'Why must you pay to live on the Earth?'

'endofmoney' posted on youtube by WorkNotJobs.

A pretty good short film in my opinion. Don't let the initial goose chase put you off.

RSA Animate - Crises of Capitalism

Forget all the hogwash you've read in the papers and heard on the news. In eleven minutes and ten seconds David Harvey, accompanied by the RSA Animate team, illustrate how and why economic crises happen:



Thanks to Stuart Watkins for bringing this to my attention.

Capitalism and Other Kids' Stuff

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Seduced by an agent of the US National Security Agency by sex, money and power John Perkins became an economic hit man. In an interview of two parts John reveals the fascinating story of his involvement in profit-driven economic strong-arm tactics in countries across the globe and the part he played in building the "American Empire":



Part 1


Part 2


Thanks to Z3 from world socialist movement forum for the link.

Capitalism And Other Kids Stuff

This is a thought-provoking education into the world we live in, it explains how the world's economic system operates in terms of a crazy and very unfair game that children are playing, and so it captures the imagination of its viewers. A fantastic movie to help understand the politics and economics of our global society, with an aim to establishing an alternative society based on meeting needs, on cooperation rather than competition, and on democratic forms of decision-making intead of top-down hierarchies. This is a movie on the forefront of those who wish to save this planet from worsening global warming, incessant wars, and either widespread physical poverty or profound feelings of spiritual poverty despite our rapacious consumerism. Its alternative is a very realizable future ready for the taking, not a hodge-podge dream.

Here it is then in five bite-size chunks:

V-Radio (Zeitgeist Movement) Interview The Man From "Socialism Or Your Money Back"

Paddy Shannon (one of those behind "Capitalism and Other Kids Stuff") talks to the Zeitgeist Movement's V-Radio about the today's profit-driven system, a post-scarcity, moneyless future and how to get from here to there.

The Right to be Lazy by Paul Lafargue

This from the introduction to Lafargue's classic re-issued in a pamphlet by the Socialist Party of Great Britain

Paul Lafargue's classic socialist critique of the capitalist work ethic (applicable only to the working class) dates from 1883. This means that some of the bourgeois politicians and ideologues mentioned in the pamphlet have long since been, deservedly, forgotten, but it remains a powerful presentation of the case that what workers should be demanding is not the "right to work" under capitalism but the "right to leisure" in a socialist society, where machines could be used to lighten labour and free people to engage in activities of their choice.

In this sense the pamphlet is a criticism not just of the capitalist work ethic but also of reformists. Its original subtitle was "Refutation of the Right to Work of 1848", a reference to a demand raised by certain leftwing politicians under the Second French republic set up after the overthrow of King Louis Philippe in 1848. There is of course no such thing as the "right" to work under capitalismthe number of jobs on offer to workers depends on the ups and downs of the capitalist business cycle but, as Lafargue points out, even if there were it would be a "slave's right", the right to be exploited. This has not prevented Trotskyists and other reformists, as in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s, launching campaigns demanding the "Right to Work". To which we in the Socialist Party responded, in true Lafargue tradition, by demanding "full unemployment".To the extent that "Right to Work" campaigns receive the support of some workers this is not so much because they particularly want to work in a capitalist factory or office as because they want the higher income that usually comes from being employed rather than unemployed. It is a reflection of the fact that, in capitalist society, everybody has to have some means of obtaining money as this is required in order to get access to food, clothing, shelter and the other necessities of life. These have to bought, and to buy them you need money; which most of us can only obtain by selling our mental and physical energies to some employer for a wage or a salary, a state of affairs Lafargue did not hesitate to denounce as "wage-slavery".

The alternative, as Lafargue realised, made a practicable possibility thanks to the development of the forces of production, was for the wages system to be abolished and for both production and consumption to be free within the framework of a propertyless, classless, stateless and moneyless society which he called interchangeably communism or socialism.

Lafargue's approach to work in a socialist society - that it should be minimised - is only one of two possible socialist approaches to the question. While Lafargue emphasised the "Right to be Lazy" (or, less provocatively, the "Right to Leisure"), his contemporary fellow Socialist across the Channel, William Morris, was arguing that what workers should be demanding was what might be called the "Right to Attractive Work". As he put it:

"I claim that work in a duly ordered community should be made attractive by the consciousness of usefulness, by its being carried on with intelligent interest, by variety, and by its being exercised amidst pleasurable surroundings" (Useful Work versus Useless Toil, 1884).

The two different approaches suggest two different policies that might be pursued in a socialist society: maximum automatisation so as to minimise working time or making as much work as possible attractive and personally rewarding. Lafargue writes here of reducing the working day to 2 or 3 hours. Morris would not have seen the point of this even if he went on to claim above that "the day's work should not be wearisomely long" : if people were getting some enjoyment out of their work surely, on his view, they would want to engage in it for longer than a couple of hours or so a day. As this is not an issue that can be resolved in the abstract, all we can do is to leave the matter to be settled in socialist society in the light of the preferences of those living in it.

Today, Lafargue is known mainly for this particular pamphlet which enjoyed a huge revival in the 1960s and 70s when the capitalistic work ethic came under attack again. Before the First World War, however, he was more widely known as a Marxist thinker and populariser of Marx's views. When Charles H. Kerr of Chicago published an English translation of the pamphlet in 1907 they did so together with some other articles of his on other, different topics. They also published as separate books his The Evolution of Property and Social and Philosophical Studies. But even before these were published in English Lafargue was known to English-speaking opponents of capitalism as an intransigent revolutionary Socialist on the anti-reformist, anti-Revisionist wing of the international Social Democratic movement. It was as such that a number of articles of his were published at the time in the Socialist Standard, the journal of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. We are republishing these here as the second part of this pamphlet. All except the one on the Nineteenth Century (which was reprinted from the Socialist Herald of Milwaukee and which also appeared with a different title as one of the other article in the Kerr publication The Right to be Lazy and Other Studies) were original translations by members of the Socialist Party and have up to now not been readily available.

We have used the 1907 translation by Charles Kerr himself but have restored the original subtitle of "Refutation of the Right to Work of 1848" and corrected some of the footnotes. We have also added the letter, translated here into English for the first time, that Lafargue wrote to the L'Egalite where an earlier version of the text of the pamphlet first appeared as a series of articles in 1880.

This and other pamphlets avialable here.

The London Hanged by Peter Linebaugh. (Verso, Second Edition, 2006.)

This is a detailed history of the rise of capitalism in eighteenth-century London. During this period you really could be hanged for stealing a loaf of bread. But public hangings were not simply a punishment for a crime committed; they were a form of state terror used by the ruling class to force the poor of London to accept the criminalization of their customary rights and accept new forms of private property under the wages system.

In the resulting class war thousands of London poor met their fate on the gallows at Tyburn. Jack Sheppard and Dick Turpin were famous at this time as heroes of the London poor, as men who would “rob from the rich to give to the poor”. Even today the exploits of the highway robber Dick Turpin are well-known in Britain. But Sheppard, thief and gaol-breaker, became notorious around the world. Over a century later the Australian press were making comparisons between Ned Kelly and Sheppard. In America, Frank and Jesse James wrote letters to newspapers signed “Jack Sheppard”. Sheppard, Turpin and many others were eventually caught and hanged. However, their legacy remained a problem for the ruling class. For as Linebaugh writes, their exploits became “an essential part of the oppositional culture of working class London, a serious obstacle to the formation of a tractable, obedient labour force. Therefore, it was not enough to hang them – the values they espoused or represented had to be challenged”

But the working class fought back, culminating in the little-known Gordon Riots of June 1780. In this insurrection, Parliament and the Bank of England were attacked, the houses of judges and major employers destroyed. Newgate prison was attacked, its prisoners released and the building completely destroyed (this was only nine years before the storming of the Bastille in revolutionary France). Between 400 and 500 people were killed. Yet by the end of the eighteenth-century the social relations of wage labour and capital were predominant. To avoid confrontation, public hangings ceased but they continued within the relative safety (for the hangman!) of prison walls. There is however one remaining vestige of this violent period: the Punch and Judy show. Brought to London's Drury Lane in 1790 by the Italian puppeteer Giovanni Piccinni, the show expresses “the emotions of a class riven with unresolvable contradictions”. In the murderous rage of Punch we see the frustrations of a class at war. Punch is arrested and sent to the gallows but refuses to comply. The hangman “puts his own head in the noose to teach Punch how to do it, and Punch hangs the hangman”. A magnificent and important book.

LEW

Thanks to Lew for reminding me about this review of The London Hanged in the Socialist Standard (May 2007 issue).

Poles Apart? Capitalism or Socialism as the Planet Heats Up.

Can a solution to climate change be found within the constraints of the market system?
Or, is a society of common ownership and democratically organised production the way forward to true sustainability?
A filmed talk featuring Glenn Morris of 'Arctic Voice' and Brian Gardner of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. Recorded at Conway Hall, London, April 5th 2008.

You can view it here.

A Eugene Debbs Quote to Round Off the Year

"I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition; as it is now the capitalists use your heads and your hands."

More abouts Debbs.

Erich Fromm on Youtube

Erich Fromm, psychoanalyst and social critic, talks to Mike Wallace about society, materialism, relationships, government, religion, and happiness.

It hasn't aged. It's as relevant today as it was 50 years, or so, ago.

Erich Fromm interviewed by Mike Wallace (1 of 3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPw5prYLc5w

Erich Fromm interviewed by Mike Wallace (2 of 3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y1nraKpIyA&feature=related

Erich Fromm interviewed by Mike Wallace (3 of 3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kyfvfQjNy4&feature=related

Thanks to Arminius at worldincommon for the link.

Capitalism and Other Kids' Stuff

Capitalism and Other Kids' Stuff asks us to take a fresh look at the world we live in and to question some of the most basic assumptions about life in capitalism.
Watch it here

This and other vids can be accessed here

The Market System Must Go!

Socialism is the only system within which the problems that now face workers can be solved - but what will it be like? Socialism is a system in which the means for producing and distributing wealth will be owned by society as a whole. Socialism will end the class monopoly of the means of production that exists in capitalism, converting what is now the private property of a few into the common property of
all. Socialism will be a genuinely classless society in which the exploitation and oppression of humanby human will have been abolished. All human beings will be social equals, freely able to co-operate in
running social affairs.

Drawing up a detailed blueprint for socialism is premature, since the exact forms will depend upon the technical conditions and preferences of those who set up and live in socialism, but we can broadly outline the features essential to a socialist society.

Socialism can only be democratic. At one time socialism was also known as ‘social democracy’, a phrase which shows well that democratic control would extend to all aspects of social affairs, including the production and distribution of wealth. There is an old socialist slogan which speaks of ‘government over people’ giving way to ‘the administration of things’, meaning that the public power of coercion, and the government which operates it, will have no place in socialism. The state, which is an organisation staffed by soldiers, the police, judges and jailers charged with enforcing the law, is only needed in class society for in such societies there is no real community of interest, only class conflict. The purpose of government is to maintain law and order in the interests of the dominant class. It is in fact an instrument of class oppression. In socialism there will be no classes and no built-in class conflicts: everyone will have the same basic social interest. In these circumstances there is no need for any coercive machine to govern or rule over people. The phrase ‘socialist government’ is a contradiction in terms. Where there is socialism there can be no government and where there is
government there is no socialism.

Those who wrongly assume that government and administration are one and the same will have some difficulty in imagining a society without government. A society without administration would indeed be impossible since ‘society’ implies that human beings organise themselves to provide for their needs. However, a society without government is both possible and desirable. Socialism will in fact mean the extension of democratic administration to all aspects of social life on the basis of the common
ownership of the means of living. There will be administrative centres that will be clearing-houses for settling social affairs by majority decision.

But will the administrators become the new ruling class? Democratic organisation does indeed involve the delegation of functions to groups and individuals. Such people will be charged by the community with organising necessary social functions. They will be chosen by the community and will be answerable to it. Those who perform the administrative functions in socialism will be in no position to dominate. They will not be regarded as superior persons, as tends to be the case today, but as social equals doing an essential job. Nor will they have at their command armies and police to enforce their will. There will be no opportunity for bribery and corruption since everybody, including those in administrative occupations, will have free access to the stock of wealth set aside for consumption. In short, the material conditions for the rise of a new ruling class would not exist.

The purpose of socialist production will be simply and solely to satisfy human needs and desires. Under present arrangements production is for the market with a view to profit. This will be replaced with production solely and directly for use. The production and distribution of sufficient wealth to meet the needs of the socialist community as individuals and as a community will be an administrative and organisational problem, it will be no small problem but the tools for solving it have already been created by capitalism.

Capitalism has developed technology and social productivity to the point where plenty for all can be produced. A society of abundance has long been technically possible and it is this that is the material basis for socialism. Capitalism, because it is a class society with production geared to profit making rather than meeting human needs, cannot make full use of the worldwide productive system it has built up over the last two hundred or so years. Socialism, making full use of the developed methods ofproduction brought in by capitalism, will alter the purpose of production entirely. Men and women will be producing wealth solely to meet their needs and desires, and not for the profit of a privileged few.

Unlike capitalism with its profit-driven economy, a socialist system of production for use would operate in direct response to needs. Monetary calculation would be replaced by calculation in kind - that is, calculation in real quantities - and the market could be replaced by a self-regulating system of stock-control, a system initially built up by supermarkets and other retail outlets in capitalism. This
system could work in the following way without the need for a price mechanism. Real social - rather than monetary - demand would arise through individual consumers exercising their right of free access to consumer goods and services according to their self-defined needs, constrained only by what could be made available. Such needs would be expressed to units of production as required quantities such as
grammes, kilos, cubic metres, tonnes, etc, of various materials and quantities of goods requiring productive activity from the different scales of social production. There would be no need for a bureaucratic pre-determined allocative plan.

Read the whole pamphlet here.

More pamphlets here.

Erich Fromm - Alienation, Work and More

“Capitalistic society is based on the principle of political freedom on the one hand, and of the market as the regulator of all economic, hence social, relations, on the other. The commodity market determines the conditions under which commodities are exchanged, the labour market regulates the acquisition and sale of labour. Both useful things and useful energy and skill are transformed into commodities which are exchanged without the use of force and without fraud under the conditions of the market.”

“Modern capitalism needs men who cooperate smoothly and in large numbers; who want to consume more and more; and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated. It needs men who feel free and independent, not subject to any authority or principle or conscience—yet willing to be commanded, to do what is expected of them, to fit into the social machine without friction; who can be guided without force, led without leaders, prompted without aim—except the one to make good, to be on the move, to function, to go ahead.

What is the outcome? Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature. He has been transformed into a commodity, experiences his life forces as an investment which must bring him the maximum profit obtainable under existing market conditions. Human relations are essentially those of alienated automatons, each basing his security on staying close to the herd, and not being different in thought, feeling or action.”

“Man becomes a ‘nine to fiver,’ he is part of the labour force, or the bureaucratic force of clerks and managers. He has little initiative, his tasks are prescribed by the organization of the work; there is even little difference between those high up on the ladder and those on the bottom. They all perform tasks prescribed by the whole structure of the organization, at a prescribed speed, and in a prescribed manner. Even the feelings are prescribed: cheerfulness, tolerance, reliability, ambition, and an ability to get along with everybody without friction.”

“From birth to death, from Monday to Monday, from morning to evening – all activities are reutilised and prefabricated. How should a man caught in this net of routine not forget that he is a man, a unique individual, one who is given only this one chance of living, with hopes and disappointments, with sorrow and fear, with the long for love and the dread of the nothing and of separateness?”

“In the modern work process of a clerk, the worker on the endless belt, little is left of this uniting quality of work. The worker becomes an appendix to the machine or to the bureaucratic organization.”
(from The Art of Loving, 1956)

From the December 2009 Socialist Standard

Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman'.

"You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit."
- Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman, Act 2

Death of a Salesman

We're not alone!

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC poll has found widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism.

In the global poll for the BBC World Service, only 11% of those questioned across 27 countries said that it was working well.

More than 29,000 people in 27 countries were questioned. In only two countries, the United States and Pakistan, did more than one in five people feel that capitalism works well as it stands.

Almost a quarter - 23% of those who responded - feel it is fatally flawed. That is the view of 43% in France, 38% in Mexico and 35% in Brazil.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8347409.stm