A guardian article reposted below highlightes the absolute need to cut the working week. This is what i and many socialists have argued for some time. Now the capitalist think tankers including the new economics fondation who are afterall capitalist as they look for tinkering with the system which is reformist and leads back to the same idea of capitalism. But we as socialists have put forward this demand for yearsa nd years now.
A thinktank, the New Economics Foundation (NEF), which has organised the event with the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics, argues that if everyone worked fewer hours – say, 20 or so a week – there would be more jobs to go round, employees could spend more time with their families and energy-hungry excess consumption would be curbed. Anna Coote, of NEF, said: "There's a great disequilibrium between people who have got too much paid work, and those who have got too little or none."
She argued that we need to think again about what constitutes economic success, and whether aiming to boost Britain's GDP growth rate should be the government's first priority: "Are we just living to work, and working to earn, and earning to consume? There's no evidence that if you have shorter working hours as the norm, you have a less successful economy: quite the reverse." She cited Germany and the Netherlands.
Robert Skidelsky, the Keynesian economist, who has written a forthcoming book with his son, Edward, entitled How Much Is Enough?, argued that rapid technological change means that even when the downturn is over there will be fewer jobs to go around in the years ahead. "The civilised answer should be work-sharing. The government should legislate a maximum working week."
Many economists once believed that as technology improved, boosting workers' productivity, people would choose to bank these benefits by working fewer hours and enjoying more leisure. Instead, working hours have got longer in many countries. The UK has the longest working week of any major European economy.
Skidelsky says politicians and economists need to think less about the pursuit of growth. "The real question for welfare today is not the GDP growth rate, but how income is divided."
Parents of young children already have the right to request flexible working, but the NEF would like to see job-sharing and alternative work patterns become much more widespread, and is calling on the government to make flexible working a default right for everyone.
This is all very well but fails to take account of how capitalism works. They will not do things to benifit the workers if they can help it. Their only real drive is the blind relentless drive for profit and if it is told it may not result in such they will not go down that path. So while this study is good and makes a valid point i cannot see a capitalist country going down this road anytime soon. Anytime the working class has faced up to the ruling class and demanded a shorter working week it has met with huge resistance. It is something the ruling class oppose as it means workers have more time to organise politically and in trade unions leading to a fightback and a possible and hopeflly likely realisation of the bankrupt system we are forced to live under. It will also mean more workers in work which may help their productivity but it will have an affect on the way they can exploit workers. Having workers in work is not helpful for keeping wages down to increase their own surplus value. Which is unpaid labour as marx would put it.
So this kind of idea which as i see it is utopian under a capitalist system which lives on the highest form of exploitation it can get away with and makes its profits through the unpaid labour time the worker unwillingly gives to their boss in return for the nessesary wages to live and get by. Which is the subsisdence of labour as marx put it.
So this kind of society that is being proposed can only be realised under a socialsit democratic planned economy wheer the needs of ordinary people come before the need to make a profit
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Sunday, 8 January 2012
Friday, 6 January 2012
Where has working class pride gone ?
On twitter a guy i know quite well has been trying to start a trend with the tag #workingclasspride as we feel the idea that you can be proud to be working class and accepting of your class in society is not a bad thing.
Why am i saying all this you may think ?
well for years various polititians new labour and tory have been trying to convince us that we're all middle class now. The idea that you can progress and buy your own home and move up the social mobility ladder has been brought well and truely by many that they are not working class any longer.
I have news for them. Many will realise in the upcoming period that they are not as middle class as they think they are. As this crisis of capitalism deepens and we hit recessions and stagnation over years of slow growth or even contraction many people including those who consider themselves middle class will see their take home pay fall and their living standards slip.
But why is there this stigma about being working class ?
Owen Jones teh author in his brilliant book Chav's highlights it correctly. The working and lower class's have been demonised and pushed from pillar to post so it is seen in the media and everyday society now that it is something to be almost ashamed of to be working class and earn a low wage and get by.
Of course many people are still aspirational but for many that reality of moving on in life and out of being a worker is something the vast majority of us will never realise.
Only when the class based system has been abolished will we see people having true social mobility and being able to fulfill their true potential.
But for the ruling class's including successive governments distorting and masking the fact that more of us are working class than we care to know has worked well for them so far. To convince people they are doing ok and they have little to complain about has worked up till now. But as i say things will change. We are currently going through a transition phase i'd call it where people are starting to realise their potential power as a class. This will take a long time i feel but the opening up of struggles on the industrial plain with strikes and workers action will concentrate many peoples minds that we are the 99% that keeps the 1% going. Not by choice but by nature of the capitalist class based system which keeps us in our place.
But this hash tag on twitter we came up with is great it gets people thinking what is good about being working class and how we can start to feel a sense of solidarity and pride in who we are and face up to the realities of the class system. Only by doing this can we realise our full potential.
Why am i saying all this you may think ?
well for years various polititians new labour and tory have been trying to convince us that we're all middle class now. The idea that you can progress and buy your own home and move up the social mobility ladder has been brought well and truely by many that they are not working class any longer.
I have news for them. Many will realise in the upcoming period that they are not as middle class as they think they are. As this crisis of capitalism deepens and we hit recessions and stagnation over years of slow growth or even contraction many people including those who consider themselves middle class will see their take home pay fall and their living standards slip.
But why is there this stigma about being working class ?
Owen Jones teh author in his brilliant book Chav's highlights it correctly. The working and lower class's have been demonised and pushed from pillar to post so it is seen in the media and everyday society now that it is something to be almost ashamed of to be working class and earn a low wage and get by.
Of course many people are still aspirational but for many that reality of moving on in life and out of being a worker is something the vast majority of us will never realise.
Only when the class based system has been abolished will we see people having true social mobility and being able to fulfill their true potential.
But for the ruling class's including successive governments distorting and masking the fact that more of us are working class than we care to know has worked well for them so far. To convince people they are doing ok and they have little to complain about has worked up till now. But as i say things will change. We are currently going through a transition phase i'd call it where people are starting to realise their potential power as a class. This will take a long time i feel but the opening up of struggles on the industrial plain with strikes and workers action will concentrate many peoples minds that we are the 99% that keeps the 1% going. Not by choice but by nature of the capitalist class based system which keeps us in our place.
But this hash tag on twitter we came up with is great it gets people thinking what is good about being working class and how we can start to feel a sense of solidarity and pride in who we are and face up to the realities of the class system. Only by doing this can we realise our full potential.
Thursday, 5 January 2012
overtime, the quiet plan for profits for the boss's
Overtime is a idea which has become far more popular than ever. Some companies i know will have made staff redundant yet still get their existing staff to do overtime. Its maddness i tell you. But not as far as the capitalists are concerned. They rely on our surplus wage value to make their profits and overtime is no different. It is a way of adding value to a workers labour and getting away with paying them less than they should be. As Marx explained most workers who work a 8 hour day will have earned their wages within 4 hours. The rest of that is what the capitalist gets. Not only the profit from the product or service produced but also the wages that the worker does not get. There is a constant battle for that surplus value to be increased and this can come in the form of overtime, threats to work harder or incentives to work harder and faster.
But overtime which i'm focusing on here is something which has come to light in a recent TUC survey and research. I must say one of the better things teh TUC do some good solid sound research into the labour market and workers conditions. Its what they do next or not do i have the issue with. But there we go but in terms of overtime it has been found Last year workers gave bosses 2bn hrs of unpaid overtime-equivalent of 1m jobs-enough to eliminate youth unemployment in affect
This is staggering and not a mention of this by any of the major political capitalist parties. I wonder why ? maybe as they support this form of exploitation and gain by the rich ? But this sort of statistic when there is over 2.6 million people currently unemployed in Britain is a disgrace overtime shouldnt even being thought of when there are people desperate in many cases fora job at all.
The TUC says workers donated £29.2bn to economy thru 2bn hours unpaid overtime that is a huge amount. Where would those capitalists be without this sort of figure ? The fact that the boss's will use such tactics is further evidence that the ruling class will go to any lengths to get cheap labour power as a comodity as it is a comodity to keep their cost of production down to maximise their profits. Everything a capitalist does revolves around the motive for profit. I think we need to keep taht in mind when looking at the decisions the capitalists take and the polititians in westminster and Washington who support this rotten system.
But overtime which i'm focusing on here is something which has come to light in a recent TUC survey and research. I must say one of the better things teh TUC do some good solid sound research into the labour market and workers conditions. Its what they do next or not do i have the issue with. But there we go but in terms of overtime it has been found Last year workers gave bosses 2bn hrs of unpaid overtime-equivalent of 1m jobs-enough to eliminate youth unemployment in affect
This is staggering and not a mention of this by any of the major political capitalist parties. I wonder why ? maybe as they support this form of exploitation and gain by the rich ? But this sort of statistic when there is over 2.6 million people currently unemployed in Britain is a disgrace overtime shouldnt even being thought of when there are people desperate in many cases fora job at all.
The TUC says workers donated £29.2bn to economy thru 2bn hours unpaid overtime that is a huge amount. Where would those capitalists be without this sort of figure ? The fact that the boss's will use such tactics is further evidence that the ruling class will go to any lengths to get cheap labour power as a comodity as it is a comodity to keep their cost of production down to maximise their profits. Everything a capitalist does revolves around the motive for profit. I think we need to keep taht in mind when looking at the decisions the capitalists take and the polititians in westminster and Washington who support this rotten system.
Learning to think dialectically
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is, however, to change it." (Marx:‘Theses on Feuerbach’)
Was one of the most well known sayings by Karl Marx one of the greatest thinkers we've ever known.
I thought i'd look at how we look at things and the nature in which we do. Of course we are aware as socialists that in society we have two major class's at play. The ruling class who look to make their position permenant and continue to drive for profit.
There is also the working class which the majority of us who work for a living are and sell our labour power to liv e. The wealth that is created by this is creamed off by the ruling capitalist class.
Every ruling class throughout history has sought to give its regime the stamp of permanence. Never mind that there have been many forms of class rule including slavery and feudalism, today’s smug apologists for capitalism believe their way of running society is best and represents the Everest of achievement.
Tony Blair has sneeringly denounced Marxism as "an outmoded sectarian dogma." His sole contribution to philosophy has been to bestow credit on Anthony Gidden’s Third Way theory – the very old and discredited idea that there can be a middle way between the market and a planned economy. Most capitalist leaders believe they don’t require a philosophy. Making money is all that matters and they embrace the idea that if it works, it’s good. They are largely empirical in their approach, responding pragmatically to new challenges and rarely bothering to understand the relationship and connections between policies and events, cause and effect. In the spheres of politics and economics, theirs is the complacent philosophy of thinking that what has gone on before will continue largely unchanged into the future.
In the 1990s they were sure the dotcom boom would just keep on growing. When it crashed they were astonished, but learning nothing, scratched their heads, said they’d predicted it all along, then went back to the comfort-blanket of believing capitalism would get better again.
But as Marxists we look and see things differnt. We look at the world dialecticaly that everything is constantly changing and nothing ever stays the same. We look at what has created a situation to get to a certain point and where it is going next. We do not see things in their isolation as capitalists do where they see things in their moment as simply just being. We as materailists look at the differences and how that moment came into being.
Dialectical materialism, the basis of Marxist philosophy is still the most modern method of thought that exists.
As Leon Trotsky observed in Marxism in our Time: "…if the theory correctly estimates the course of development and foresees the future better than other theories, it remains the most advanced theory of our time, be it even scores of years old."
Marxism is the science of perspectives - looking forward to anticipate how society will develop - using its method of dialectical materialism to unravel the complex processes of historical development.
It endeavors to teach the working class to know itself and be conscious of itself as a class. Dialectical Materialism – the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought – was and remains a revolutionary philosophy, challenging capitalism in every sphere and substituting science for dreams and prejudice.
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Materialism versus Idealism.
"It is not consciousness that determines existence, but social existence that determines consciousness." (Marx & Engels: ‘The German ideology.’)
People have always sought to understand the world they lived in through observing nature and generalising their day-to-day experiences. The history of philosophy shows a division into two camps – Idealism and Materialism. The Idealists argue that thought (consciousness) is paramount and that people’s actions stem from abstract thought, devoid of history and material conditions.
It was Marx and Engels who first fully challenged this conception, explaining that an understanding of the world has to start not from the ideas which exist in people’s heads in any particular historical period, but from the real, material conditions in which these ideas arise.
Nature is historical at every level. No aspect of nature simply exists; it has a history, comes into being, changes and develops, is transformed, and, finally ceases to exist. Aspects of nature may appear to be fixed, stable, in a state of equilibrium for a shorter or longer time, but none is permanently so. For Trotsky: "Consciousness grew out of the unconscious, psychology out of physiology, the organic world out of the inorganic, the solar system out of the nebulae."
Marx and Engels based their materialism upon the ideas and practice of the great materialist philosophers of the 18th century. The ‘renaissance’ in the 16th century with its spread of cultural and scientific enquiry was both a cause of and an effect of the early growth of capitalism. In Engels’ words: "Science rebelled against the Church; the bourgeoisie could not do without science, and therefore had to join the rebellion."
Astronomy, mechanics, physics, anatomy and physiology were feverishly developed as separate disciplines, with the consequence that age-old beliefs in an inviolable god were rocked. Galileo for instance began to discover some of the physical properties of the universe and revealed that the planets revolved around the sun. Later, Newton’s theories of gravity and laws of physical motion uncovered the mysteries of movement and mechanics.
The philosopher Hobbes declared that it was impossible to separate thought from matter that thinks. Marx observed that this ‘enlightenment’ had "cleared men’s minds" for the great French revolution and the age of reason.
But Engels added that "The specific limitation of this materialism lay in its inability to comprehend the universe as a process, as matter undergoing uninterrupted development."
He and Marx were to fuse the brilliant scientific advances of materialism with dialectical thought, creating the most revolutionary and far-reaching theory for explaining and changing our world.
The German philosopher Hegel, who resurrected dialectics from ancient Greek learning in the early 19th century, was a proponent of the Idealist approach. To him the thoughts within his brain were not the more or less abstract images of actual things and processes, but on the contrary, things and their development were only the realised images of the Idea/God existing somewhere from eternity before the world existed.
Marx turned this confusion on its head. "To me the idea is nothing else than the material world reflected in the human mind."
Marxism therefore bases itself upon a materialist view of history. The material world is real and develops through its own natural laws. Thought is a product of matter, without which there are no separate ideas.
Flowing from this it is clear that Marxism must reject universal truths, religions and spirits. All theories are relative, grasping one side of reality. Initially they are assumed to possess universal validity and application. But at a certain point, deficiencies in the theory are found. These have to be explained and at a certain point new theories are developed which can account for the exceptions. But the new theories not only supercede the old, but also incorporate them in a new form.
For example, in the field of biological evolution, Marxists are neither biological nor cultural determinists. There is a dialectical interaction between our genes and our environment.
Recently the ‘human genome project’ has enabled the complete mapping out of the structure of the genes which are passed on from one human generation to the next. Some biologists have asserted that this would reveal individual genes shaping behaviour patterns ranging from sexual preference to criminality and even political preference!
A consequence would be that a person’s position in society would be largely pre-determined and unalterable.
However, any attempt to ‘tag’ individual genes for ‘intelligence’ has failed and the attempt to define social position as genetically determined has been exposed as a pure consequence of the ideology of the biologists involved.
A breakthrough that has revolutionised our understanding of human behaviour, scientists recently discovered we possess far fewer genes than previously thought, revealing that environmental influences must be vastly more powerful in shaping the way humans act.
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What is dialectical thinking?
" Men thought dialectically long before they knew what dialectics was, just as they spoke prose long before the term prose existed." (Engels: ‘Anti-Duhring’.)
Dialectics is the philosophy of motion. The dialectical method of analysis enables us to study natural phenomena, the evolution of society and thought itself, as processes of development based upon motion and contradiction.
Everything is in a constant state of flux and change; all reality is matter in motion.
The roots of dialectical thought can be traced back to the ancient Greeks who, just because their civilisation was not yet advanced enough to dissect and analyse nature in its separate parts, viewed nature as a whole, in its connections, dialectically. Nothing in life is static. In the words of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus: "All things flow, all change."
Around us in the natural world are illustrations of the dialectical development of our Earth and space itself. Astronomers are transfixed as super-telescopes allow us to witness the birth and death of distant stars, while no geologist or vulcanologist can function without having an understanding of the basic and interlinked laws of the dialectic – the law of quantity into quality, the interpenetration of opposites and the negation of the negation.
In mathematics a dialectical approach is indispensable. In everyday life we often need to distinguish between curved and straight lines. But mathematically a straight line is merely a special sort of curve. Both can be treated using a single general mathematical equation.
We also learn how at a specific temperature, solid ice changes to liquid water then at a higher temperature to steam – a gas – and that the three apparently different substances are actually different manifestations of the motion of the same water molecules.
But though capitalist or bourgeois society uses the dialectical method in its pursuit of scientific advance, in the fields of philosophy and economy it stubbornly seeks to refute dialectics, clothing itself in the straightjacket of metaphysics (formal logic). Metaphysics translated into politics becomes a justification for the status quo, the idea that evolution proceeds unchangingly at a snail’s pace.
It is not hard to see why. Explained in a Marxist manner, the development of all past and present forms of society would show that at certain periods in history when the mode of production has come into acute conflict with the mode of exchange, wars and revolutionary movements have followed. The forms of class struggle have changed through different historical epochs, but the fundamental struggle over the division of the surplus value between exploiter and exploited forms a continuous line from the early slave societies to the present day.
The capitalist class or bourgeoisie (as Marx described it) must therefore hide the materialist conception of history from us, extolling instead the acts of great men (and occasionally women!) who it is claimed have changed history. Great social revolutions are attributed not to the struggle between classes, but to the mistakes of tyrant kings and tsars and the bloodthirsty ambitions of ruthless men like Cromwell, Robespierre and Lenin to name three of their special bete noirs.
Metaphysical thought is often described as the science of things, not of motion. Basing itself upon rigid classification techniques and seeing things as static entities, it is a useful tool in our day to day lives, but does not let us see things in their connections.
The formal logician operates within the limitation of three laws:
The Law of Identity – where A is equal to A
The Law of Contradiction – where A cannot be equal to non-A
The Law of Excluded Middle – where A must be equal to A, or must not be equal to A.
Formal logic sees cause and effect as opposites, but for Marxists the two categories merge, mix and melt into each other all the time.
Trotsky compared formal logic to dialectics using the analogy of a photograph and a moving film. The former has its uses, but as soon as we go into complex questions formal logic proves inadequate.
For instance we can say ours is a capitalist society and all will agree.
But viewing it dialectically as a bourgeois society in an advanced stage of development, we have to add that it still possesses remnants of feudalism, while more importantly it contains in its technological potential, the seeds for a Socialist planned economy. This example is not abstract.
Marxists use the dialectical method in order to clarify perspectives. All realities have more than one side to them.
What stage has British capitalism reached, what character will the recession have, how powerful is the working class, what is the role of New Labour, where and when do we expect big industrial struggles to break out… all these questions and many more can only be answered by analysing society dialectically.
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The laws of the dialectic
"Dialectics is nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought." (Engels: ‘Anti-Duhring.’)
BASED UPON the laws of motion, dialectics enables us to see things in their connection. Our bodies and our thoughts are continually changing. From conception to death there is never a moment when our physical development is still. Neither are our thoughts and mental growth. We are always evolving our ideas.
But how specifically do dialectics apply in relation to a study of society? What are the general laws of dialectical materialism beyond the primary idea that everything changes? If dialectics is the theoretical toolkit of Marxists, what do the tools look like and how do they assist us in challenging capitalism and changing society?
Marx and Engels elaborated three broad and interconnected laws of dialectics, each of which is continually at work and give us the insight into how society develops and what theoretical and practical tasks confront us as revolutionaries seeking to build the forces to overthrow capitalism.
The law of quantity and quality
Just as a scientist is familiar with the concept of things altering their quality at certain quantitative points (water into steam at boiling point), so too an observation of the evolution of class societies illustrates the same law.
Society does not develop in a slow, evolutionary manner. The friction between the classes can and does create episodic periods of sharpened struggle leading to political and social crises, wars and revolutions. For a whole period the class struggle may appear to be at a low-ebb, low levels of industrial action, apparent disinterest in political struggle, etc.
Marxists however view events in an all-sided manner. On the surface there can be apparent stability, but a quantitative build-up of frustration and antagonism towards capitalism can break out suddenly, creating entirely new conditions for struggle and catching the bosses and their New Labour echoes completely by surprise. This law is vulgarly recognised by even some bourgeois philosophers who, usually after the event, refer sadly to "the straw that broke the camel’s back."
It has enormous consequences for Marxists. We analyse the build-up of class conflict and at all times intervene in the workers’ movement to build the ideas of Socialism to take advantage of these sudden changes and sharp turns.
The law does not always denote a progression of course. For many years we characterised the Stalinist bureaucracy in the former Soviet Union as a relative fetter upon the growth of the planned economy. By this we meant that despite the waste and corruption of the bureaucrats, there was still a potential for the planned economy to grow, albeit less efficiently than had the working class been in charge. By the 1960s command-style rule from the Kremlin was struggling to cope with the fresh challenges of a more technically advanced form of economy. Trotsky’s maxim that a planned economy needs workers’ control as a body needs oxygen became more relevant than ever. We observed this change and concluded that the bureaucracy had gone from being a relative fetter to an absolute fetter. Quantity had turned into quality.
From a study of all the declining economic statistics coming out of the USSR we began to draw theoretical rounded-out conclusions.
A society in economic, political and social crisis where the bureaucratic caste has become absolutely incapable of further playing any progressive role cannot stay in absolute stasis. A point was being rapidly reached where either the working class would have to overthrow the incubus of bureaucracy and carry through a political revolution, or there would occur a social counter-revolution leading to the restoration of capitalism; this possibility was predicted by Trotsky over 50 years earlier. The triumph of the latter with Yeltsin undoing all the remaining gains of the 1917 revolution marked a qualitative defeat for the working class in Russia and everywhere else.
The Interpenetration of Opposites
Dialectics applied to the class struggle does not have the same degree of precision as it does in the science laboratory. The role of individuals, political parties and social movements is not scientifically pre-ordained. A trade union leader might be a repected left-winger, but may capitulate when faced with a determined onslaught from the bosses. A moderate trade union leader may surprise himself or herself however and become much more "militant" than intended, when faced with mass pressure from below.
There are no absolutes in the class struggle! We often stress for instance that boom and slump are not antithetical categories as crude GCSE textbooks proclaim. Within every economic growth of capitalism are the seeds of future recession and vice versa. It is not slump alone, which causes workers to rebel against the class system. The very opposite may be the case, with workers feeling intimidated by the threat of widespread unemployment.
In a boom, workers can go on the offensive not only in order to recapture past gains that have been lost, but to win new victories around pay and conditions.
Trotsky illustrated this law in his analysis of the forces which made the Russian Revolution in 1917: "In order to realise the Soviet State, there was required a drawing together and mutual penetration of two factors belonging to completely different economic species; a peasant war – that is, a movement characteristic of the dawn of bourgeois development – and a proletarian insurrection, the movement signaling its decline. That is the essence of 1917". (History of the Russian Revolution.)
This "combined and uneven development" illustrates the complex manner in which societies develop. Application of the law of interpenetrating opposites is crucial in our clarification of the stage at which capitalism has reached, its future direction and our responses.
The Negation of the Negation
Described by Engels as "an extremely general, and for this very reason extremely far-reaching and important, law of development of nature, history and thought", the negation of the negation deals with development through contradictions which appear to annul, or negate a previous fact, theory, or form of existence, only to later become negated in its turn.
Capitalism’s economic cycle illustrates this law. Great wealth is created in the boom, only to become partially destroyed by episodic crises of over-production. These in turn create afresh the conditions for new booms, which assimilate and build upon previously acquired methods of production, before once again coming into contact and being partially negated by the limits of the market economy.
Everything, which exists, does so out of necessity. But everything perishes, only to be transformed into something else. Thus what is ‘necessary’ in one time and place becomes ‘unnecessary’ in another. Everything creates its opposite, which is destined to overcome and negate it.
The first human societies were classless societies based on the co-operation of the tribe. These were negated by the emergence of class societies basing themselves upon the developing material levels of wealth. Modern private ownership of the means of production and the nation state, which are the basic features of class society and originally marked a great step forward, now serve only to fetter and undermine the productive forces and threaten all the previous gains of human development.
The material basis exists now to replace the bosses’ system with socialism, the embryo of which is already contained in class society, but can never be realised until the working class negates capitalism.
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Dialectical Materialism as a revolutionary theory
"Dialectics, so-called objective dialectics, prevails throughout nature.." (Engels: ‘Dialectics of Nature.’)
In the realm of science, explicitly or implicitly, the dialectical method continues to vindicate itself as a vital tool for progress. Apparently unrelated scientific disciplines have come to share visions and methodologies reflecting the real connectedness of our living universe.
Even the idealist philosopher Kant, writing before the time of Marx and Engels and who believed in a supreme being, was forced by experience to arrive unconsciously at a dialectical position. He argued that if the earth was something that had come into being, then its present geological, geographical and climatic states, its plants and animals too, must be something that had come into being. If this was the case, then earth must have had a history not only of co-existence in space but also a succession in time.
In particular, Darwin’s theory of evolution, the revolutionary significance of which was immediately understood by Marx and Engels, has itself become enriched and a more profound confirmation of dialectics of nature as a result of further study and practice.
Darwin demonstrated how evolution develops through natural selection, creating outrage among those for whom "God" determined all. But while he argued that "nature does not make a leap", the debates now raging among neo-Darwinists are about whether or not leaps take place and the nature of them.
Incorporating the science of genetics, new concepts such as MUTATION (the spontaneous formation of new variations in genetic make-up), GENE FLOW (the introduction of new genes into a population by immigration of breeding individuals) and GENETIC DRIFT (random gene changes in a population due to its limited size) as well as natural selection, have begun to be studied.
In a brilliant endorsement of dialectics as the science of sharp turns and sudden changes as opposed to gradualist development, it is now widely accepted that rate of evolutionary change can vary enormously. The theory of PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIA takes this idea a stage forward, maintaining that the development or appearance of a new species can be, in terms of geological time, instantaneous breaking an apprarently stable equilibrium.
This theory deals with rapid and sudden speciation and mass extinction of species, in the same way as Darwin spoke of the struggle for existence of individual varieties within a single species.
Modern scientific theories rest on a dialectic view of nature. Quantum mechanics, the theory on which all modern technology is based, rests on a unification of the two classical (apparently contradictory) concepts of wave motion and particle motion to produce a new deeper understanding of the nature of reality.
Theories of fundamental particles find themselves working on concepts which bridge the contradiction between matter and the space-time in which matter moves.
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Towards a Socialist World.
" …the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men’s brains, not in man’s better insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange.
They are to be sought not in the philosophy, but in the economics of each particular epoch." (Engels: ‘Socialism: Utopian & Scientific.’)
DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM is not a dull theory to be pondered over by erudite academics in their studies. It is a guide to action. For young workers and students seeking to understand capitalism and more importantly change it, it is an indispensable tool.
The so-called New World Order is daily proving to be less harmonious than the old one. Of the six billion people on Earth, almost 3.6 billion have neither cash nor credit to buy much of anything. A majority of people on the planet remain, at best, window shoppers. Although the development of giant corporations straddling continents and the existence of computer technologies underline the potential for the world planning of production and trade, capitalism remains a system based on wasteful competition between nation states where rival multinationals fight to improve market share, productivity and profit at our expense.
Great social revolutions in the past have been carried out by emerging minorities who best articulated the new economic and political needs of the rising class. History is made by conscious men and women, each driven by definite motives and desires. The struggle for Socialism is qualitatively different as it involves the conscious participation of the majority – the world’s working class and oppressed masses. Standing in our way is diseased capitalism.
Our task is to harness the indefatigable energy of the workers worldwide to throw off our exploitation, through the building of a mighty Socialist force. The dialectical method applied to every stage of the class struggle, illuminates our path, assists us in turning our ideas into a material force and brings closer the day when men and women can pass over from the realm of necessity into the realm of human freedom.
extracts taken from the introduction to marxist theory from teh pamphletts on introducing marxism from the socialist party.
Was one of the most well known sayings by Karl Marx one of the greatest thinkers we've ever known.
I thought i'd look at how we look at things and the nature in which we do. Of course we are aware as socialists that in society we have two major class's at play. The ruling class who look to make their position permenant and continue to drive for profit.
There is also the working class which the majority of us who work for a living are and sell our labour power to liv e. The wealth that is created by this is creamed off by the ruling capitalist class.
Every ruling class throughout history has sought to give its regime the stamp of permanence. Never mind that there have been many forms of class rule including slavery and feudalism, today’s smug apologists for capitalism believe their way of running society is best and represents the Everest of achievement.
Tony Blair has sneeringly denounced Marxism as "an outmoded sectarian dogma." His sole contribution to philosophy has been to bestow credit on Anthony Gidden’s Third Way theory – the very old and discredited idea that there can be a middle way between the market and a planned economy. Most capitalist leaders believe they don’t require a philosophy. Making money is all that matters and they embrace the idea that if it works, it’s good. They are largely empirical in their approach, responding pragmatically to new challenges and rarely bothering to understand the relationship and connections between policies and events, cause and effect. In the spheres of politics and economics, theirs is the complacent philosophy of thinking that what has gone on before will continue largely unchanged into the future.
In the 1990s they were sure the dotcom boom would just keep on growing. When it crashed they were astonished, but learning nothing, scratched their heads, said they’d predicted it all along, then went back to the comfort-blanket of believing capitalism would get better again.
But as Marxists we look and see things differnt. We look at the world dialecticaly that everything is constantly changing and nothing ever stays the same. We look at what has created a situation to get to a certain point and where it is going next. We do not see things in their isolation as capitalists do where they see things in their moment as simply just being. We as materailists look at the differences and how that moment came into being.
Dialectical materialism, the basis of Marxist philosophy is still the most modern method of thought that exists.
As Leon Trotsky observed in Marxism in our Time: "…if the theory correctly estimates the course of development and foresees the future better than other theories, it remains the most advanced theory of our time, be it even scores of years old."
Marxism is the science of perspectives - looking forward to anticipate how society will develop - using its method of dialectical materialism to unravel the complex processes of historical development.
It endeavors to teach the working class to know itself and be conscious of itself as a class. Dialectical Materialism – the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought – was and remains a revolutionary philosophy, challenging capitalism in every sphere and substituting science for dreams and prejudice.
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Materialism versus Idealism.
"It is not consciousness that determines existence, but social existence that determines consciousness." (Marx & Engels: ‘The German ideology.’)
People have always sought to understand the world they lived in through observing nature and generalising their day-to-day experiences. The history of philosophy shows a division into two camps – Idealism and Materialism. The Idealists argue that thought (consciousness) is paramount and that people’s actions stem from abstract thought, devoid of history and material conditions.
It was Marx and Engels who first fully challenged this conception, explaining that an understanding of the world has to start not from the ideas which exist in people’s heads in any particular historical period, but from the real, material conditions in which these ideas arise.
Nature is historical at every level. No aspect of nature simply exists; it has a history, comes into being, changes and develops, is transformed, and, finally ceases to exist. Aspects of nature may appear to be fixed, stable, in a state of equilibrium for a shorter or longer time, but none is permanently so. For Trotsky: "Consciousness grew out of the unconscious, psychology out of physiology, the organic world out of the inorganic, the solar system out of the nebulae."
Marx and Engels based their materialism upon the ideas and practice of the great materialist philosophers of the 18th century. The ‘renaissance’ in the 16th century with its spread of cultural and scientific enquiry was both a cause of and an effect of the early growth of capitalism. In Engels’ words: "Science rebelled against the Church; the bourgeoisie could not do without science, and therefore had to join the rebellion."
Astronomy, mechanics, physics, anatomy and physiology were feverishly developed as separate disciplines, with the consequence that age-old beliefs in an inviolable god were rocked. Galileo for instance began to discover some of the physical properties of the universe and revealed that the planets revolved around the sun. Later, Newton’s theories of gravity and laws of physical motion uncovered the mysteries of movement and mechanics.
The philosopher Hobbes declared that it was impossible to separate thought from matter that thinks. Marx observed that this ‘enlightenment’ had "cleared men’s minds" for the great French revolution and the age of reason.
But Engels added that "The specific limitation of this materialism lay in its inability to comprehend the universe as a process, as matter undergoing uninterrupted development."
He and Marx were to fuse the brilliant scientific advances of materialism with dialectical thought, creating the most revolutionary and far-reaching theory for explaining and changing our world.
The German philosopher Hegel, who resurrected dialectics from ancient Greek learning in the early 19th century, was a proponent of the Idealist approach. To him the thoughts within his brain were not the more or less abstract images of actual things and processes, but on the contrary, things and their development were only the realised images of the Idea/God existing somewhere from eternity before the world existed.
Marx turned this confusion on its head. "To me the idea is nothing else than the material world reflected in the human mind."
Marxism therefore bases itself upon a materialist view of history. The material world is real and develops through its own natural laws. Thought is a product of matter, without which there are no separate ideas.
Flowing from this it is clear that Marxism must reject universal truths, religions and spirits. All theories are relative, grasping one side of reality. Initially they are assumed to possess universal validity and application. But at a certain point, deficiencies in the theory are found. These have to be explained and at a certain point new theories are developed which can account for the exceptions. But the new theories not only supercede the old, but also incorporate them in a new form.
For example, in the field of biological evolution, Marxists are neither biological nor cultural determinists. There is a dialectical interaction between our genes and our environment.
Recently the ‘human genome project’ has enabled the complete mapping out of the structure of the genes which are passed on from one human generation to the next. Some biologists have asserted that this would reveal individual genes shaping behaviour patterns ranging from sexual preference to criminality and even political preference!
A consequence would be that a person’s position in society would be largely pre-determined and unalterable.
However, any attempt to ‘tag’ individual genes for ‘intelligence’ has failed and the attempt to define social position as genetically determined has been exposed as a pure consequence of the ideology of the biologists involved.
A breakthrough that has revolutionised our understanding of human behaviour, scientists recently discovered we possess far fewer genes than previously thought, revealing that environmental influences must be vastly more powerful in shaping the way humans act.
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What is dialectical thinking?
" Men thought dialectically long before they knew what dialectics was, just as they spoke prose long before the term prose existed." (Engels: ‘Anti-Duhring’.)
Dialectics is the philosophy of motion. The dialectical method of analysis enables us to study natural phenomena, the evolution of society and thought itself, as processes of development based upon motion and contradiction.
Everything is in a constant state of flux and change; all reality is matter in motion.
The roots of dialectical thought can be traced back to the ancient Greeks who, just because their civilisation was not yet advanced enough to dissect and analyse nature in its separate parts, viewed nature as a whole, in its connections, dialectically. Nothing in life is static. In the words of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus: "All things flow, all change."
Around us in the natural world are illustrations of the dialectical development of our Earth and space itself. Astronomers are transfixed as super-telescopes allow us to witness the birth and death of distant stars, while no geologist or vulcanologist can function without having an understanding of the basic and interlinked laws of the dialectic – the law of quantity into quality, the interpenetration of opposites and the negation of the negation.
In mathematics a dialectical approach is indispensable. In everyday life we often need to distinguish between curved and straight lines. But mathematically a straight line is merely a special sort of curve. Both can be treated using a single general mathematical equation.
We also learn how at a specific temperature, solid ice changes to liquid water then at a higher temperature to steam – a gas – and that the three apparently different substances are actually different manifestations of the motion of the same water molecules.
But though capitalist or bourgeois society uses the dialectical method in its pursuit of scientific advance, in the fields of philosophy and economy it stubbornly seeks to refute dialectics, clothing itself in the straightjacket of metaphysics (formal logic). Metaphysics translated into politics becomes a justification for the status quo, the idea that evolution proceeds unchangingly at a snail’s pace.
It is not hard to see why. Explained in a Marxist manner, the development of all past and present forms of society would show that at certain periods in history when the mode of production has come into acute conflict with the mode of exchange, wars and revolutionary movements have followed. The forms of class struggle have changed through different historical epochs, but the fundamental struggle over the division of the surplus value between exploiter and exploited forms a continuous line from the early slave societies to the present day.
The capitalist class or bourgeoisie (as Marx described it) must therefore hide the materialist conception of history from us, extolling instead the acts of great men (and occasionally women!) who it is claimed have changed history. Great social revolutions are attributed not to the struggle between classes, but to the mistakes of tyrant kings and tsars and the bloodthirsty ambitions of ruthless men like Cromwell, Robespierre and Lenin to name three of their special bete noirs.
Metaphysical thought is often described as the science of things, not of motion. Basing itself upon rigid classification techniques and seeing things as static entities, it is a useful tool in our day to day lives, but does not let us see things in their connections.
The formal logician operates within the limitation of three laws:
The Law of Identity – where A is equal to A
The Law of Contradiction – where A cannot be equal to non-A
The Law of Excluded Middle – where A must be equal to A, or must not be equal to A.
Formal logic sees cause and effect as opposites, but for Marxists the two categories merge, mix and melt into each other all the time.
Trotsky compared formal logic to dialectics using the analogy of a photograph and a moving film. The former has its uses, but as soon as we go into complex questions formal logic proves inadequate.
For instance we can say ours is a capitalist society and all will agree.
But viewing it dialectically as a bourgeois society in an advanced stage of development, we have to add that it still possesses remnants of feudalism, while more importantly it contains in its technological potential, the seeds for a Socialist planned economy. This example is not abstract.
Marxists use the dialectical method in order to clarify perspectives. All realities have more than one side to them.
What stage has British capitalism reached, what character will the recession have, how powerful is the working class, what is the role of New Labour, where and when do we expect big industrial struggles to break out… all these questions and many more can only be answered by analysing society dialectically.
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The laws of the dialectic
"Dialectics is nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought." (Engels: ‘Anti-Duhring.’)
BASED UPON the laws of motion, dialectics enables us to see things in their connection. Our bodies and our thoughts are continually changing. From conception to death there is never a moment when our physical development is still. Neither are our thoughts and mental growth. We are always evolving our ideas.
But how specifically do dialectics apply in relation to a study of society? What are the general laws of dialectical materialism beyond the primary idea that everything changes? If dialectics is the theoretical toolkit of Marxists, what do the tools look like and how do they assist us in challenging capitalism and changing society?
Marx and Engels elaborated three broad and interconnected laws of dialectics, each of which is continually at work and give us the insight into how society develops and what theoretical and practical tasks confront us as revolutionaries seeking to build the forces to overthrow capitalism.
The law of quantity and quality
Just as a scientist is familiar with the concept of things altering their quality at certain quantitative points (water into steam at boiling point), so too an observation of the evolution of class societies illustrates the same law.
Society does not develop in a slow, evolutionary manner. The friction between the classes can and does create episodic periods of sharpened struggle leading to political and social crises, wars and revolutions. For a whole period the class struggle may appear to be at a low-ebb, low levels of industrial action, apparent disinterest in political struggle, etc.
Marxists however view events in an all-sided manner. On the surface there can be apparent stability, but a quantitative build-up of frustration and antagonism towards capitalism can break out suddenly, creating entirely new conditions for struggle and catching the bosses and their New Labour echoes completely by surprise. This law is vulgarly recognised by even some bourgeois philosophers who, usually after the event, refer sadly to "the straw that broke the camel’s back."
It has enormous consequences for Marxists. We analyse the build-up of class conflict and at all times intervene in the workers’ movement to build the ideas of Socialism to take advantage of these sudden changes and sharp turns.
The law does not always denote a progression of course. For many years we characterised the Stalinist bureaucracy in the former Soviet Union as a relative fetter upon the growth of the planned economy. By this we meant that despite the waste and corruption of the bureaucrats, there was still a potential for the planned economy to grow, albeit less efficiently than had the working class been in charge. By the 1960s command-style rule from the Kremlin was struggling to cope with the fresh challenges of a more technically advanced form of economy. Trotsky’s maxim that a planned economy needs workers’ control as a body needs oxygen became more relevant than ever. We observed this change and concluded that the bureaucracy had gone from being a relative fetter to an absolute fetter. Quantity had turned into quality.
From a study of all the declining economic statistics coming out of the USSR we began to draw theoretical rounded-out conclusions.
A society in economic, political and social crisis where the bureaucratic caste has become absolutely incapable of further playing any progressive role cannot stay in absolute stasis. A point was being rapidly reached where either the working class would have to overthrow the incubus of bureaucracy and carry through a political revolution, or there would occur a social counter-revolution leading to the restoration of capitalism; this possibility was predicted by Trotsky over 50 years earlier. The triumph of the latter with Yeltsin undoing all the remaining gains of the 1917 revolution marked a qualitative defeat for the working class in Russia and everywhere else.
The Interpenetration of Opposites
Dialectics applied to the class struggle does not have the same degree of precision as it does in the science laboratory. The role of individuals, political parties and social movements is not scientifically pre-ordained. A trade union leader might be a repected left-winger, but may capitulate when faced with a determined onslaught from the bosses. A moderate trade union leader may surprise himself or herself however and become much more "militant" than intended, when faced with mass pressure from below.
There are no absolutes in the class struggle! We often stress for instance that boom and slump are not antithetical categories as crude GCSE textbooks proclaim. Within every economic growth of capitalism are the seeds of future recession and vice versa. It is not slump alone, which causes workers to rebel against the class system. The very opposite may be the case, with workers feeling intimidated by the threat of widespread unemployment.
In a boom, workers can go on the offensive not only in order to recapture past gains that have been lost, but to win new victories around pay and conditions.
Trotsky illustrated this law in his analysis of the forces which made the Russian Revolution in 1917: "In order to realise the Soviet State, there was required a drawing together and mutual penetration of two factors belonging to completely different economic species; a peasant war – that is, a movement characteristic of the dawn of bourgeois development – and a proletarian insurrection, the movement signaling its decline. That is the essence of 1917". (History of the Russian Revolution.)
This "combined and uneven development" illustrates the complex manner in which societies develop. Application of the law of interpenetrating opposites is crucial in our clarification of the stage at which capitalism has reached, its future direction and our responses.
The Negation of the Negation
Described by Engels as "an extremely general, and for this very reason extremely far-reaching and important, law of development of nature, history and thought", the negation of the negation deals with development through contradictions which appear to annul, or negate a previous fact, theory, or form of existence, only to later become negated in its turn.
Capitalism’s economic cycle illustrates this law. Great wealth is created in the boom, only to become partially destroyed by episodic crises of over-production. These in turn create afresh the conditions for new booms, which assimilate and build upon previously acquired methods of production, before once again coming into contact and being partially negated by the limits of the market economy.
Everything, which exists, does so out of necessity. But everything perishes, only to be transformed into something else. Thus what is ‘necessary’ in one time and place becomes ‘unnecessary’ in another. Everything creates its opposite, which is destined to overcome and negate it.
The first human societies were classless societies based on the co-operation of the tribe. These were negated by the emergence of class societies basing themselves upon the developing material levels of wealth. Modern private ownership of the means of production and the nation state, which are the basic features of class society and originally marked a great step forward, now serve only to fetter and undermine the productive forces and threaten all the previous gains of human development.
The material basis exists now to replace the bosses’ system with socialism, the embryo of which is already contained in class society, but can never be realised until the working class negates capitalism.
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Dialectical Materialism as a revolutionary theory
"Dialectics, so-called objective dialectics, prevails throughout nature.." (Engels: ‘Dialectics of Nature.’)
In the realm of science, explicitly or implicitly, the dialectical method continues to vindicate itself as a vital tool for progress. Apparently unrelated scientific disciplines have come to share visions and methodologies reflecting the real connectedness of our living universe.
Even the idealist philosopher Kant, writing before the time of Marx and Engels and who believed in a supreme being, was forced by experience to arrive unconsciously at a dialectical position. He argued that if the earth was something that had come into being, then its present geological, geographical and climatic states, its plants and animals too, must be something that had come into being. If this was the case, then earth must have had a history not only of co-existence in space but also a succession in time.
In particular, Darwin’s theory of evolution, the revolutionary significance of which was immediately understood by Marx and Engels, has itself become enriched and a more profound confirmation of dialectics of nature as a result of further study and practice.
Darwin demonstrated how evolution develops through natural selection, creating outrage among those for whom "God" determined all. But while he argued that "nature does not make a leap", the debates now raging among neo-Darwinists are about whether or not leaps take place and the nature of them.
Incorporating the science of genetics, new concepts such as MUTATION (the spontaneous formation of new variations in genetic make-up), GENE FLOW (the introduction of new genes into a population by immigration of breeding individuals) and GENETIC DRIFT (random gene changes in a population due to its limited size) as well as natural selection, have begun to be studied.
In a brilliant endorsement of dialectics as the science of sharp turns and sudden changes as opposed to gradualist development, it is now widely accepted that rate of evolutionary change can vary enormously. The theory of PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIA takes this idea a stage forward, maintaining that the development or appearance of a new species can be, in terms of geological time, instantaneous breaking an apprarently stable equilibrium.
This theory deals with rapid and sudden speciation and mass extinction of species, in the same way as Darwin spoke of the struggle for existence of individual varieties within a single species.
Modern scientific theories rest on a dialectic view of nature. Quantum mechanics, the theory on which all modern technology is based, rests on a unification of the two classical (apparently contradictory) concepts of wave motion and particle motion to produce a new deeper understanding of the nature of reality.
Theories of fundamental particles find themselves working on concepts which bridge the contradiction between matter and the space-time in which matter moves.
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Towards a Socialist World.
" …the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men’s brains, not in man’s better insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange.
They are to be sought not in the philosophy, but in the economics of each particular epoch." (Engels: ‘Socialism: Utopian & Scientific.’)
DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM is not a dull theory to be pondered over by erudite academics in their studies. It is a guide to action. For young workers and students seeking to understand capitalism and more importantly change it, it is an indispensable tool.
The so-called New World Order is daily proving to be less harmonious than the old one. Of the six billion people on Earth, almost 3.6 billion have neither cash nor credit to buy much of anything. A majority of people on the planet remain, at best, window shoppers. Although the development of giant corporations straddling continents and the existence of computer technologies underline the potential for the world planning of production and trade, capitalism remains a system based on wasteful competition between nation states where rival multinationals fight to improve market share, productivity and profit at our expense.
Great social revolutions in the past have been carried out by emerging minorities who best articulated the new economic and political needs of the rising class. History is made by conscious men and women, each driven by definite motives and desires. The struggle for Socialism is qualitatively different as it involves the conscious participation of the majority – the world’s working class and oppressed masses. Standing in our way is diseased capitalism.
Our task is to harness the indefatigable energy of the workers worldwide to throw off our exploitation, through the building of a mighty Socialist force. The dialectical method applied to every stage of the class struggle, illuminates our path, assists us in turning our ideas into a material force and brings closer the day when men and women can pass over from the realm of necessity into the realm of human freedom.
extracts taken from the introduction to marxist theory from teh pamphletts on introducing marxism from the socialist party.
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Have world governments given up on full employment
Full employment seems to be a mystery to many and a fantasy for others. Did we ever have full employment in the United Kingdom and will we ever see this again ?
In todays Britain we currently have 2.6 million unemployed people at present with over a million of those being
16-24 without a job. or in any form of training
But has there ever been full employment? That depends, like a lot of economics, on one's definition of the term.
"Full employment never meant zero unemployment," says Christopher Pissarides, professor of economics at the London School of Economics.
As long as most people were in work it was seen by the majority of people that it didn't matter if rather a lot of other people, albeit a minority, were not. So unemployment lost its profile as an issue”
End Quote
Historian David Kynaston
Instead there is what the free market capitalist economist Milton Friedman termed a "natural rate" of unemployment, where nobody stays out of work for long, unemployment fluctuates between 5% and 6% with jobless workers quickly being hired in growth sectors of the economy.
Other economists argue this is too high. William Beveridge, the man who inspired Britain's post-war welfare state, said full employment meant a figure of under 3%.
Before the world became industrialised, nearly everyone outside the ruling rich elite would have had to work to survive, usually in the fields. After industrialisation all that changed. Mechanisation offered people work in the factories but also brought huge spikes in employment and an intensification of economic boom and bust which is built into capitalism like night and day. Due to its various contradictions which i have detailed in the past on this blog.
Pissarides argues that full employment was a reality in the US in the 1990s under Bill Clinton and from 1997-2007 in Britain, and in modern day China.
Other economists say it's not fair to compare democracies with autocratic societies. Children learn in history lessons about the mass mobilisation of men in Hitler's Germany for armaments production and public works programmes. "Conscripting people over the barrel of the gun in totalitarian societies is not full employment as economists understand the term," says economic historian Tim Leunig.
In 1955 unemployment was very low indeed So has genuine full employment ever been achieved in the post industrial world? "Of course we've had it," says the economist Lord Skidelsky. "Between 1950 and 1973 unemployment averaged 2% and was always well under one million."
This was the golden age for jobs in Britain. Also the biggest period of growth for capitalism ever. The high point came in July 1955 - shortly after Anthony Eden had taken over from Winston Churchill as prime minister - when unemployment reached a post-war low of 215,800, a mere 1% unthinkable today.
So what happened to full employment? Ian Brinkley, director of think tank the Work Foundation, says the term went out of fashion in the 1970s as unemployment passed one million.
This is the period which the ruling class gave up on the idea of full employment and focused far more on growth and making profits in other ways.
In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher pursued a different approach, which economists characterised as the prioritising of tackling inflation. The concept of full employment was dead, says Brinkley.
Unemployment climbed above the symbolically important three million figure, and stayed relatively high even still today.
So will full employment ever be achieved again ?
I dont think so under capitalism this will ever happen. As Karl Marx wonderfully explained the ruling class in their desire to divide and rule discovered the idea of keeping a army of reserve workers as Marx put it which enabled the ruling class and the boss's to hold wages down with the threat of unemployed workers coming in to do their job for the same or for less if a worker demanded more wages.
Today this is one of the capitalists most powerful weapons the threat of unemployment hangs over many of us still today as the ruling class looks to make the workers pay for the mistakes of a ecnomic system they have no say in running.
The only way i feel we will see full employment again allowing for the debate if it ever was will be a socialist ordering of society. Where the blind drive for profit will have gone and people can and will i'm sure want to work for society. Working for the needs of society and for others will bring out workers full potential. For many people this will be the first time they may enjoy work when they are not having to work for their boss's profits but for their own society, based on human needs.
In todays Britain we currently have 2.6 million unemployed people at present with over a million of those being
16-24 without a job. or in any form of training
But has there ever been full employment? That depends, like a lot of economics, on one's definition of the term.
"Full employment never meant zero unemployment," says Christopher Pissarides, professor of economics at the London School of Economics.
As long as most people were in work it was seen by the majority of people that it didn't matter if rather a lot of other people, albeit a minority, were not. So unemployment lost its profile as an issue”
End Quote
Historian David Kynaston
Instead there is what the free market capitalist economist Milton Friedman termed a "natural rate" of unemployment, where nobody stays out of work for long, unemployment fluctuates between 5% and 6% with jobless workers quickly being hired in growth sectors of the economy.
Other economists argue this is too high. William Beveridge, the man who inspired Britain's post-war welfare state, said full employment meant a figure of under 3%.
Before the world became industrialised, nearly everyone outside the ruling rich elite would have had to work to survive, usually in the fields. After industrialisation all that changed. Mechanisation offered people work in the factories but also brought huge spikes in employment and an intensification of economic boom and bust which is built into capitalism like night and day. Due to its various contradictions which i have detailed in the past on this blog.
Pissarides argues that full employment was a reality in the US in the 1990s under Bill Clinton and from 1997-2007 in Britain, and in modern day China.
Other economists say it's not fair to compare democracies with autocratic societies. Children learn in history lessons about the mass mobilisation of men in Hitler's Germany for armaments production and public works programmes. "Conscripting people over the barrel of the gun in totalitarian societies is not full employment as economists understand the term," says economic historian Tim Leunig.
In 1955 unemployment was very low indeed So has genuine full employment ever been achieved in the post industrial world? "Of course we've had it," says the economist Lord Skidelsky. "Between 1950 and 1973 unemployment averaged 2% and was always well under one million."
This was the golden age for jobs in Britain. Also the biggest period of growth for capitalism ever. The high point came in July 1955 - shortly after Anthony Eden had taken over from Winston Churchill as prime minister - when unemployment reached a post-war low of 215,800, a mere 1% unthinkable today.
So what happened to full employment? Ian Brinkley, director of think tank the Work Foundation, says the term went out of fashion in the 1970s as unemployment passed one million.
This is the period which the ruling class gave up on the idea of full employment and focused far more on growth and making profits in other ways.
In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher pursued a different approach, which economists characterised as the prioritising of tackling inflation. The concept of full employment was dead, says Brinkley.
Unemployment climbed above the symbolically important three million figure, and stayed relatively high even still today.
So will full employment ever be achieved again ?
I dont think so under capitalism this will ever happen. As Karl Marx wonderfully explained the ruling class in their desire to divide and rule discovered the idea of keeping a army of reserve workers as Marx put it which enabled the ruling class and the boss's to hold wages down with the threat of unemployed workers coming in to do their job for the same or for less if a worker demanded more wages.
Today this is one of the capitalists most powerful weapons the threat of unemployment hangs over many of us still today as the ruling class looks to make the workers pay for the mistakes of a ecnomic system they have no say in running.
The only way i feel we will see full employment again allowing for the debate if it ever was will be a socialist ordering of society. Where the blind drive for profit will have gone and people can and will i'm sure want to work for society. Working for the needs of society and for others will bring out workers full potential. For many people this will be the first time they may enjoy work when they are not having to work for their boss's profits but for their own society, based on human needs.
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Why socialists oppose nuclear power and campaign against it
In India today which is a fast growing economy and one of the worlds emerging capitalist powers on the world stage to fuel all this India is turning increasingly towards the nuclear option. this has faced resistance and opposition in India as the CWI has described on www.socialistworld.org.uk
But for all socialists of principles we have always opposed nuclear as a option. It is highly dangerous and despite calls from the capitalists it is not even the cheapest option over the long term.
Jagadish G Chandra, Bangalore, New Socialist Alternative (CWI India)
A war like hysteria has gripped the Indian ruling class, which was initiated by Manmohan Singh and his sycophants especially in the 2nd term of the Congress led UPA, that India must become a superpower at any cost. In their mad pursuit of 8-9% growth rate, this government run by the scoundrels that include Manmohan Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukerhjee are running a circus show by putting the lives of ordinary people in great danger.
In their plea bargain to take India to the top slot of nations by 2020, these so called experts have become the henchmen of the multinational corporations and Indian Capitalist class. They believe, they have given a go by to the environment and social security of the people by stating that nuclear energy is inevitable. In this great cacophony they are using all the nuclear energy sycophants – political, scientific, so called intellectuals who have been hired to start a pro nuclear campaign for the nuclear energy industry.
In the recent times, the world’s attention has been drawn by the anti-nuclear Koodankulam struggle and the determined fight of the people there to shut down the plant. This is something that the Indian ruling class is unable to digest.
It is the controversial 123 agreement that was signed between India and the US during the 1st version of the Congress led UPA, it is this cobra today that is beginning to open its hood and started its nasty dance.
But the recent Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan have only increased the fears among the general public and also raised their level of consciousness on the inherent dangers of nuclear energy. This led to a fierce debate between the pro and the anti-nuclear forces.
The struggle against the nuclear power plant in Koodankulam has had a domino effect with struggles starting to pick up in other proposed sites for nuclear power plants. The fierce debate between pro and anti-nuclear forces that took place recently at “People’s SAARC” held at Thiruvananthapuram has only added more edge to the anti nuclear campaign.
In the past century, the dropping of the Atomic Bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Three Mile Island accident, the unforgettable tragedy at Chernobyl and the recent nuclear disaster at Fukushima are warning signs on the imminent dangers of nuclear energy.
Whatever may be the arguments and parading of lies by the pro nuclear scientist and the politicians, they are still unable to answer the questions with regard to nuclear radiation and the safe disposal of nuclear waste. The reports of cancer and other radiation related hazards at existing nuclear power plants such as Kalpakam, Narora, Kaiga and others has somewhat muted the arguments of the pro nuclear lobby.
Oppose nuclear power
Despite nuclear bombs have not been used after the second world war, nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is a blatant conspiracy of the ruling classes that is cleverly trying to hide the profit motive of the big corporations.
For the maintaining their wasteful, extravagant and consumerist lifestyle that capitalism promotes, the need for unbridled electricity is always there. This model of “development” is having a disastrous effect on the environment. The working people have no choice but to reject this model that is being promoted by capitalism but this does not mean that we want the clock to be turned back. To live in harmony with nature and the other species of the planet, we need to seriously look into renewable sources of energy such as solar, tidal, wind and other sources that do not endanger the environment in the long run.
The profit driven system of capitalism has no interest in promoting environmentally friendly technologies as this does not bring back the huge windfall profits that they desire. This is the reason behind the conspiracy to promote dangerous technology such as nuclear energy as if there is no other alternative.
So we must always oppose nuclear energy and oppose renewing Trident if it is ever given the go ahead in this country which it undoubtably will do in time. For socialist we believe in a fair world which is safe for us and our children. A nuclear free world will ensure this with the economy planned out for peoples needs over the ruthless greed of a select few.
But for all socialists of principles we have always opposed nuclear as a option. It is highly dangerous and despite calls from the capitalists it is not even the cheapest option over the long term.
Jagadish G Chandra, Bangalore, New Socialist Alternative (CWI India)
A war like hysteria has gripped the Indian ruling class, which was initiated by Manmohan Singh and his sycophants especially in the 2nd term of the Congress led UPA, that India must become a superpower at any cost. In their mad pursuit of 8-9% growth rate, this government run by the scoundrels that include Manmohan Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukerhjee are running a circus show by putting the lives of ordinary people in great danger.
In their plea bargain to take India to the top slot of nations by 2020, these so called experts have become the henchmen of the multinational corporations and Indian Capitalist class. They believe, they have given a go by to the environment and social security of the people by stating that nuclear energy is inevitable. In this great cacophony they are using all the nuclear energy sycophants – political, scientific, so called intellectuals who have been hired to start a pro nuclear campaign for the nuclear energy industry.
In the recent times, the world’s attention has been drawn by the anti-nuclear Koodankulam struggle and the determined fight of the people there to shut down the plant. This is something that the Indian ruling class is unable to digest.
It is the controversial 123 agreement that was signed between India and the US during the 1st version of the Congress led UPA, it is this cobra today that is beginning to open its hood and started its nasty dance.
But the recent Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan have only increased the fears among the general public and also raised their level of consciousness on the inherent dangers of nuclear energy. This led to a fierce debate between the pro and the anti-nuclear forces.
The struggle against the nuclear power plant in Koodankulam has had a domino effect with struggles starting to pick up in other proposed sites for nuclear power plants. The fierce debate between pro and anti-nuclear forces that took place recently at “People’s SAARC” held at Thiruvananthapuram has only added more edge to the anti nuclear campaign.
In the past century, the dropping of the Atomic Bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Three Mile Island accident, the unforgettable tragedy at Chernobyl and the recent nuclear disaster at Fukushima are warning signs on the imminent dangers of nuclear energy.
Whatever may be the arguments and parading of lies by the pro nuclear scientist and the politicians, they are still unable to answer the questions with regard to nuclear radiation and the safe disposal of nuclear waste. The reports of cancer and other radiation related hazards at existing nuclear power plants such as Kalpakam, Narora, Kaiga and others has somewhat muted the arguments of the pro nuclear lobby.
Oppose nuclear power
Despite nuclear bombs have not been used after the second world war, nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is a blatant conspiracy of the ruling classes that is cleverly trying to hide the profit motive of the big corporations.
For the maintaining their wasteful, extravagant and consumerist lifestyle that capitalism promotes, the need for unbridled electricity is always there. This model of “development” is having a disastrous effect on the environment. The working people have no choice but to reject this model that is being promoted by capitalism but this does not mean that we want the clock to be turned back. To live in harmony with nature and the other species of the planet, we need to seriously look into renewable sources of energy such as solar, tidal, wind and other sources that do not endanger the environment in the long run.
The profit driven system of capitalism has no interest in promoting environmentally friendly technologies as this does not bring back the huge windfall profits that they desire. This is the reason behind the conspiracy to promote dangerous technology such as nuclear energy as if there is no other alternative.
So we must always oppose nuclear energy and oppose renewing Trident if it is ever given the go ahead in this country which it undoubtably will do in time. For socialist we believe in a fair world which is safe for us and our children. A nuclear free world will ensure this with the economy planned out for peoples needs over the ruthless greed of a select few.
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Towards socialism, taking workers with us
As you may know on this blog i talk alot about socialism and marxism and so forth but we can often forget that not all workers we are aiming to win over get this and we do always have to remember as rerevolutionary socialists where we are and where the class is in its contiousness. At present we are at a very low form of class contiousness and a even lower socialist contiousness. Many workers do feel something is wrong, some even say so. But as far as an alternative goes very few workers have any idea what there is. Many still dont tag the current crisis up with capitalism. These are all the tasks and challenges we are left to tackle as marxists. To get amongst the working class and firstly find out where they are. What their concerns are immediatly and support those concerns whatever they may be. Extra pay, better working conditions or extra holiday time whatever it may be. We will always support workers in struggle with the boss's just because we see a alternative way of running society and reject the current system does not mean we will stand by and let workers get hammered by the boss's, quite the contary we will lend our support and resources as should the labour movement to fight for working class reforms out of the boss's. But at all times we must be raising ideas that reforms will never be enough that when the boss's grant us a concession with one hand they will look to take from us with the other.
This is why we as revolutionaries are constantly looking to popularise ideas of a better world, a farier way of running society for the majorities needs rather than a select few's personal profitable gains.
The reason i've taken up socialism and marxist ideas more in the last few months is the realisation that we do live in a deeply unfair world and it is deep rooted in inequality that is built into this system we live under and it needs changing and it can be changed.
But as we talk to workers in struggle of all levels of contiousness we must be careful and aware to never preech to workers not to patronise and offend. We are fully aware that we are the most advanced layer of contious workers and have already made the conclusion that society needs to be changed into a different order and capitalism is a bankrupt system. But not all workers currently agree with this. They may feel agrieved that their job is on the line or that their pay is being cut but this may not be enough for them to drawn the same conclusions as us, the marxists. But only by fighting alongside these workers in struggle for a better world which by nature all workers are compelled to do we can explain our own ideas the ideas of Karl Marx and Leon trotsky in a everyday situation and the idea that this doesnt have to be this way at all.
Having a open dialog with workers in struggle is the key to a revolutionary parties success. Being able to gauge the current feeling out there with workers and interveen where we can with the correct ideas is crucial i feel. As the socialist party with lots of very experienced comrades in struggle their experience will be crucial the idea that history does not repeat itself but can certainly be learnt from is key.
Popularising marxist ideas and ideas that can win over workers with a program that can appeal to those who are looking for an alternative will be important in this coming year and i feel that we must and are prepared for this and i am hoping we can win many more over to our ideas if we can.
But we must always be keen to show a empathy and a humility that we do not know it all. We have a good analysis and a correct program but we cannot be with this and look to ask workers themselves what they think first and foremost aragant . We must look to take the class with us if we can not look to lead it from out in front. Being apart of the class struggle but raising socialist ideas all the way will be key but never preeching and dictating our own ideas. Of course being passionate with our ideas and forceful like we expect others to do when countering our own ideas in a comradely way as a clash of ideas in the labour movement is a constant battle for the correct program to win out. We feel confident workers will find our ideas appealing and be drawn to our ideas in time. But let us not be that worker that turns them away but welcomes them with open arms. To take us forward for a fairer society and future for the many not just the few.
This is why we as revolutionaries are constantly looking to popularise ideas of a better world, a farier way of running society for the majorities needs rather than a select few's personal profitable gains.
The reason i've taken up socialism and marxist ideas more in the last few months is the realisation that we do live in a deeply unfair world and it is deep rooted in inequality that is built into this system we live under and it needs changing and it can be changed.
But as we talk to workers in struggle of all levels of contiousness we must be careful and aware to never preech to workers not to patronise and offend. We are fully aware that we are the most advanced layer of contious workers and have already made the conclusion that society needs to be changed into a different order and capitalism is a bankrupt system. But not all workers currently agree with this. They may feel agrieved that their job is on the line or that their pay is being cut but this may not be enough for them to drawn the same conclusions as us, the marxists. But only by fighting alongside these workers in struggle for a better world which by nature all workers are compelled to do we can explain our own ideas the ideas of Karl Marx and Leon trotsky in a everyday situation and the idea that this doesnt have to be this way at all.
Having a open dialog with workers in struggle is the key to a revolutionary parties success. Being able to gauge the current feeling out there with workers and interveen where we can with the correct ideas is crucial i feel. As the socialist party with lots of very experienced comrades in struggle their experience will be crucial the idea that history does not repeat itself but can certainly be learnt from is key.
Popularising marxist ideas and ideas that can win over workers with a program that can appeal to those who are looking for an alternative will be important in this coming year and i feel that we must and are prepared for this and i am hoping we can win many more over to our ideas if we can.
But we must always be keen to show a empathy and a humility that we do not know it all. We have a good analysis and a correct program but we cannot be with this and look to ask workers themselves what they think first and foremost aragant . We must look to take the class with us if we can not look to lead it from out in front. Being apart of the class struggle but raising socialist ideas all the way will be key but never preeching and dictating our own ideas. Of course being passionate with our ideas and forceful like we expect others to do when countering our own ideas in a comradely way as a clash of ideas in the labour movement is a constant battle for the correct program to win out. We feel confident workers will find our ideas appealing and be drawn to our ideas in time. But let us not be that worker that turns them away but welcomes them with open arms. To take us forward for a fairer society and future for the many not just the few.
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