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Can There be Good as well as Bad Capitalism?Write-up by CM of the discussion, 10 April, which followed RC’s introduction. (See also PS by DP below.)
Present: CD, CM, DP, JP, JX, KX, MX, PH, RC, SE
Notes on RC’s introduction:
Socialists ask this question and deliberate on our ideas about what to do about it. German Democratic Party, Eduard Bernstein said reforms are important and this led to the beginning of Social Democracy. What is capitalism? The key is that the means of production are privately owned. A limited company can be owned by anyone but not by everyone. In primitive societies the means of production are owned by the culture. What is the problem with this? Adam Smith said capitalism was a good thing as it resulted in increased wealth in Western society. With the division of labour, workers can do more than they normally do. So private ownership results in more wealth, in advancement. If surpluses are available it makes possible pensions and the welfare state. Marx wrote about one class exploiting the majority class: maximum output for minimum wages. Is it possible to have a good rather than a bad employer/capitalist?, to be a model employer and maintain that despite shareholder pressure? A contemporary example is fair trade, where consumers pay more for their coffee and sugar. Better prices and working conditions are sustainable, not striving for the lowest market price, getting more control. Capitalism thus helps to develop Third World countries, so is this a good model? Do Co-ops provide an alternative to capitalism?, a model to replace traditional capitalism? Do they improve how we work? Perhaps they don’t go far enough. Consumer co-ops provide a better deal for the consumer but do they address the conditions in the work place and society in general? Returning to the socialist ideas of Bernstein, is it possible to manage capitalism properly? Is there a Third Way? Arsene Wenger, Arsenal manager has said ‘In the modern world there is no difference between socialists and the right-wing. There is one way to lead the world, with being as social as possible.’ But the exploitation of labour is fundamental – the production of surplus value. Even the public sector seeks ways to reduce labour costs. State controlled capitalism is operated just like private capitalism.
Discussion
CD: Arsene Wenger may not have meant quite what he said since English is not his first language.
MX: Can you have capitalist aims and socialist aims at the same time? The predominant aim is to make a profit.
JP: Corporations like to present themselves as having socialist or environmentalist aims, but this is for PR only.
DP: Looking back at feudal times, prior to capitalism, I’d be dead anyway due to the low life expectancy. Capitalism in the early stages had a progressive side, according to classic marxism, as it increased potential and wealth and could sustain a larger population. The progressive side is still exploitative – one of the major features. The result is destruction, exploitation, and in the modern context capitalists compete destructively. Bernstein was criticised by Rosa Luxemburg in ‘Reform or Revolution’ on gradualism which leads to less and less support for socialism – which is just not quite as nasty. There has been quite a shift historically.
JP: Privatisation of state owned industries and infrastructure …
CD: MRSA in hospitals is the result of contracting out cleaning, where the jobs are skimped, not done as a public duty. Take the issue of rail privatisation which has been a disaster, because it is not there to serve the public. There are underground Victorian gas pipes and no commitment to replace them.
CM: Capitalism has to be regulated, even Adam Smith saw that, particularly to prevent monopolies.
SE: Writing in the 18 th Century, Smith had doubts about human nature and benificence, so he doubted the people who controlled capitalism, hence advocating regulation and control.
RC: ‘Good’ capitalists would go under; they cannot be that nice.
KX: This is the fundamental question, Can capitalism be good? The answer leads to our attitude to Revolution. Bernstein typifies the idea that capitalism can be reformed. Rosa L’s critique was about capitalism being progressive compared to feudalism. Marx believed so because it developed productive forces which would lead to communism, and created a world working class. By World War I capitalism had developed all that was needed for a fundamental change in the system. The Welfare State is contradictory. Since the time that was conceived there has been war, until now. Capitalism has nothing to offer humanity. In the 19th century when it was expanding there was wholesale slaughter of aborigines. If capitalism has nothing to offer, what do we do? Superficially, it would seem, socialism is dead, there is nothing but capitalism. There are no individual capitalists which communists are for or against. The system accommodates all sorts, eg Anita Roddick who is supposed to be ethical. For the ICC privatisation or nationalisation makes no difference; they are all exploiting you.
JX: Privatisation, Victorian gas pipes, the infrastructure is falling apart. Can capitalism afford that infrastructure? Billions into the economy. Privatisation was supposed to undo the neglect by the State. Same economic constraints. Things like Body Shop and co-ops compete on the world market, surplus value, commodity production.
PH: What is the alternative? 150 years ago the village would get together to gather the harvest. Rapaciousness of capitalism not right either. How would we build a computer without corporations?
MX: Look at changing system on a global scale.
PH: Contraction and conversion. As other countries develop we have to contract, eg eat les meat.
RC: Do we need to know what the new system will be?
CD: Sweden Social Democracy. Not pro-Cuba because of the poor human rights.
CM: Disagree with DP about feudalism being so wretched. Hammond, The Village Labourer: 1760-1832 (London: Longmans, 1911) suggests life was good before Enclosures – ideology of capitalism presents change as progressive. Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘The Deserted Village’ describes the change due to the Enclosures as terrible. Other poets romanticised that time, perhaps. John Gray’s Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Dearth of Utopia ( London: Allen Lane, 2007) questions beliefs in progress being inevitable, saying that it derives from same ideas as does religious millenarianism. Socialist future needs to be a mixture of old ways and new technology. Participative democracy at local level rather than representative democracy, which is obviously a sham. There are movements in that direction: Transition Towns in response to Peak Oil, and SPAN promoting community growing. Rising interest in food security, can Britain feed itself? Yes, since 60m people could be fed on 60m acres, but not 10m cattle etc. as well. Potential of vegan-organics. Land degradation not generally known about, focus on climate change, but even there, the explosion of pioneer agriculture in 1860-90 in N. America, Australia, NZ and S. Africa released more CO2 than did all the burning of fossil fuels in the century from 1850-1950. (John Gribben, Future Weather (Penguin, 1982) p.185)
CD: In 2080 we shall have run out of oil.
JX: TVs and villages. Can’t go back to village communities. TVs contain components from all over the world.
CM: Produce basic needs locally...
JX: Feudal model and global economy... Basis for internationalism... No blueprints. Need to guard against lure of primativism. It is not just a matter of life expectancy, there was no literacy and was very hierarchical, with backbreaking labour.
RC: John Gray thinks improvement is a Christian thing. But every society has had a class which was exploited, before feudalism, slaves. If we ‘return’ to local democracy, what structure would make sure that we don’t get that inequality?
CD: In India there was local democracy.
KX: Must leap to the defence of William Morris – he didn’t romanticise. The worker in feudalism built something. Morris saw capitalism destroying people, but didn’t advocate a return to feudalism, but also was against metropolitanism, not massive towns as in Russia. Marx didn’t rubbish feudalism – recognising they did have days off. Struggling for communism. World without war, nations dream long, long time. Go beyond. Spartans. Peasants. Anabaptists, Levellers. How to get there. Only capitalism gives the conditions. Marx made clear it would be progress at a price. Is that possibility there? In 1917 there was the possibility, but that was destroyed so we have suffered since. Russia did show the possibilities: soviets, mass strike, working class uniting itself, and this was in Germany and Hungary, soviets and mass struggle around the world. The German revolution of 1918-23 has been lost sight of, massive struggles. Germany was the biggest industrial country of the world. The working class was smashed. Workers Councils. Red army and air force. Confrontations in the streets. It took five years to destroy that. Democracy and trades unions – idea that it was possible to reform capitalism. the bourgeoisie hides that from us. Lenin talked about the need to dream, but the bourgeoisie destroys the working class’s idea of the dream.
DP: Trotsky’s My Life, class war rhetoric. That period. China is becoming the largest economy on the planet. Tibet is feudal. Credit crisis. US going into recession, light or long it will hit the rest of the Western world, perhaps held up by China’s prominent position. Indicators of poverty suggest it is the worst ever, when Bernstein predicted improvement. Future world getting worse decade by decade with the exception of China, which has bucked the trend, and has 9 ½ % growth.
CD: Every civilisation has collapsed, the Ottoman Empire only 100 years ago.
JX: On the current crisis, China is interesting. We’re buying from China, so its success is created by our debt. If the US economy goes down the tubes it would take China with it. China may be the biggest economy in an atmosphere of global decline, but the wealth in China is owned by a minority, it’s all based on slave labour.
CD: Export processing zones.
MX: Supermarket jobs at minimum wage.
CD: Body Shop advertising has been linked to issues: AIDS and domestic violence, but it still sells their products.
RC: Ethical consuming is a response to guilt, and there is some benefit; if we have a choice, why not do it? But not as a model.
JX: This sells the idea that we have choices as consumers. We actually spend more time producing. Workers do know they are under attack – bills are going up and real wages going down, even though they don’t use terms like working class or capitalism.
PH: I went to Butlins. If the working class is happy with that…
KX: The point of fair trade is to promote the idea that everyone is a citizen.
RC: It’s possible that the individual can make a moral choice.
JP: Going back to ‘good and bad capitalism?’ Are we exploited or not? TUs are organisations for doing something about it, give people the hope of something better. But there is anger and resentment at other working class people. There are different levels of making things better: join a TU, make ethical choices such as fair trade, recycle.
SE: In the late 1970s there was industrial unrest. Everyone downed tools and worked to rule. There was a era like that, but this was dismantled after the TU Act and Thatcherism.
CM: When I was in the SPGB we were told not to engage in reformism, or anything to do with improving any part of the system. An exception was made for TU activity directed at improving wages and conditions. It’s always seemed to me that there is a contradiction there – that TUs are as much about reform as any other pressure group activity, say.
KX: There is a contradiction between wanting to to something and falling into the idea of reform. The working class has to break out of TUs because TU ideology is about improving capitalism. Workers have to struggle as a class. It’s not possible to improve our position within capitalism. Since 1968 the situation for the working class has got worse, yet we’re told we have to do things through unions. We mustn’t romanticise the 60s and 70s but 68 showed that the working class was back. There were 10 million workers on the streets. Not only in France, also Italy, Poland, wild cats in Britain and US, a world-wide explosion of anger.
RC: TUs are about tactics, history and so on. On a day-to-day basis we find in situations, struggles which continue day on day. Vision is right but we struggle as we speak so create imperfect solutions.
KX: Unions can’t defend us. What’s an effective struggle?
CD: In our union, we can get non-union members involved, speak up for people in disciplinaries. Butt kicking. Recovering from Thatcherite revolution. TUs are service providers.
KX: Examples of struggle, in Spain, threat of pay cuts, workers not TU but have mass assemblies and talk every day. German Nokia factory closed, workers in the area showed solidarity.
JX: Question of whether unions are a constraint on that struggle. Conflict with union. Most effective struggle was with Devon and Cornwall Police 2-3 years ago.
RC: Unions are of different types, not all the same, even within the TUC mode. Unions are not always a block.
RC: In conclusion, we’ve established that capitalism can’t be reformed. What we do is more problematic, an ongoing thing for all of us. It’s good that everyone’s got different ideas.
Comments, corrections and clarification welcome! Please put these on our discussion forum.
I thought that it was a very interesting meeting and I would like to thank R[C] for his introduction and C[M] for putting the discussion on the web
site. I have added to the list to two comrades who were at the meeting (one a member of the ICC) - so welcome to them!
cheers
D[P] |