Socialist Standard March 2021 1 Introducing the Socialist Party The Socialist Party advocates a society developing Russian capitalism under a where production is freed from the one-party dictatorship. Both failures have artificial constraints of profit and given socialism a quite different -- and organised for the benefit of all on the unattractive -- meaning: state ownership basis of material abundance. It does not and control. As the Socialist Standard have policies to ameliorate aspects of pointed out before both courses were the existing social system. It is opposed followed, the results would more properly to all war. be called state capitalism. The Socialist Standard is the combative The Socialist Party and the World monthly journal of the Socialist Party, Socialist Movement affirm that capitalism published without interruption since is incapable of meaningful change in 1904. In the 1930s the Socialist Standard the interests of the majority; that the explained why capitalism would not basis of exploitation is the wages/money collapse of its own accord, in response to system. The Socialist Standard is proud widespread claims to the contrary, and to have kept alive the original idea of continues to hold this view in face of the what socialism is -- a classless, stateless, notion’s recent popularity. Beveridge’s of the natural world can have limited wageless, moneyless society or, defined welfare measures of the 1940s were effect and run counter to the nature of positively, a democracy in which free and viewed as a reorganisation of poverty and capitalism itself. equal men and women co-operate to a necessary ‘expense’ of production, and Gradualist reformers like the Labour produce the things they need to live and Keynesian policies designed to overcome Party believed that capitalism could be enjoy life, to which they have free access slumps an illusion. Today, the journal transformed through a series of social in accordance with the principle ‘from exposes as false the view that banks measures, but have merely become each according to their abilities, to each create money out of thin air, and explains routine managers of the system. The according to their needs’ why actions to prevent the depredation Bolsheviks had to be content with All original material is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales (CC BY-ND 2.0 UK) licence. 2 Socialist Standard March 2021 Editorial Resistance is not enough A decade has passed since a tidal wave police cracked down heavily on the Aung San Suu Kyi. Notwithstanding their of revolt swept across the Middle East demonstrators. particular flaws – Navalny is a Russian and North Africa washing away autocratic On 1 February in Myanmar, the military, nationalist and harbours anti-immigrant regimes in its wake. That this happened after alleging that voter fraud had helped positions, and Suu Kyi, while in power, seemed to have not only taken the local the National League of Democracy (Aung has defended the state persecution dictators by surprise, but also the rest San Suu Kyi’s party) to secure a landslide of the Rohingya Muslims – they are of the world. And yet it should not have victory in the November 2020 general both committed to upholding the done. After years of state repression election, deposed and detained the capitalist system which is the source of combined with economic hardship that elected civilian rulers, including Suu Kyi, workers’ social problems. They would had been made worse by the 2008 and declared direct military rule for one be overseeing the exploitation of the financial crisis, working people had year. In response mass protests have working class. had enough and rose up to struggle for erupted, which have elicited a severe Sadly, the uprising of the Arab Spring political democracy. High unemployment, crackdown by the police and the military. ten years ago did not bring about especially among young workers, and Public servants, health workers, teachers democracy for the workers. With the poor economic prospects were the and other workers have gone on strike in possible exception of Tunisia, autocratic tinderbox. The suicide of a street seller in an attempt to end military rule and restore dictatorships still prevail in the region. Tunisia was the spark. civilian government. This does not mean that workers should We can see similar dynamics recently What is common to these protests give up the political fight. On the contrary, working themselves out in Russia and is the deteriorating living standards we urge workers to struggle not just for Myanmar. In January, Alexey Navalny, a suffered by workers which has been political democracy but for a fundamental long-time opponent of Putin, returned exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic change in how we organise society. What to Russia after being treated for nerve and popular disenchantment with the is needed is a class-conscious working agent poisoning in Berlin. He was corrupt capitalist rulers who have been class to organise globally to capture arrested and imprisoned on a charge of accumulating greater amounts of wealth. political power democratically to rid the violating his parole conditions relating We can only sympathise with these planet of capitalism and establish genuine to a suspended sentence he received in workers struggling to obtain democratic socialism, a worldwide society without 2014 for embezzlement. This sparked rights. However, we believe it would national borders, money or social classes, rallies and protests across Russia. Some be a mistake for them to put their trust where everyone can participate equally have descended into violence as the in political leaders such Navalny and and enjoy free access to social wealth. Subscription Orders should be sent to the address above. Rates: One year subscription (normal rate) £15. One year subscription (low/unwaged) £10. Europe rate £40 (Air mail). Rest of the world £40 (surface). Voluntary supporters subscription £20 or more. Cheques payable to ‘The Socialist Party of Great Britain’. Socialist Standard March 2021 3 Speaking of tongues A YEAR ago most of us were hearing terms in the wrong direction. Meanwhile the mean anything in culture-bound capitalism. like lockdown, social distancing and furlough appearance of the weird composite Most obviously, you’d expect vocabulary for the first time. Since then the pandemic form ‘musicien.ne.s’ and ‘lecteur.rice.s’ changes. For instance, we may see words has spawned a host of new coinages, such as (readers) is creating a Gallic backlash like property, money, market, trade, buy Miley (as in Miley Cyrus, geddit?), covidiot or against what is known as ‘inclusive and sell fall out of use entirely, along with morona (someone who behaves as if there’s writing’, with the French Prime Minister an entire lexicon of financial, business, no Miley), quarantini (home martini) fresh in 2017 imposing a ban on its use in state judicial and military terms. The words steal from your isobar (well-stocked booze fridge), documents. It may well be true, or at and robbery would surely disappear, and zoom bombing, coronials (babies conceived least plausible, that male-biased language hopefully murder and rape along with them. in lockdown), and spendemic (the increase forms tend to create male-biased social As for gendered noun classes, it’s not hard in online shopping). paradigms, but structurally there’s a limit to envisage socialist society dropping them. These neologisms probably won’t last, to what you can do. Gendered noun And in a society where time isn’t money but they do showcase the effervescent wit classes run through a huge number of and you don’t have to watch the clock, and ingenuity of the working class. People languages like Brighton through a stick of is it a stretch to suggest that even tenses like language. It’s not just a tool, it’s a toy. rock. To make them gender-neutral you’d might simplify or even disappear? It’s not And it can be a political hot potato. have to dismantle the languages and impossible. Mandarin Chinese manages quite Just last December it was reported that rebuild them from the ground up. well without tenses (It is cold yesterday). Germany is going to revert to its pre-1940s That’s not going to happen, on purpose How might this realistically come about? phonetic spelling table (equivalent to anyway. People with good pattern- By revolution, of course, not reform. English call-signs Alpha, Bravo, Charlie), recognition skills often learn to like the Consider what happens if people become which the Nazis had altered as being forms and structures of languages for their more mobile, as is quite possible when ‘too Jewish’. Now Germans will have own sake, and can become prim sticklers location and occupation cease to be a ball to remember to say Samuel instead of over its rules, decrying the slightest and chain, and where available transport Siegfried, Zacharias for Zeppelin, Nathan deviation as an offence of ignorance systems are free at the point of use. Suppose for Nordpol, and David for Dora. It’s kind or heresy. But language was always a you are a sixteen-year-old and you want to of funny, in a dark sort of way. matter of ignorance and heresy. People go off and see the world. There’s nothing Not that we should laugh. Jack went up the spelt things the way they sounded, and to stop you travelling, perhaps to every hill with their bucket while Jill fell down and frequently misheard. Un napron became country in the world, helping out with the broke their crown. Er, whose bucket, whose an apron because the Saxons wrote menial jobs wherever you fetch up, and crown? Apparently it doesn’t matter.