What is Socialism?

A comment in another place reminds me that as well as talking about the process of the election and the details of the ward, we need to occasionally come back to the basic Q&A about socialism. To be lazy, and because it doesn't need to be said in a new way each time, here is our definition of Socialism:

Central to the meaning of socialism is common ownership. This means the resources of the world being owned in common by the entire global population.

But does it really make sense for everybody to own everything in common? Of course, some goods tend to be for personal consumption, rather than to share—clothes, for example. People 'owning' certain personal possessions does not contradict the principle of a society based upon common ownership.

In practice, common ownership will mean everybody having the right to participate in decisions on how global resources will be used. It means nobody being able to take personal control of resources, beyond their own personal possessions.

Democratic control is therefore also essential to the meaning of socialism. Socialism will be a society in which everybody will have the right to participate in the social decisions that affect them. These decisions could be on a wide range of issues—one of the most important kinds of decision, for example, would be how to organise the production of goods and services.

Production under socialism would be directly and solely for use. With the natural and technical resources of the world held in common and controlled democratically, the sole object of production would be to meet human needs. This would entail an end to buying, selling and money. Instead, we would take freely what we had communally produced. The old slogan of "from each according to ability, to each according to needs" would apply.

So how would we decide what human needs are? This question takes us back to the concept of democracy, for the choices of society will reflect their needs. These needs will, of course, vary among different cultures and with individual preferences—but the democratic system could easily be designed to provide for this variety.

We cannot, of course, predict the exact form that would be taken by this future global democracy. The democratic system will itself be the outcome of future democratic decisions. We can however say that it is likely that decisions will need to be taken at a number of different levels—from local to global. This would help to streamline the democratic participation of every individual towards the issues that concern them.

In socialism, everybody would have free access to the goods and services designed to directly meet their needs and there need be no system of payment for the work that each individual contributes to producing them. All work would be on a voluntary basis. Producing for needs means that people would engage in work that has a direct usefulness. The satisfaction that this would provide, along with the increased opportunity to shape working patterns and conditions, would bring about new attitudes to work.

OK, a bit longer than I'd normally put in a post, but sometimes things need to be said in depth.

The Giant of Idleness...

I read in the newspaper this morning about a new International Labour Organisation report "World of Work, 2012"[PDF]. Here are some key excerpts:

For 2012, around 202 million people are expected to be unemployed, reflecting the downward scenario indicated in the ILO (2012). The unemployment rate will further increase to 6.1 per cent of the global labour force this year and increase to 6.2 per cent in 2013. The number of jobseekers will continue to swell, and is expected to reach 210 million people by 2016, despite a gradual but limited decline in the unemployment rate.

…there is still a deficit of around 50 million jobs in comparison to the pre-crisis situation. It is unlikely that the world economy will grow at a sufficient pace over the next couple of years to both close the existing jobs deficit and provide employment for the over 80 million people expected to enter the labour market during this period.

...In addition, for a growing proportion of workers who do have a job, employment has become more unstable or precarious. In advanced economies, involuntary part-time employment and temporary employment have increased in two-thirds and more than half of these economies, respectively. The share of informal employment remains high, standing at more than 40 per cent in two-thirds of emerging and developing countries.

It is difficult to comprehend the amount of wealth being lost to un-and-under-employment. When we look around the world, and think what can be achieved with 202 million people's labour, and realise that it is just being lost. We need to be crystal clear, on May the first, workers day, capitalism depends on unemployment. It is a key and essential feature of the wages system. Those 202 million are unemployed so that a handful of billionaires can have their profits. We are being robbed not only of our own labour, but of the benefits of the labour of our fellows. That is the case for socialism in a nutshell.

Potholes and socialism

OK, lo and behold, I talk about potholes, and they become a national issue: from today's Today programme, '£8.5bn needed for road resurfacing.'

See, the problem is that big infrastructural budgets are the first casualty of any budget cutting - the accountability scale is longer than most politicians terms of office. Underfunding of roads will only begin revealing defects ten years down the line, and persistent underfunding, will simply lead to a long slow decline. This decline will be very expensive to reverse, so the relative underfunding will continue because the political rewards of such repairs will be slow in coming. It’s hard to point to something not being broken.

Depreciation, or amortisation, of capital stock is dealt with separately from current accounts. Essentially, the roads are paid for up front, normally through public debts. Local authorities take out 60 year mortgages to pay for infrastructure, so over that period, they have to pay the initial capital back plus interest. So, while it's depreciating, it's still being paid for in the first place.

Of course, if the debt lives longer than the time scale required to completely replace/renew the roads, then more debt will have to be piled on to carry out that work.

Socialism can't promise infinite riches, or that choices of priorities won't have to be made, but we can say that socialism would end the requirement to turn loans back into money - essentially ending the distinction between the current and capital accounts. All activity would have to be accounted for out of real currently available resources, rather than notional capitalisations.

Further, there won't be the option for externalities - at present councils are not required to take account of the cost of the damage poorly maintained roads do to vehicle stock, but in a system of common ownership, we would have to balance the impact on inventories of vehicle repair versus road maintenance.

Saocialism isn't a magic wand, but it does offer the prospect of accountability and the mechanisms by which we can take proper control of our own communities and our social environment.

A local issue

At the first hustings meeting in Herne Hill when Bill stood in for Danny he must have promised a questioner from the Friends of Brockwell Park a reply from us on their objection to Lambeth Council's plan to take 1,000 sq metres of Brockwell Park for a new road. In any event we received an email reminder. Here's the Socialist candidates reply:

"Although you may have a valid case, I am standing in this election on the single issue of the profit system or socialism. I would be less than honest if I said the Socialist Party wanted you to vote for us just because we were against Lambeth Council's plan concerning Brockwell Park. The Socialist Party only wants the votes of those who agree with a fundamental change in the basis of society to one of common ownership and democratic control where things would be produced to meet people's needs rather than to make a profit as at present. In such a society human welfare would come first and there would not be commercial pressures that there are today to encroach on park lane to build a road."

Having said this, this sort of problem will also arise in a socialist society. Since apparently some people don't like us criticising the SWP, Militant and Gorgeous George too much and want us to be more positive, here's how William Morris explains in his socialist utopian novel News from Nowhere how this sort of problem might be tackled in a socialist society:

"Well," said he, "let us take one of our units of management, a commune, or a ward, or a parish (for we have all three names, indicating little real distinction between them now, though time was there was a good deal). In such a district, as you would call it, some neighbours think that something ought to be done or undone: a new town-hall built; a clearance of inconvenient houses; or say a stone bridge substituted for some ugly old iron one, - there you have undoing and doing in one. Well, at the next ordinary meeting of the neighbours, or Mote, as we call it, according to the ancient tongue of the times before bureaucracy, a neighbour proposes the change and of course, if everybody agrees, there is an end of discussion except about details. Equally, if no one backs the proposer - 'seconds him,' it used to be called - the matter drops for the time being; a thing not likely to happen amongst reasonable men however, as the propose is sure to have talked it over with others before the Mote. But supposing the affair proposed and seconded, if a few of the neighbours disagree to it, if they think that the beastly iron bridge will serve a little longer and they don't want to be bothered with building a new one just then, they don't count heads that time, but put off the formal discussion to the next Mote; and meantime arguments pro and con are flying about, and some get printed, so that everybody knows what is going on; and when the Mote comes together again there is a regular discussion and at last a vote by show of hands. If the division is a close one, the question is again put off for further discussion; if the division is a wide one, the minority are asked if they will yield to the more general opinion, which they often, nay, most commonly do. If they refuse, the question is debated a third time, when, if the minority has not perceptibly grown, they always give way; though I believe there is some half-forgotten rule by which they might still carry it on further; but I say, what always happens is that they are convinced not perhaps that their view is the wrong one, but they cannot persuade or force the community to adopt it."

"Very good," said I; "but what happens if the divisions are still narrow?"

Said he: "As a matter of principle and according to the rule of such cases, the question must then lapse, and the majority, if so narrow, has to submit to sitting down under the status quo. But I must tell you that in point of fact the minority very seldom enforces this rule, but generally yields in a friendly manner."

"But do you know," said I, "that there is something in all this very like democracy; and I thought that democracy was considered to be in a moribund condition many, many years ago."

What else do we want?

Some more from Socialism as a Practical Alternative - this time on the practical organisation of a moneyless economy, and how we see production occuring without some sort of central planning or dictatorial centre:

Socialism will remove every factor of value, cost and price involved in production and therefore there will be no use for money. As marketable commodities under capitalism, bread, shoes, housing and, indeed, labour power are in value relationships to each other which are expressed through prices. In socialism these value relationships will not exist. Capitalism is an exchange economy which begins with an exchange of workers’ labour power for wages and ends with the realisation of profit through the exchange of goods for money in the market. Socialism will relate productive activity directly to needs. Production for use will begin with co-operation between producers and end with the direct supply of goods to the members of the community for whose needs they have been produced. Only socialism can be a practical system for the production and distribution ofgoods directly for consumption.

[...]

In practical terms, needs would arise in local communities expressed as required quantities of machinery, equipment, building materials, and the whole range of foods and consumption goods. These grammes, kilos, tonnes, litres, cubic metres of required materials and goods would then be communicated throughout the distributive and productive network.

The monitoring and communications of needs, expressed as a demand on stocks or required production, would be clear and readily known. The supply of some needs would take place within the local community, as for example with food production for local consumption, local building, maintenance and the running of local services. Other needs would be communicated to regional production units, For example, local building might require glass for housing which was produced regionally. A local need for glass would then be communicated through the distributive network and would pass to the regional glassworks. In its turn, the glassworks would have its own suppliers of the materials used in glass production, so the required quantities of these would then be passed on. This would be the sequence of communications through which a local need for glass would be transmitted to every unit involved in glass production within a region. Other needs would be communicated throughout the structure of production up to a world scale. Local food production might require tractors. Regional manufacture would produce and assemble the component parts of tractors for distribution to local communities. These would be required in a definite number and therefore a definite number of required component parts would also be known. Again, the tractor-producing plant would communicate these requirements to its own suppliers. Eventually this would extend to world production units which would be mining and processing the raw materials, such as metals, required for tractor production.

This could be a self-adjusting system of production for use.

What do we want?

A common complaint is that we spend a lot of time knocking capitalism and rival candidates - all well and good, people say, capitalism is terrible, but what are you saying should be done about it?

Thus, having spent the first few weeks of capmaigning concentrating on the failings of other parties, I'm going to spend the rest publishing excerpts from our literature on why we think socialism is the solution.

To begin with, and this is relevent to the comments on yesterday's post, an excerpt from Socialism as a Practical Alternative, on democracy.

Under capitalism, governments, through their control of the state machinery, lay down the law and impose it on the whole of society, if necessary by force.[...] With socialism this dominant feature of the structure will be immediately abolished. The power of the state, which operates from the concentration of centralized power in the hands of governments, will be replaced by a fully democratic system through which decisions will flow from the broadest possible social base to represent the views of the whole community.

A democratic system of decision-making would require that the basic unit of social organisation would be the local community which could elect is delegates to a local council which could be given the responsibility for local administration. If, for example, local communities in socialism began by operating from the basis of the existing structure of district councils in England, this would give 332 local communities. This would be a democratic development of the existing procedures for electing local councils which could become the basic means for dealing with day-to-day local issues. Then, regional councils could provide organisation through which decisions affecting wider populations could be made at the regional level. Similarly, global decisions could be made by delegates elected to a world council.

Don't vote for what you don't want

Two people commented on our election manifesto we posted yesterday, asking in effect what do we think they should do where there is no socialist candidate standing, as in Lewisham (sorry, Anomymous, we're not standing there or anywhere else in London, we just don't have the resources) and in the mayoral election. Basically, we never tell people how to vote but let them decide for themselves. We just say what we'll be doing: either abstaining or (better) writing "WORLD SOCIALISM" across our ballot paper.

The logic of this position is explained in the editorial in this month's Socialist Standard (see http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/standardonline/index.html ):

Don't vote for what you don't want

We don't have to accept the self-fulfilling prophecy that "capitalism is the only game in town".

Imagine that all the people in the world made a set of informed, collective and democratic decisions about what kind of system would best meet their needs and solve global problems. Would they choose a money and property system that forced nearly half their total number to try to survive on a dollar a day? Or would they prefer to organise production and distribution of goods and services on the basis of what they need, without the profit system?

Would they, if and when given the chance to vote, do so overwhelmingly for candidates who -- whatever labels they attached to themselves or their parties -- stood for the continuation of some form of capitalism? Or would they elect delegates, from among their own number, to initiate the process of setting up and running a fundamentally new form of world society, a system based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution?

Would they embrace nationalism, involving armed forces paid to kill and injure other groups ("the enemy") with whom they have no quarrel? Or would they regard themselves and behave as citizens of the world, regardless of any geographical, cultural or philosophical attachments they may feel?

Would they divide themselves into classes, rich and poor, leaders and led, privileged and unprivileged, dominant and submissive, superordinate and subordinate, master and servant, powerful and powerless? Or would they, despite individual differences in abilities, personalities, interests, tastes, likes and dislikes, think and behave as members of the one human race, not perfect, sometimes fallible or irrational, but never deliberately cruel or anti-social?

Whatever words they use to explain or sloganise their ideologies, all parties except the Socialist Party stand for the continuation of some form of capitalism. From their point of view, a vote for their own candidate is best; a vote for one of their competitors is second best. Not voting could be a worrying sign of alienation from the system. Worst of all, a vote for the Socialist Party candidate -- or, where none stands, writing "Socialism" across the ballot paper -- would indicate the beginning of a resolution to replace capitalism with socialism.

Don't forget:

Before the first Labour government came into power, and when some members and supporters used to profess socialism as their eventual goal, there was some justification for the argument that: "The Labour hell is one degree cooler than the Tory hell." So "Choose the lesser of two evils."

Today, after successive administrations of the same system, the difference in temperature is too small to get excited about. The same applies to others lining up to be our government -- the Lib Dems, etc. We don't want them and we don't need them.

Support for socialism isn't a matter of campaigning to make the poor rich in today's terms of material consumption. That wouldn't be environmentally sustainable. The socialist aim isn’t even equality in the sense of sameness, like amounts of work contributed or goods and services consumed. Socialism is essentially about social equality, encouraging and enabling every human being to realise their full potential as giver and taker, not buyer and seller, in the context of society itself moving towards reaching its full potential.