Letters

Let's talk

If Steve Freeman is having problems standing under the Tusc banner in neighbouring Bermondsey, Lewisham People Before Profit would welcome meeting with Steve to talk through how we could help and support his intervention.

Lewisham PB4P are now meeting weekly, at 7.15pm every Monday in the Brocca Cafe, opposite Brockley station, Coulston Street. In addition, we have a number of activists in the north of the borough who may be willing to offer help and support to Steve.

Lewisham PB4P have registered ‘People Before Profit’ and a number of other political titles with the electoral commission. Sorry, but there’s nothing on republicanism!

Let's talk
Let's talk

Misunderstood

I am sympathetic to many of the points made by Nick Rogers in his article last week (‘The road to working class revolution’, April 8). I would, however, be grateful if you would give me the space to clarify certain of my own arguments which he seems to have misunderstood.

Nick wrote: “Paul Cockshott, however, is wrong to suggest that exploitation can be legislated away. His proposal that all workers should legally receive the full value of their labour-power encounters a number of problems. First, this cannot be calculated on the basis of individual workers or individual enterprises, but only across the whole of society (and globally for that matter).”

My suggestion is not that workers should have a right to the full value of their labour-power, since this, according to Marx, is already the normal situation under capitalism. Instead I am suggesting that either a socialist government, or a citizens’ initiative should pass a law saying that (a) labour is legally recognised as the source of added value, and (b) as a collective the workers in a firm are entitled to the full value added by their labour.

I agree that this cannot be computed on the basis of individual workers, but it can be easily calculated for all the workers employed in a firm. Firms already have to prepare accounts of value added for VAT, so the amount of value created by the workers is known. How this would be distributed between employees would be a matter for collective bargaining.

Nick then says: “Second, the whole of the value of production cannot be distributed for consumption. There is a need to make provision for all sorts of collective needs and to invest in future production.”

This is, of course, true and Nick is echoing Marx’s remarks in Critique of the Gotha programme, with which I am obviously familiar. But remember that Marx was writing in the 19th century before pay-as-you-earn or national insurance. He was pointing out to his fellow German socialists that a socialist economy would have what we now call a welfare system and that there would have to be a levy on earnings to pay for this.

Well, in the 20th century the welfare system was won, largely as a result of working class political action, and the sort of levy Marx envisaged was introduced to pay for it. Nowadays, everyone is familiar with the difference between pre- and post-tax income. In the 1870s, it was a novel idea.

If workers in this century collectively won the right to be paid the full value added by their labour, it would not excuse them from paying national insurance or income tax. The aim of a right to full added value is to end capitalist exploitation. Tax avoidance is not the aim. Pre-tax wages would rise perhaps 30% to 40%, and a share of that would obviously go in income tax.

Finally, Nick adds: “Third, no capitalist enterprise could continue to operate without extracting surplus value. To abolish exploitation without recognising that this would involve the abolition of capitalism - and without making prior provision for running the economy on an entirely non-capitalist basis - would be economically disastrous.”

Clearly, the firms that existed after such a law was passed would no longer be capitalist. They would in essence be like workers’ cooperatives, and the experience of Yugoslavia, Mondragon, etc shows that there is nothing disastrous about worker co-ops. Obviously, there would be long-term issues of providing investment funding for modernisation and so on. This can be provided in two ways: voluntary levies on wages for an accumulation fund; or loans from a state bank. Both were used in Yugoslavian enterprises.

Note that what I am essentially arguing for is a Yugoslav-style transitional phase as a first step on the way to a socialist economy. It would not yet be Marx’s first phase of communism, because money would still exist, as it did in Yugoslavia. In order to reach Marx’s first phase, money would have to be replaced by non-transferable labour credits. But this is only possible within the context of a comprehensive in natura planning system that would replace inter-enterprise markets of the kind that existed in Yugoslavia.

Misunderstood
Misunderstood

Marx misquoted

“What of Marx’s distributional principle for the ‘lower stage of communism’ - ie, socialism: ‘From each according to their ability, to each according to their work’?” asks Nick Rogers.

It is curious that the phrase is placed in quotation marks because we all know that Marx never made such a statement.

In fact, ‘To each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities’ was framed in opposition to the doctrine of the followers of Saint-Simon: “Let each be placed according to his capacity and rewarded according to his work.”

Perhaps the writer desires us to accept the possible interim use of labour-time vouchers, as suggested by Marx, but I fear that he actually wishes us to believe that there exists some sort of distinction between ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’ and that they are different types of societies. Such an interpretation is a purposeful misreading of Marx, foisted upon us by Lenin. It was not Marx who called ‘the first phase of communism’ socialism, but Lenin, who interposed the words, “generally called socialism”, in The state and revolution. Marx and Engels used the terms ‘communism’ and ‘socialism’ interchangeably. The idea that socialism and communism were two separate, successive phases of post-capitalist society is not to be found in Marx, but is derived from Lenin. (Nor should Lenin’s conception of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ be confused with socialism, since it too is not based on Marx’s meaning, but instead is a gross perversion of it.

Marx’s view on the need for a transition between capitalism and communism was a product of the time in which he was living. From Marx’s own point of view, it is only possible to see the world from the particular time and place in which one lives. It is true that Marx realised that, had socialism been established in his day, it would not have proved possible to implement immediately. Bearing in mind his over-optimistic view of the readiness of the working class to establish socialism during his lifetime, it is not surprising that he expected a lengthy transition would be necessary and that in the early years of socialism there would inevitably have had to have been some restrictions or a form of rationing on access to consumer goods and services.

But since Marx’s death the forces of production have been developed immeasurably. A world of abundance has long been technically feasible. There is no longer a requirement for any lengthy transition.

Marx misquoted
Marx misquoted

In the dark

As I write this, the membership of the Communication Workers Union have been kept in the dark, but the word is a deal has been struck between management and the CWU leadership.

Rumours abound that extra payments for delivering unaddressed leaflets will be abolished and that later start times will be introduced, meaning mail will be delivered up to tea time, including Saturdays. Considering there used to be a Royal Mail standard of delivering the last letter on the first delivery by 0930, this is quite a slide in performance. The executive committee of the CWU and their ‘partners’ at the top of Royal Mail management don’t work Saturdays, so they’ll still be able to follow their football team, spend time with their families or pursue a hobby of some sort. Royal Mail likes to see itself as ‘family-friendly’ but the term obviously doesn’t extend to the families of those who actually do the work.

Royal Mail has plucked a figure of 10% out of the air and informed the media only too willing to believe it that this is the amount of mail they are losing each year. One way they come up with this nice, round number is by lowering the average amount of mail each tray of mail holds. Mail arrives in delivery offices in grey boxes (trays). An agreement between Royal Mail and the CWU said that each tray holds an average of 208 letters. Royal Mail later lowered this to 150 letters. We did a count at my delivery office and not one tray contained fewer than 200 letters and frequently trays contained as many as 280. Royal Mail and the government have an agenda to sell off the business to a privateer and the ‘falling mail volumes’ scam fits right in with it.

The other big scam is known as ‘down stream access’ or DSA. This is mail which postal workers have to deliver for private companies such as TNT, DHL, Citipost etc. Royal Mail was allowed by the government to set a rate for delivering this mail which meant they lose money on every letter handled. Even CWU general secretary Billy Hayes has stated a loss to Royal Mail of two pence on every single item delivered. Who pays? The taxpayer and postal workers, who have not had a pay rise since 2007. Will Billy Hayes start a campaign telling the taxpayer they are subsidising Rupert Murdoch’s TNT? I doubt it!

The figure of 10% seems to be one which Royal Mail has grown very fond of. Last year it issued what they call the ‘Ten Percent Challenge’. It sounds like the title of a daytime TV game show, but it’s far more entertaining than that! Royal Mail expect each delivery office to make budget savings of 10% year on year. One way this is achieved is by managers bullying staff not to book overtime on overloaded deliveries. It has to be said that many staff are their own worse enemies. They arrive early for work and carry out unpaid overtime, take mail out in their own cars instead of cycling, walking or using public transport and work through their meal breaks.

Another way Royal Mail makes savings, while at the same time driving down standards, is by replacing workers who leave and have 40-hour contracts with part-time staff on 24-hour contracts. These workers do not sort mail and, as their working hours are so short, their deliveries have to be prepared by a full-time worker who has been taken off their sorting duty. This reduces the number of staff who sort mail, so the job takes much longer to complete. The knock-on effect is that deliveries leave the office later and later.

Part-time staff know they have no chance of ever becoming full-time and everyone knows managers are out to get rid of as many full-time staff as possible, using sick absence procedure or issuing warnings for the slightest misdemeanour.

We’ve had Labour’s Peter Mandelson trying and failing to sell us off, Labour’s Allan Leighton running down services by making thousands of full-time jobs part-time, abolishing the second delivery and making the only delivery much later in the day, stopping Sunday collections, stopping morning collections from post boxes and allowing private firms to use Royal Mail staff to deliver their mail at a cost to the taxpayer and postal workers’ pension funds of at least 2p per item. None of these things could have happened without the blessing of the Labour government. Why does the CWU continue to fund Labour? Why does Billy Hayes throw his toys out of his pram whenever someone suggests withholding donations?

The latest sell-out is the deal Royal Mail and their partners in the CWU want us to vote for. This includes even later start times, longer Saturday hours, no extra payment for unaddressed leaflets. Royal Mail boast that the deal will help them push through change at a pace which suits them.

Just about everyone involved agrees that the service has gone to pot in the last five or six years. Just like public transport, education and the NHS in fact!

In the dark
In the dark

Regroupment?

Comrade Mark Fischer writes of the need of Marxists for unity ... but somehow unity never seems to happen.

Why so many divisions in the first place? I believe they are a result of a long period of capitalist prosperity, which is now ending. Marxism appears irrelevant as long as capitalism is able to solve social needs. This irrelevance affected the revolutionary left, because it appeared that the very idea of revolution was absurd to those who were needed to make it.

We are still not in a revolutionary situation in any advanced country, though capitalism is no longer meeting social needs. But there is a new class struggle which will impose unity on Marxists - whether they like it or not. I don’t believe this will take place primarily by negotiations between tendencies, but rather by marching side by side, carrying banners that say the same.

Comrade Fischer implies the solution is in joint electoral action. He mentions the limitations of the “protest/trade unionist response” in Greece and Ireland and says, “we have to rally our political resources”. He interprets that phrase to mean running socialist candidates in parliamentary elections.

Certainly, running socialist candidates in local elections to propagandise for socialism (if they really do it) is still valid in this period. But comrade Fischer does not envision that, as the class struggle deepens, participating in parliamentary elections will become a diversion from the class struggle. The problem in Greece and Ireland is not a lack of socialist parties to run in elections, but a failure of the left to pose the necessity of taking power through soviets or workers’ councils. Otherwise, we Marxists become the left of the protest movement.

Regroupment?
Regroupment?

Any master

Comrade Clark’s criticism of Lenin, that bureaucracy was the product of a backward culture, is wrong (Letters, April 1). Backwardness was a major problem - hence the need for a successful German revolution.

A bureaucracy will indeed serve any master, but it must be made to serve society and not vice versa. Only toward the end of his life did Lenin identify this as one of the most pressing issues facing an increasingly isolated Soviet state.

As the bureaucracy began to find its feet, it identified Stalin as its most suitable bedfellow. YE Rudzutak neatly summed up their feelings: “We as members of the central committee vote for Stalin because he is one of ours!” He was their symbol and partner. Stalin skilfully developed the Leninist tactic of constructing socialism in one country into a strategy, and indeed into a theory to secure his position and that of the bureaucracy within Soviet society.

Trotsky’s prediction of Soviet collapse following the Nazi invasion was indeed misguided, but owes more to the fact that he misjudged the positive role the bureaucracy was playing (and continued to play) and to Stalin’s use of national historical myths and traditions to maximise broad support among a politically unsophisticated and still predominantly rural population.

Any real or imaginary legions of fifth column elements marching around the country are, I’m afraid, the usual Stalinist smokescreens.

Any master
Any master

Why stand?

There are two important reasons for standing as a trade unionist and socialist in this general election. It is a particularly important election because all the main parties are agreed on major cuts and tax increases and will use the election as a mandate for whatever policy they have hidden up their sleeves. The question is, will trade unionists and socialists take up the fight?

In my view it is very important to show willing to fight. Standing, or in my case fighting to stand, is a declaration that we, trade unionists and socialists, want to fight the bankers’ parties. If you fly your flag some will run towards it and others will run away. But you will attract fighters towards you. The present mood is one of fear and uncertainty. Socialists have to stand against the tide.

The second reason why socialists should stand is that we have something to say to the people, whether they are voters or not. It has to be something that is relevant which nobody else is saying. I am convinced that what we have to say about the banks, parliament, Afghanistan, immigration and the environment needs to be said. I am equally convinced that a majority of Bermondsey’s 68,000 people, especially working people, would vote for these policies.

The problem is that we have no organisation that can deliver this message. This is the chicken and egg. We won’t start to get any organisation unless we are prepared to fight. The general election is a good time to start, not to win this election, but to prepare for the next. Trade unionists and socialists cannot keep delaying the formation of new party of the left. The fight for an alternative began with the Socialist Labour Party in 1996, has taken us through the Socialist Alliance, Respect and now the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. If anything, we have gone backwards, whilst the need for a socialist alternative has never been more necessary.

Standing in Bermondsey and Old Southwark is not just about that constituency. It is about the movement as a whole. Of course, if we cannot get our message to Bermondsey voters, nobody would vote for our policies except by accident. If I had the words ‘Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition’ next to my name on the ballot paper, I might get 1% of the vote (by the way, I was wrongly described as a “prospective Tusc candidate” in my letter in last week’s Weekly Worker). When I made the first case for standing, I said my vote would likely be “derisory”. But, now, without the support of Tusc, this would be an overestimate. If I get a zero vote, I will take it as an honour awarded by the 30% who don’t vote - the alienated, disregarded and unrecognised.

In any case even if elected I would not enter the ‘House of Thieves’ unless it was to be reformed. I will not swear an oath of allegiance to the banks. When the oath is removed the time will be right for reform. The locked doors to the chamber of the Commons will start to open for the people. Before that no serious reform will be possible.

A party and serious local organisation which can get the right message over cannot be created in months, weeks or even days before an election. This is the lesson of the SA in 2001 and Respect in 2005. To my fellow trade unionists and socialist fighters, I wish you the best of luck - you need every help you can get. I applaud you for courage and all your efforts, but don’t expect much.

So why continue when all the odds are stacked against us? I think I can get a message to the 26,000 students and 2,200 workers at the local university. If I can do that it is worth its weight in gold, even if none of them are Bermondsey voters. On May 7 people will take off their ‘elector’ hats and continue as workers, students, etc.

So the real question is not how many votes I will get. It is whether working people will feel any stronger or more determined in May, June or July because we have tried to fight the election. Will local socialists start to organise together?

I am ready and willing to go for it. All I need is 100 people to give me a fiver for the deposit; 10 Bermondsey electors to sign my nomination papers; and 20 people to help me get the message over in the next three weeks. Let us see how far we can get.

Why stand?
Why stand?

Unity of what?

Mark Fischer is right to suggest that the first mass socialist parties to free themselves from Stalinism, Labourism and social democracy will form around a shared understanding of, and a commitment to, the promotion of Marxism (‘Unity of Marxists around Marxism is urgently required’, March 25). He is also correct to assume that the left intelligentsia outwith and within the British trade unions does not yet have a clear understanding of the nature of Marxism.

Mark suggests that clarity can be achieved programmatically through a critical engagement with the policies and practices of the various activist groups that call themselves ‘Marxist’. Peter Manson makes a similar point in his article on the new Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (‘Socialists in trade union clothing’, April 1). Peter argues that Tusc, although initiated and dominated by a Marxist group, is not likely to break with the Labourist politics of the trade unions.

What are the causes of Tusc’s desire to build a “replacement Labour Party”? Is it the result of the theoretical inadequacies of the Socialist Party of England and Wales programme? An examination of SPEW’s programme might reveal the extent of its adaptation to social democratic politics. On the other hand, SPEW’s practice might contradict its programme. What, for example, are the forces that pull socialist groups in Britain to the right, despite having an origin in Marxist theory?

As is well known, the consciousness of British workers was formed in an alliance with an imperialist ruling class representing the interests of finance capital. British trade unions have policed the political and economic militancy of workers for over a century. They have colluded with plans to privilege British jobs, exclude competition from immigrant labour, impose tariffs and promote commodities produced at home. Their inability to control labour during the post-war social democratic consensus played an important role in the turn to finance capital and the recommodification of labour-power. This dominated politics from the 1970s until the crash of 2008. Labourism has therefore given the consciousness of British workers a nationalist and conservative character.

Alongside conservative Labour-ism, the left intelligentsia has reproduced an anti-intellectual culture influenced by empiricist and positivist metaphysics. This makes it difficult for teachers and students to read or understand Marx. It leads many activists to dismiss theoretical discussion and debate as ‘academic’ or the domain of ‘armchair Marxists’. The implication is that theory has little or no relevance to the class struggle. Surely, it is argued, the point of being a communist is to change the world, not just understand it?

Moreover, unlike France or Germany, British workers and intellectuals have had no Marxist heritage to engage with. What passed for Marxism in this country was associated with membership of the British Communist Party. The CP reinforced ideas of a national ‘socialism’ already deeply embedded within Labourism.

If groups such as SPEW have adapted to this culture, what, therefore, is needed to bring about the “unity of Marxists” that writers in this paper call for? I shall give a negative and a positive answer to this question.

The negative answer is relevant not only to Britain, but also worldwide. This states that, without a sharply defined distinction between Marxism and Stalinism, the socialist project is doomed. The Trotskyist denial of the doctrine of national ‘socialism’ is necessary, but insufficient. Stalinism attempted to destroy Marxism completely.

As a result, many workers view socialism with abhorrence. They fear the return of bureaucratic controls over their labour-power and consider commodity fetishism a lesser evil. Similarly, many members of the intelligentsia understand Marxism to be a utopian ideology used by an aspiring bureaucratic elite to eradicate difference of opinion. For these reasons, there is a strong pull on the left to avoid making the socialist goal explicit. It is easier to settle for a practical engagement with partial forms of proletarian collective action within the class struggle. It is more popular to promote independent Scottish or Welsh republics than to argue for international socialism.

It is axiomatic that there can be no unity between Marxists and Stalinists. Marxists are opposed to nationalism, especially when it takes the form of national ‘socialism’. There are no more grounds for organisational unity with the Communist Party of Britain  than there are with the British National Party. Both Stalinism and fascism are extreme forms of nationalism that Marxists reject. Similarly, there can be no unity with leftwing Scottish and Welsh nationalists.

This newspaper provides a convenient illustration of the impossibility of unity between Marxists and Stalinists. Tony Clark, a supporter of Stalinist regimes, is a regular contributor. He defends the following positions:

1. Socialism does not entail the abolition of the division of labour;
2. Bureaucratic controls over labour are progressive;
3. Lenin, not Stalin, was the author of the idea of national ‘socialism’;
4. Evidence that Lenin opposed this idea is liberal propaganda;
5. Inquiry into the political economy of the former USSR is irrelevant;
6. Stalin’s purges were necessary to eradicate fifth column elements;
7. These elements supported Trotsky; and,
8. Followers of Trotsky are totalitarian ultra-leftists.

None of the above statements are true. Most of them are consistent with rightwing interpretations of Soviet history and the left. Any or all of these positions held by soi-disant ‘Marxist’ individuals or groups are incompatible with the socialist project.

What is the positive answer to the question of Marxist unity? Again, the context of this answer is worldwide as well as British. It stresses the need for ongoing discussion and debate on the nature of Marxism. A starting point is Hillel Ticktin’s 2008 article, ‘What is Marxism?’ (Marxist Voice Vol 2, No1). Hillel argues that the task of Marxists in a non-revolutionary situation is to develop an adequate theory that the proletariat can use to understand its situation (p17). Presently, this involves studying theory to explain the present crisis of capitalism to workers. It follows that the priority of Marxists is to educate themselves and each other sufficiently to advance theory free from the influence of Stalinism. Unity is therefore an educational as well as an organisational priority.

‘Unity of Marxists’ is a meaningless slogan if there are no Marxists to unite. What is certain is that, as long as Marxism is confused with Stalinism, Labourism and social democracy, ‘Marxists’ will prove useless to the proletariat. They will act as an impediment to the formation of the class. They will be incapable of campaigning for socialism.

On the other hand, Stalinism, Labourism and social democracy are spent forces. This makes it likely that the existing weaknesses of the left can be overcome relatively quickly.

Unity of what?
Unity of what?