Socialist Standard April 2010

Socialist Standard magazine April 2010 - Editorial – ‘Who Are ‘We’?’ (media assumptions) Articles - ‘How would you like your capitalism served?’ ‘Election Madness’ ‘Bigotry - as good as gold’ (Re. Ian Paisley, Ulster Unionist) ‘The Haitian Tragedy’ (2008 debt repayments exceeded spending on health, education and the environment). ‘The Poverty of Economics’ ‘What is Common Ownership?’ ‘Michael Foot – an Example of Principles?’ The Socialist Party election leaflet Regular features - Pathfinders (science / technology) – Material World – ‘A Class Interest or a Human Interest?’ Pieces Together – news cuttings from mainstream media Cooking the Books 1 (economics) – ‘More Pain Ahead’ Cooking the Books 2 - ‘A Nobel Prize for Marx?’ 50 Years Ago – ‘A Message for Aldermaston Marchers’ Voice From the Back - selected news items Free Lunch – cartoon Book Reviews – ‘The Social Economy’, by Ash Amin ‘No Way To Run An Economy’, by Graham Turner ‘Bourgeois Political Economy in Shambles’, by Stefan Engel

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hielo999 (2010-04-05)

Socialism has only killed 100 million people in the 20th century. Give it another try.
After all, your smarter than all those other people, right?

carlsub39 (2010-04-05)

Thanks for the comment. However, if you took the time to read the magazine you might learn that the socialism promoted has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the 'socialism' of the former Soviet Union etc - nothing at all to do with the mainstream view of what socialism means. Socialism as promoted by this magazine has quite simply never existed yet, and can not do so unless a large majority of people actually understand it and want it.

hielo999 (2010-04-05)

LOL, thank you for proving my last point, it never fails (A degree in history has taught me this), It will work, THIS time, because no one has ever done socialism this way before.
Sad. Read a smattering of history, then come back and discuss it.

carlsub39 (2010-04-05)

Hi,
Well, please explain how I have proved your point. (B.t.w. it?s not particularly relevant but I also have a degree in history and an M.A. in International politics. It?s also quite possible that my Dad is bigger than yours, but hey what does that matter? ;>))
I made no suggestion at all as to being smarter than anyone else - it?s simply a question of knowing precisely what ideas are being put forward. I welcome criticism of the politics contained in this torrent, but the idea that I should have to defend politics I don?t agree with is obviously not acceptable.
So, back to your first post ? you said socialism is responsible for 100 million deaths last century. I don?t accept that socialism has ever existed. Why? Because this torrent ? and myself ? promote socialism as meaning a classless, stateless, moneyless society, a democratic commonwealth of genuine common ownership - which we think can only come about through a large majority understanding it and wanting it. And implementing it. In other words, it can not be brought about by an elite ? a vanguard, such as in the Soviet Union. I?m very well aware of how ?socialism? gets defined in the U.S. and elsewhere, and the political tradition I belong to has contested this for over a hundred years.

hielo999 (2010-04-05)

You my naive friend, simply fall into the same trap as all socialists before you, you do not take into account human nature. Your utopia will crash and burn on the shoals of man looking out for himself.
Unless you have created a new race of man, with ant like or honeybee like instincts.
It is so simple, yet socialists always get that point wrong.

carlsub39 (2010-04-05)

Naivety? No, just a realisation that collective provision is the best way to ensure an individual?s interests are met. So I?d call it enlightened self-interest, because on the contrary socialists *do* take account of human nature. We all need to eat, drink, be sheltered from the elements, have social interaction, etc. Beyond that, what is considered ?human nature? is just how people will or may react to the context in which they find themselves. We all have the capacity to behave in a variety of ways, and how we do so will be influenced by the type of society we grow up in. In a society where a tiny minority have ownership / control over the earth's resources - and all our productive endeavours are geared towards making profits for this minority - it's hardly surprising that war, greed and corruption appear. And yet every single day the vast bulk of humanity behaves in a reasonable way to their fellows - not that the media will point this out for us. Not that we are trained to see what is before our eyes.
(If that wasn't the case, b.t.w. society would simply collapse. We naturally co-operate all the time).
And if by ?utopia? you mean something impractical, well consider that humanity has long since reached the point where we have the resources and technology to make a socialist society possible. We already have the material basis.
Happy Easter

hielo999 (2010-04-05)

Why is it that the Great Leaders and their henchmen, popularly known as the Socialist Power Structure, always seem to be well fed, while the people who have to toil for them, always appear starved?
You are espousing a failed idea, it's ok, smarter people than yourself fell for the great lie also.
I gather, when the great utopia is enacted, I will be one of the first against the wall, as the beaches of utopia are made on the bones of the uncooperative.
People like to own stuff. The one downfall of such a grandiose idea. And it gets every socialist state (Well, except yours, because you are going to do it better, different.)
I would LOL, except your ideas have killed so many innocents over the past 100 years that I can find no humor in such diseased thoughts.

hielo999 (2010-04-05)

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.

carlsub39 (2010-04-05)

Oh dear, you seem to have gone backwards now.
Ok, I?m well aware of the arguments you?re putting forward, but you don?t seem to have much idea what I?m putting forward. Interpreting you charitably, I might say that you regard me as at best naïve and foolish for promoting something which will inevitably lead to so many bad things. (Coincidentally ? or not ? those ?bad things? are inevitable and permanent features of, er, capitalism, whether it be the free market type or the state-capitalist type as in the former Soviet Union). Fair enough, we can debate these things, but the problem is you keep using utterly inappropriate and bogus evidence. You?re implying that my ideas have always led to disaster. The problem with that is that there have NO such attempts made. At all. No failures and no successes, because there have been no attempts.
I hope you can accept my honesty in telling you that the socialist tradition I belong to ? and which this torrent promotes ? has NO time for any leaders at all. The Party which publishes this magazine, for example, has no leaders and never has had in its 106 years history. We do not seek to lead anybody anywhere. If people democratically decide they want socialism, then so be it; we?ll have it. If they don?t, we won?t. End of.
Also, there is no such thing, in our view, as a ?socialist state? because that is simply a contradiction in terms. If the world is divided into nation states, it is NOT socialism.
If you work for wages, it is NOT socialism. If goods and services are sold in the market place with a view to profit, it is NOT socialism. If there is any kind of government *over* people, it is NOT socialism.
It?s odd that you bring up starvation, when it?s plain to see that in capitalism millions of people starve to death each year simply because they have no money with which to buy food. You may also have noticed that capitalist governments the world over have been and continue to be happy to put people up against the wall and shoot them ? or to send them to kill or be killed in wars for profits/resources etc. Socialism can only be democratic, or else it simply is not socialism.
Like I pointed out previously, all you are doing is holding me to account for something I give absolutely NO support to, and which has nothing to do with real socialism. Would you like me to use the same trick and accuse you of supporting all the countless millions of deaths caused by capitalism?
Sure, people like to own stuff, so what? In socialism you can keep your trousers and socks, but your toothbrush will be communal property. Is that ok? But seriously, if people have no money in capitalism, they can?t get stuff, or not enough of what they want and need. We are in a position of dependency because only a small minority of the world?s population have real or effective ownership of the earth?s resources.

hielo999 (2010-04-05)

Socialism doesn?t work. Its structure denies incentive, innovation and information, which in turn leads to dissatisfaction, waste, inefficiency and possible war. Free markets aren't perfect, but they are better. This conclusion should have been obvious to anyone before it was argued through. That it isn?t to so many is because of the incredible superficial appeal that state-socialism has (?it?s so much fairer? and ?wouldn?t the world be better??) coupled with the way in which its proponents almost like religious fanatics choose to ignore the facts ("it's never really been tried...". In the choice between Marxism and the market, how could one man possibly design an economic system that was superior to the silent intentions and commitments of countless people? A democracy isn?t only fairer than a dictatorship, it is more effective. The same holds for an economy.

hielo999 (2010-04-05)

Ever give a thought to the poor masses of this country? Of course, the masses aren't poor; on a global and historical scale, they're moderately wealthy and getting more so year on year. Socialism is grounded in the Nineteenth century concepts of poor exploited workers so let's pretend for the sake of argument that they really are poor and plentiful. Oh, and trapped there. There?s no fluidity in this imagining unlike the real world. The standard argument runs: how do we help these people? We give them wealth. Where do we get the wealth? From the government. Where does the government get the wealth? From the rich. Where do the rich get the wealth? From exploiting the poor. So the money runs a cycle back to its rightful source.
This is pure bunk. This isn't how the world works at all. The modern world has never really worked that way; it is just a fanciful construct that a few hardline left-wingers hold onto because the reality is more complicated and more optimistic. Indeed, people are starting to wake up a bit which is why the argument has subtly changed. Now, so we're told, the rich here exploit the poor abroad. Or is it the rich here exploiting future generations through a callous disregard for the environment? I forget. These arguments are the same in principle, as is the solution proffered, so lets treat the initial case as true. In that instant, it would make perfect sense for the poor/state to destroy the rich, absorb their assets and have the state employ the workers directly as a form of benign management. Nice on paper, murderous in practice. At last count Communism cost upwards of a hundred million lives in the last century.
State-socialism doesn't work and it never will. But let?s prove it by following this theory through. The government (representing the poor masses) sets about to run the economy. This is the only way the "factors of production", which the government took off the rich, can be made public. You can leave them to the market and private hands, or you can have the government do it. There is no third option. Now let?s see how the government does trying to run the economy.
Such an approach is doomed to failure for a number of reasons:
Complexity ? A national economy is overwhelmingly complex. For example, America has over 20,000 different job categories (ref). To co-ordinate these by central diktat is probably impossible and certainly so within a reasonable time-frame.
Imperfect information ? Any plan requires abundant and accurate information. So if we consider the production possibilities of an economy, these are best known by non-planners, e.g. factory bosses. Factory bosses, because there is no personal profit motive or personal ownership in this new system, have no reason to be accurate. They will state targets easily achieved rather than real possibilities. That way the risk of failure is removed. This information problem then carries over to the produced product. Planners can only check a minority of the produce. They can't know if it is the quality or quantity ordered. Factory bosses are thus encouraged to evade both these targets to make their workload easier. In a market, customers by nature of consumption check every product for quality. However, the feedback from customers to producers disappears in a planned economy. And here lies the final crushing problem of information: the central planner can never actually know what the public wants and how much of it. He can only guess and produce.
Contrast this with a free-market. Here all transactions are, by definition, free, rather than forced and directed, so accurate information about desires and intentions are passed at every stage. Similarly, because producers are financially rewarded for successful production, and especially the bosses who oversee and own said production, then there are strong incentives to perform at full capacity. Profit is not an inefficiency, it is an incentive. Profit helps, it doesn't hinder.
Pricing ? Prices in a free-market are jointly determined between the ability of a producer to supply and the

carlsub39 (2010-04-06)

To hielo999 -
Oh dear, you seem not to have read a word I?ve written have you?!
Why refer to State Socialism when I?ve made it plain that this is NOT what I?m referring to?
Then you mention ?dissatisfaction, waste, inefficiency and possible war? ? have you ever taken a look at the society you live in? Are you aware of the crisis that?s hitting workers at present? And so thanks to capitalism we have constant war due to quarrels over resources, primarily. Astonishing wastage caused by the profit system. Millions of people unemployed, or underemployed, millions more doing jobs which have no real value for humanity other than to maintain the profit system. Built-in obsolescence to ensure profits later on, overproduction/duplication of goods, it?s all there.
How much dissatisfaction do you want? Notice any crime in society? Any misuse of drugs? Any general unhappiness at the way the world is? Is this because we?re so happy to be part of such a system?
Again, you sneer at my point about socialism not having been tried. Now given that I?ve patiently explained you what I/this magazine means by socialism, it?s only fair for you to judge that *on its own merits*, and *not* by the perverted so-called ?socialism? that mainstream politics refers to. Ignore the labels for a moment, and look at the content.

And now you decide to quote whole chunks of similarly ignorant nonsense from ? what ? a mainstream economics textbook? All that angst directed at the kind of states that I?ve explicitly rejected!
?A democracy isn?t only fairer than a dictatorship, it is more effective. The same holds for an economy?
Again, read what?s been written thus far. Real democracy is infinitely superior to dictatorship, of course it is ? but you seem not to mind the dictatorship of capitalism, whereby a small minority own/control the earth?s resources. How democratic is that? What choice do we have when redundancies are handed out? What say do we have when factories are moved elsewhere to gain greater profit?

hielo999 (2010-04-06)

The blood is on your hands.
Hopefully the power you get is able to wash that away.

carlsub39 (2010-04-06)

Well, the irony is I share your opposition to the so-called ?Socialist States?. And on a final note, neither I nor the Party I?m in is seeking power. At all. We?re not that kind of party.

sataya (2010-05-10)

Hi hielo999, you're my hero. Can I ask you are you a scientist? And if so what did you receive your doctorate in. Is it cognitive psychology or genetics. Let me guess Linguistics. Well I'd love to read your research and thesis on human nature, I wasn't aware that we had figured it out using the scientific method. I am eager to read your research, I've been toiling away day and night studying neurobiology and for the life of me can't seem to find one clear way to define what human nature is. I mean I must not be a good researcher. But I am so excited about your research, please email me directly I can't wait to read your findings in a peer reviewed scientific journal. Look forward to your reply. Thanks.

sataya (2010-05-10)

Hey hielo999, just to let you know, I'm sure your thesis isn't full of grammatical errors because its been peer reviewed (duh?), in your writing you state the following:
"I would LOL, except your ideas have killed so many innocents over the past 100 years that I can find no humor in such diseased thoughts."
Notice you've written "except," but I think you meant to write "accept," see the grammatical difference. But you're really smart, I must sound like an idiot trying to explain simple grammar to you; I'm really sorry. But please send me your research.