[ALB]

What's interesting about that list is that there are over 30 different members on it. So the volunteers are there. It is just that no one wants to be treasurer or general secretary at the moment. 

[ALB]

Thanks, Dave. I thought it must have come from Anti-Dühring

Engels wrote:

…. in time to come there will no longer be any professional porters or architects, and that the man who for half an hour gives instructions as an architect will also act as a porter for a period, until his activity as an architect is once again required. A fine sort of socialism that would be—perpetuating professional porters!

It is a better quote to illustrate the point that in socialism people will no longer be tied to doing the same work all day, month in month out, year in year out. A better quote in fact than the more frequent one about hunting in the morning, fishing in the afternoon, etc  which is less realistic (and offends our vegetarian friends).

[ALB]

I have only got round to reading the first section on the elimination of hierarchy which is based on a single quote from Marx taken completely out of context:

Quote:

Equality and equivalence of all kinds of labour insofar as they are human labour in general, this secret of the expression of value can be deciphered only when the idea of human equality has already acquired firmness of a popular prejudice.

This is taken from the last paragraph of section 3 on "The Equivalent Form of Value" of the opening chapter of Capital on "Commodities". Here is the whole paragraph:

Marx wrote:

There was, however, an important fact which prevented Aristotle from seeing that, to attribute value to commodities, is merely a mode of expressing all labour as equal human labour, and consequently as labour of equal quality. Greek society was founded upon slavery, and had, therefore, for its natural basis, the inequality of men and of their labour powers. The secret of the expression of value, namely, that all kinds of labour are equal and equivalent, because, and so far as they are human labour in general, cannot be deciphered, until the notion of human equality has already acquired the fixity of a popular prejudice. This, however, is possible only in a society in which the great mass of the produce of labour takes the form of commodities, in which, consequently, the dominant relation between man and man, is that of owners of commodities. The brilliancy of Aristotle’s genius is shown by this alone, that he discovered, in the expression of the value of commodities, a relation of equality. The peculiar conditions of the society in which he lived, alone prevented him from discovering what, “in truth,” was at the bottom of this equality

It is clear that what Marx is saying here is that Aristotle could not have worked out the concept of "equal human labour" because he was living in a society based on humans not being equal (as some were chattel slaves); this had to await the coming of a society in which all humans were regarded and accepted as being equally owners of commodities (capitalism !). It had nothing to do with any "popular prejudice" about all humans being equal in the sense of having equal capacities which you then go on (and on) to criticise as ridiculous. Which it is. That humans have different capacities is well expressed in the longstanding socialist slogan of "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs".It's annoying that you didn't give the exact source of the quote (hopefully, not because you wanted to make it difficult for your readers to track it down and discover how you have distorted it).There's another quote, this time from Engels, that you don't give a precise source for:

Engels wrote:

… a person who gives instructions as an architect for half an hour, will also push a trolley for some time, until his activity as an architect is needed once again. Fine sort of socialism that perpetuates professional pushers of trolleys!

As it's a good quote that well expresses the socialist viewpoint can you supply the source?

[ALB]

Brian wrote:

I can reveal that ISOLATION is one pattern – amongst others – I have observed from the responses.

That is not surprising as the great bulk of members who have joined over the past ten or more years have joined via the internet rather than in person via a geographical branch (which, incidentally, given the turnover of members could be a quarter or more of the membership). They could well be on average younger than the present active members.This suggests that the internet is probably their preferred method of communication, If so, it's here that we will need to make some changes, e.g. internet forums (friendly ones). People here have suggested streaming EC meetings. Not sure that's a good idea as they are not that interesting. If we're going to stream anything it should be public meetings or interesting internal discussions.As I've said, it will be interesting to see what the survey turns up from these members who joined via the internet. Hopefully sufficient of them will have replied so we can see if there's a pattern.

[ALB]

Or an EC composed of branch delegates?

[ALB]

We are nowhere near there of course !  Actually, the idea of a Ways and Means Committee is a good one. There used to be a a General Purposes Committee that met between EC Meetings but it didn't work properly and got abolished, but could be revived if the EC were to meet quarterly. But let's wait and see what the Ad Hoc Organisation Committee come up with. The Party is not short of money either and won't be for years (read Private Eye to know how much we have). In fact, we've got enough to engage a full timer who could do all the work at Head Office and more. Again, wait for the report.

[ALB]

You mean like it was said to be in the last years of the old USSR: you pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work.

[ALB]

Thanks, Alam. There are a couple of other referencse to the SPGB "intervention":

Quote:

For the SPGB, the degeneration of the RR proved Marx correct: the workers could not establish communism in a backward country. Lenin’s last articles were full of disillusionment – he realised he’d made a big mistake.

Quote:

The Russian Revolution failed. True, the working class, through its soviets, through its party, smashed the bourgeois state and established, for a short time, a dictatorship of the proletariat (only the Socialist Party of GB regarded this as a bourgeois revolution and a Bolshevik coup).

Re the March revolution which overthrew the Tsar, the Socialist Standard of 1919-21 saw this as a failed bourgeois revolution in that, although the Tsar was overthrown, the Russian capitalists were unable to establish their stable rule and were overthrown by a determined minority that was able to stabilise the situation. Not that it could establish socialism. In fact, it could only restore the economy and get production going again on a capitalist basis, as, once the civil war was over, Lenin came to recognise (and which earned him a relatively favourable obituary in the Socialist Standard).

[ALB]

The passage you quote is a precis of chapter 6 of our pamphlet The Market System Must Go ! Why Reformism Doesn't Work. Unfortunately it left out this passage:

Quote:

That taxation is an issue for the working class is a delusion. Of far more importance for living standards is whether capitalism is in the boom or slump phase of its economic cycle, and on how effective working class organisation in the trade unions is at securing wage rises and better working conditions.

This dates from 1997 not 1943.I only referred to our 1943 pamphlet on Family Allowances in the context of "family income supplement" (to be renamed "Working Family Payment" from March next year) and tax credits, being, besides a wage subsidy to empliers, "a redistribution of poverty" amongst the working class (but it also shows we have long refuted the Stalinist and Trotskyist calumny that we reject trade union action as reformist) because it advised the working class, as long as capitalism lasts, to undertake trade union action to raise wages generally rather than be diverted by reforms aimed to benefit only selected sections of the working class, eg those with two or more children.

[ALB]

Keep it up Matt, if only to show that not everyone from north of the border is a private in the Scottish Borderers

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

And ALB, if there isn't that necessary trade union action…and it does seem like it is lacking…what can our fellow workers expect?…Isn't it our wages driven to subsistence levels…or at least for large sections of it, the unorganised and the weakly organised.

Now it's Brother Fraser

alanjjohnstone wrote:

So they on minimum/living wages because of the tax allowance system escape the burden of tax (correct and clarify me on that issue)…

That's where the redistribution-of-poverty aspect of taxing wages comes in. Things are not so straightforward as in Marx's day.Here's is what we said in our 1943 pamphlet on Family Allowances:

Quote:

But the real issue is not that certain unscrupulous employers may seek to save out of wages amounts paid in Family Allowances, but that once it is established that the children (or some of the children) of the workers have been “provided for” by other means, the tendency will be for wage levels to sink to new standards which will not include the cost of maintaining such children.

and

Quote:

We would therefore ask the workers to examine the proposal for Family Allowances in the light of the foregoing remarks, bearing in mind that at best such a scheme can provide a slight and probably small improvement for a small section. Our advice to the workers is that they should not be fobbed off on the industrial field with small and doubtful gains for a comparatively small number, but that they should seize whatever opportunities may present themselves for winning improved conditions for all.

So we do link our theoretical analysis with calls for trade union action.

[ALB]

Here is Marx's reply:

Marx wrote:

…although, as we have seen, the abolition of a tax does not benefit the worker, he is harmed by the introduction of any new tax so long as the minimum has not yet fallen to its lowest possible level, and in this case with all perturbations and difficulties of civil relations (Wages, notes written in 1847).

At that time Marx still thought that the tendency under capitalism was for wages to be driven down towards the minumum subsistence level ( which would be different in different countries and "determined on average by the price of the most indispensable provisions"). The argument still applies, though, when the value of labour power is higher than this (as it was even in his day for skilled workers) : wages tend to sell at their value; a tax on wages reduces the money workers have to less than the value of their labour power; so, there will be a tendency for money wages to rise by the amount of the tax as labour power (like other commodities) tends to exchange at its value.In this case, what Marx was saying was that if workers are being paid more than the value of their labour power then a tax on their wages could/would harm them as it would reduce the price of their labour power to its value. And he didn't expect this reduction to be automatic but that it would be accompanied by "perturbations and difficulties of civil relations", i.e in his day, in Germany, by bread riots, etc; in our day of course (and later in his day) by trade union action.The only defence against this is trade union action even if this is only a rearguard to slow down the reduction. If this can't be done by trade union action, then it certainly can't be done by political action to reverse the tax increase.

[ALB]

Here's Marx's contribution to this discussion:

Marx wrote:

The level of wages expressed, not in terms of money, but in terms of the means of subsistence necessary to the working man, that is the level of real, not of nominal wages, depends on the relationship between demand and supply. An alteration in the mode of taxation may cause a momentary disturbance, but will not change anything in the long run. ('The Communism of the Rheinischer Beobachter, 1847]

Marx wrote:

If all taxes which bear on the working class were abolished root and branch, the necessary consequence would be the reduction of wages by the whole amount of taxes which today goes into them. Either the employers’ profit would rise as a direct consequence by the same quantity, or else no more than an alteration in the form of tax-collecting would have taken place. Instead of the present system, whereby the capitalists also advances, as part of the wage, what the worker has to pay, he [the capitalist] would no longer pay them in this roundabout way, but directly to the state (Moralising Criticism and Critical Morality, 1847).

[ALB]

Inspired no doubt by the current survey, Imposs1904 has reproduced on his blog the report of a survey 25 years ago of readers of the Socialist Standard:http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/readers-survey-results-1992.htmlIt's out of date now of course but there were some interesting results about what papers subscribers read and who they had voted for in the previous general election.

[ALB]

Yes, it is interesting how they start from the same assumption we make that what matters are net wages and that, in the end, taxes on wages are paid by the employer:

Quote:

In most countries employers and employees both contribute to the taxes (or social security contributions) levied on labour. Employers pay taxes on top of the wage they transfer to employees and employees pay income taxes on the money they receive from employers. For many decades, economists thought that it should not matter who pays. Employers were thought to care only about total labour costs (gross wage paid plus employer taxes). Employees were thought to care only about their net wage (what’s left of the gross wage after income tax). The gross wage itself should be of interest to neither of them, so it should not matter who pays the taxes.

They don't seem to be challenging the argument that, in terms of what workers get, net wages are what's important. Their argument is about how the method of collecting taxes is perceived and how it affects people's political attitudes, but we have never denied this. Our position has only been that in the end taxation is a burden on the employing class, with direct taxes on wages being passed on to employers (and indirect taxes too in so far as they effect the overall cost of living).The ideological aspect (that taxing workers gross pay gets workers to think that they are part of a tax-paying community) is important, but there is another aspect why governments wanted to tax wages — to "redistribute poverty", to redistribute the total wages bill so that nobody gets too much, i.e gets paid for something they don't need, eg from single workers to married workers and from workers without children to workers with children. This too of course has an ideological effect — it gets workers arguing amongst themselves as to who deserves what — but I don't think this was the reason this was introduced.

[Author]

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