ALB
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Good point. I don't recall the gutter press and gutter politicians denouncing this as an effect of total dependency on an unearned income.
Meanwhile, from today corporation tax (formerly profits tax) goes down from 24% to 23% and the top rate of income tax from 50% to 45%.
The worst thing about this is that, although the government is obliged by economic circumstances, to cut back its spending, including on welfare, to protect profits, what they have chosen to cut (benefits to those below retirement age) is motivated by vote-catching considerations. In other words, some of the specific cuts are not strictly necessary and are vindictive.Polls and focus groups have revealed to the politicians that spending on welfare is now unpopular. Philip Collins, who was Blair's speechwriter, in an article in today's Times notes:
Quote:In 1987, according to Ipsos MORI, 55 per cent of people thought that more should be spent on the poor even if it meant higher taxes. Now only 27 per cent agree. Seven out of ten people agree that the country needs to spend less on welfare.In other words, there's votes in them there cuts. Collins's article was in fact urging Labour to jump on this bandwagon too if they want to win the next election.Collins makes the point that the government could have chosen not to protect pensioners, including well off ones, from the cuts. But the politicians know this would be a vote-loser. So they target other groups, in particular the newly-baptised "precariat" who are less likely to vote than pensioners.I agree with SP, it's sickening.
No, it's not really different from "higher wages" in the widest sense. Workers bargain, normally through their unions, over the conditions of sale of their ability to work. The amount they are paid is just one aspect of it; the other is the conditions under which it is exercised, including the length of time.There was another article on this in the June 1980 issued of the Socialist Standard entitled " A Shorter Working Week?" (unfortunately not yet included in the archives section but may soon be). It makes the additional point that a shorter working week cannot be a cure for unemployment, as some trade unionists and reformists have advocated.The Factory Acts, on the other hand, were reforms and had the wholehearted support of Marx who devoted a section of Volume 1 of Capital to the struggle for them. We've also always given them as an example of a reform that benefited the working class (we have never said that this is not possible).
jondwhite wrote:What are the politics of calling for a reduction of the working day? Is it a valid socialist or Marxian position? Is it unique to socialism?Yes, it's a valid working class position that Socialists and Marx support. No, it is not unique to socialism (as non-socialist trade unionists support it too, and rightly).See this article from the May 2006 Socialist Standard:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2006/no-1221-may-2006/hours-wages-and-profits
And here's what a front-page statement on "Municipal Elections" in the Socialist Standard of October 1906 said when the party first put up candidates for local councils:
Quote:The candidates of the SPGB therefore, whilst quite prepared to use the local powers for such small temporary benefits as may be forced from the capitalists' hands for the workers in those districts, nevertheless do not seek suffrages for this, which can only be a secondary business of the political party of the workers. The fact, pointed out above, must be strongly reiterated, that the powers of the local bodies are strictly limited and are controlled by the Government.The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters into municipal contests as a step in the work of the capturing of the whole political machinery. Fulling realising, and pointing out to the workers, the strict limitations of the power of local bodies, making no promises that are beyond our power to fulfil, we ask the members of our class, when (but not before) they have studied these facts and realised their correctness, to cast their votes for the candidates of the SPGB who alone stand on the above basis.A very clear statement of our position which is still valid and which we still apply today.
Miracle Child wrote:The battle in the media is being fought between Tories, who argue that Philpott confirms every prejudice they've ever had about poor people, and New Labour, who cling to the idea that "benefits", rather than the socialist position of full employment, are the answer.Both positions are bullshit, but the argument always thrown at socialists is that they would just encourage the Philpotts of this world. I'm pretty sure that wasn't what Marx would have had in mind, but shouldn't we be saying so? .Actually, the socialist answer is not "full employment", i.e paid employment for all (which isn't possible under capitalism anyway). It's what might even be called "full unemployment", i.e where nobody would have to sell their working skills to an employer for a wage or a salary to get the money to buy the things they need to live. It's what Marx had in mind when he talked of "the abolition of thr wages system".People would still have to work of course in a socialist society to produce things otherwise society couldn't survive but not for an employer and not for wages. Productive work would not take the form of "employment". It would be a question of co-operating with other members of society to produce what was needed and then having free access to it. The application of the principle "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".Under capitalism you can only survive if you can get hold of money and, apart from being born with it, there are only three ways of getting it: working for an employer., stealing or begging (charity). The so-called "benefits system" is a system of state charity, handouts for the poor. i.e. those who for one reason or another can't find an employer. It doesn't surprise me that some people try to get the most out of this, even by so-called "abusing" it. It's a risk some think worth taking and, personally, I don't blame them. Like everyone else they've got to survive under capitalism.I certainly don't buy the argument that they are parasites on "hard-working families" (as both the Tories and Labour claim — it was Gordon Brown who coined this term). The real parasites are the idle rich, not the idle poor.
I agree that £20,000 a year as a property-income is an arbitrary figure (and I was excluding pensions). Any figure will be. In any case, class is defined not by income but by relationship to the means of production, so we are just trying to find an indirect way of indentifying this.But you do realise that the lower the rate of interest the more your capital will need to be to get an income of this amount. If it's 4% then you'll need a capital of £500,000. If it's 3% you'll need one of £666,666 and if it's only 2% it's £1,000,000.
There have been independent candidates at elections before who have stood on a similar platform to us. One was Ernie Reynolds who stood in Swindon North in the 2005 general election as an "Abolish Money" candidate.He did know of us and filled out an application form to join but didn't proceed with it as he probably knew that he would not be accepted as he envisaged the "abolition of money" in one country (not that we stand for the abolition of money as such but rather for the establishment of common ownership, democratic control and production directly to satisfy people's needs that would make money redundant). He got 195 votes.Incidentally, the Andy Newman who is confusingly called a "Socialist" here, and got 208 votes on a programme promising various reforms of capitalism, was a Trotskyist (of the "Socialist Unity" faction) who is now a well-known blogger. He has since returned to the Labour Party presumably on the logic that if you want reforms you might as well be in a party that has a chance of delivering some. He has a good chance of becoming a Labour councillor next year,
https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/iain-duncan-smith-iain-duncan-smith-to-live-on-53-a-weekOver 423,000 have signed so far.
DJP wrote:Was going to give the Fragment on Machines (pg 690 – 712 of the Grundrisse) a proper read before writing the review. Perhaps this could be discussed on here?I think the key passage here is this (pages 705-6 of the Pelican edition of the Grundrisse):
Quote:The theft of alien labour time, on which the present wealth is based, appears a miserable foundation in face of this new one, created by large-scale industry itself. As soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the great well-spring of wealth, labour time ceases and must cease to be its measure, and hence exchange value [must cease to be the measure] of use value. The surplus labour of the mass has ceased to be the condition for the development of general wealth, just as the non-labour of the few, for the development of the general powers of the human head. With that, production based on exchange value breaks down, and the direct, material production process is stripped of the form of penury and antithesis. The free development of individualities, and hence not the reduction of necessary labour time so as to posit surplus labour, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them.What Marx seems to be saying here is that, if capitalism continued long enough and with productivity constantly increasing, a stage would be reached when each unit of a product would contain so little value (as measured by labour time) that its price would be virtually zero and so could be given away. At which point capitalism, being based on production for sale with a view to profit, could no longer function.As far as I know, this is the only passage in Marx's writings where he uses the word "zusammenbrechen" (to break down, collapse) in respect of capitalism as an economic system. I don't think he thought that this stage would ever be reached, but that he was just theorizing about the final limit of capitalism if productivity kept on increasing.Of course we are nowhere near that stage today, so I don't think this helps explain what is happening at the moment.
I don't know. To get an income of £20,000 from investments, you'd need, with a 5% rate of interest, a capital of at least £400,000 and that's it addition to your non-interest-bearing house (which might be worth that too), You'd hardly be a member of the mythical middle class, let alone the working class with that. I do agree, though, that you'd fall into the lower end of the capitalist class, the "lower upper class" that George Orwell said he came from. On the other hand, he went to Eton and the fees there are now over £30,000 a year.This does raise another problem. We've been prepared to concede that some top executives and bureacrats are also members of the capitalist class receiving their share of surplus value as "bloated salaries" and bonuses. So any questionnaire would need to try to distinguish between what part of these people's income was genuine payment for the value of their labour-power and what was a share in surplus value.
He's also a practising Roman Catholic and is engaged in bashing the poor just as much to win votes as to save money. The new pope has said he wants to help the poor. So will he excommunicate him? Of course not. The both of them are hypocrites. Not of course that it would make any difference either way. Even if Duncan Smith was sincere or a saint he would still have to do what the economic laws of capitalism require him to do as capitalism can't be made to work in the interests of the majority. Still, it's all grist to our mill.
This seems a idea worth pursuing:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spintcom/message/14650Questions could be on these sort of lines:1. What is your relationship to the means of production? (a) owner (b) non-owner (c) I own some shares.2. What is your annual income?3. What is the source of your income (you may tick more than one): (a) employment (b) self-employment (c) dividends or interest (d) pension from employment (e) State benefits (f) charity.4. How much of your income comes from (c) ?If over £20,000 no need to proceed further: you are a member of the capitalist class.5. If (a) or (b), how long could you survive without it?6. Do you own or are you buying your own house?7. Do you derive any income from it? If not, then it makes no difference.8. Do you wear (a) a cloth cap (b) a top hat? It doesn't matter.Seriously, if someone did this properly with weighting for the answers, would it be possible to put it on this site?
