of the Poor Law of 1833, was prolonged by supplementing
the wages, which had fallen considerably below the minimum, with
parish relief. “The Rev. Mr. Turner was, in 1827, rector of
Wilmslow in Cheshire, a manufacturing district. The questions of the
Committee of Emigration, and Mr. Turner’s answers, show how the
competition of human labour is maintained against machinery.
‘Question: Has not the use of the power-loom superseded the use of
the hand-loom? Answer: Undoubtedly; it would have superseded them
much more than it has done, if the hand-loom weavers were not enabled
to submit to a reduction of wages.’ ‘Question: But in submitting
he has accepted wages which are insufficient to support him, and
looks to parochial contribution as the remainder of his support?
Answer: Yes, and in fact the competition between the hand-loom and
the power-loom is maintained out of the poor-rates.’ Thus degrading
pauperism or expatriation, is the benefit which the industrious
receive from the introduction of machinery, to be reduced from the
respectable and in some degree independent mechanic, to the cringing
wretch who lives on the debasing bread of charity. This they call a
temporary inconvenience.” (“A Prize Essay on the Comparative
Merits of Competition and Co-operation.” Lond., 1834, p. 29.) (Note
1, p 406)
And,
as
Marx makes clear, the consequence of this subsidy to Capital, is that
it fails to introduce new, more efficient means of production,
relying instead for its profits on low wages and poor conditions. We
should not subsidise Capitalist builders who cut costs by building in
the flood plain; we should not subsidise low paying inefficient
employers, by supplementing workers wages with Benefits paid for by
other workers' taxes; we should not subsidise capitalist banks that
go bust; we should not subsidise other firms that go bust. We should
build our own worker owned and controlled alternative.
2 comments:
Didn't most people who bought houses on flood plains only do so because they were the only houses they could afford?
If the only car I could afford to buy was one that was a death trap, and kept costing me money I would decide not to buy a car, but to continue walking, cycling, using Public Transport, and renting a car when that was needed.
People do not have to buy houses they cannot afford. They can continue to rent, for example. They can live with parents, and so on. The houses built on flood plains were not all built in one go, and sold in one go. Its been a process over a long time.
The reason people cannot afford a lot of housing is not because the cost of building houses has risen. It is because people have been prepared to borrow large amounts of money (they often can't afford to pay back at normal interest rates), to pay over inflated prices for houses they couldn't afford. That meant land prices were then forced up.
If people refused to pay over inflated prices for houses, they would fall - which will happen before too long anyway - then land prices would also fall, which will cut the cost of building new houses.
When I got married I was 20 and my wife was 18. neither of us had well paid jobs. At the time I was getting £25 a week, which was not great even for the 1970's. We would like to have bought a house to, but couldn't afford. So we lived in a flat for 3 years, had no car, no TV, bought clothes from jumble sales, lived on baked beans, and walked everywhere.
Three years later, we'd saved over £5,000 (equal to about £80,000 today), and bought our first house for cash. Its about making choices. I never thought anyone should bail me out for putting up with living in a cold damp flat for 3 years!
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