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1 Socialist Standard September 2021 Socialist Standard September 2021 1 Introducing the Socialist Party The Socialist Party advocates a society capitalism under a one-party dictatorship. where production is freed from the Both failures have given socialism a quite artificial constraints of profit and different -- and unattractive -- meaning: organised for the benefit of all on the state ownership and control. As the basis of material abundance. It does not Socialist Standard pointed out before both have policies to ameliorate aspects of courses were followed, the results would the existing social system. It is opposed more properly be called state capitalism. to all war. The Socialist Party and the World The Socialist Standard is the combative Socialist Movement affirm that capitalism monthly journal of the Socialist Party, is incapable of meaningful change in published without interruption since the interests of the majority; that the 1904. In the 1930s the Socialist Standard basis of exploitation is the wages/money explained why capitalism would not system. The Socialist Standard is proud collapse of its own accord, in response to to have kept alive the original idea of widespread claims to the contrary, and what socialism is -- a classless, stateless, continues to hold this view in face of the wageless, moneyless society or, defined notion’s recent popularity. Beveridge’s of the natural world can have limited positively, a democracy in which free and welfare measures of the 1940s were effect and run counter to the nature of equal men and women co-operate to viewed as a reorganisation of poverty and capitalism itself. produce the things they need to live and a necessary ‘expense’ of production, and Gradualist reformers like the Labour enjoy life, to which they have free access Keynesian policies designed to overcome Party believed that capitalism could be in accordance with the principle ‘from slumps an illusion. Today, the journal transformed through a series of social each according to their abilities, to each exposes as false the view that banks measures, but have merely become routine according to their needs’ create money out of thin air, and explains managers of the system. The Bolsheviks why actions to prevent the depredation had to be content with developing Russian 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 September 2021 Editorial Divide and Rule No one can deny that many young workers pensions, where the state pension would insult to the UK’s young people’, 1 July) are having a tougher time of it. Many see rise each year either by the inflation rate, makes similar arguments for abolishing the their future prospects fading and find average wage growth, or 2.5 percent, triple lock on pensions, but, unlike Heffer, themselves in low-paid positions or on whichever was the highest. To top it all, acknowledges there are poor pensioners, zero-hours contracts. With the relentless in 2016, the vote to leave the European who, she believes, should receive higher rise in property prices, even relatively well- Union, supported disproportionately by pension credits. paid young workers are priced out of the older voters, deprived younger workers of These divide and rule tactics draw property market and have to make do with access to job opportunities in the EU job attention away from the real cause of paying extortionate rents. Those who have market and the Erasmus Programme, an young peoples’ woes, which is not the been through the higher education system EU student exchange programme. selfishness of older people hogging are facing crippling debts. In the current Simon Heffer in the Sunday Telegraph society’s wealth, but from their position pandemic, many have lost their jobs in the (‘Natural Justice demands an end to the as workers in the capitalist system hospitality sector. triple lock’, 1 August) states that due to the itself. The children and grandchildren of It is no wonder that young workers feel pandemic, earnings could rise by 8 percent capitalists, such as Jeff Bezos or Warren that the economic system is rigged against next year and that this would create an Buffet, do not face the same problems them. This has given some capitalist media increase of £3 billion in the annual tax bill as mentioned above. Capitalism is based commentators the opportunity to pit the to pay for the rise in the state pension on the exploitation of the working class younger generation against the older one. necessitated by the triple lock, He then who produce the wealth of the privileged While ‘Generation Rent’ struggles to pay argues that it would be young people, with minority owning class, which leaves their rents, the baby boomers, who own their own financial struggles, who would them in relative or absolute poverty. It property, bask in their rising values. The have to shoulder this burden. So, for the also generates economic crises, such older generations benefited from free sake of fairness, the triple lock should as the 2008-2009 downturn, which further education which was taken away be scrapped. In fact, the tax burden falls disproportionately affects younger workers, by a Labour government run by baby not on the working class, (whether old especially those who have just left school boomers in the 1990s. The Conservative/ or young), but on the capitalist class. The or university. Workers of all ages have LibDem Coalition government of 2010- suspicion here is that this is where Heffer’s an interest in abolishing capitalism and 2015 tripled student tuition fees while concern really lies. Polly Toynbee in the establishing socialism. also introducing a triple lock on old age Guardian (‘The pension triple-lock is an 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 September 2021 3 Say It Loud IF YOU want to take a pessimistic view exploiting the shit out of COP26 by hiking In fact, soviet communism is no of humanity’s future, there’s no shortage their rents to astronomical levels during alternative at all, it’s a travesty. We said so of evidence. And because the news cycle the conference period, in a bid to make in 1918, mere months into Lenin’s coup feeds primarily off bad news, it’s the big bucks out of a climate emergency. d’état, but it seems our voice is not loud easiest evidence to find. You have to look a Greedy, grasping bastards indeed, but this enough to reach Monbiot’s mighty ear. bit harder for the positive news stories to is capitalist logic at work. If you’ve got a Meanwhile he’s wrestling with a mishmash back an optimistic view, but they do exist. commodity that’s in high demand, you of trendy behavioural and economic models Like the story about the massive charge the maximum price you can get for that stand little chance of being put into expansion of sharing app Olio, where it, and never mind scruples. practice and in any case don’t address people go out of their way to provide So it turns out that many climate the core problem, the existence of private free stuff for people who are in need. activists from around the world who want property and markets, which results in a Volunteers collect unsold produce from to go to Glasgow to demonstrate their tiny class who own all the world’s resources Tesco supermarkets, list it all in an app, and belief in the market system’s supposed and enrich themselves by impoverishing the then superintend the hand-out process as magical ability to clean up its own mess, rest of us and the planet. local people come in to collect whatever is now can’t afford it because of the normal People just can’t say the unsayable, available (bbc.in/3goRIQa). operations of the market system. which is that we have to abolish private What’s in it for Tesco? Cynically, one Fortunately, not everyone is a greedy, property and markets, and dispossess the might say it’s good optics, as they are grasping bastard, even when capitalist capitalist class. Why can’t they say that? In being seen to care, plus it saves them the logic tells them they ought to be. A Monbiot’s case, as a regular writer for the costs of disposal. Less cynically, they are to network of Glasgow house owners has Guardian newspaper, he must be aware some extent undermining their own profits come together to express solidarity with that the Guardian is known for dumping by giving stuff away, so this is at least a climate activists by offering them very writers who say anything too radical, as it concrete act that is a world away from the cheap accommodation over the course dumped comedian Jeremy Hardy and even empty rhetoric and vapid virtue signalling of the November climate summit (bbc. award-winning journalist John Pilger (bit. of most capitalist companies. in/3mnSIbc). There aren’t enough of ly/37ZYFme). Science journalists are in a What’s in it for the volunteers? A nice them, and they’re already oversubscribed, similar position, depending on employers feeling, presumably, of doing some good but still it’s some comfort to know that, for their wages. Ditto academics. Ditto social in the world, to counteract all the loudly destroy whatever else it may, capitalism media influencers. No one can speak their advertised bad stuff.
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