Can you imagine...

Can you imagine a World without war, without refugees, without multinational companies, without billionaires? Can you imagine a World where nobody, especially children, goes hungry? A World where people are judged on their character not on where they were born, or their skin colour, sexual preference or gender. A World where ordinary people have a say in the decisions that affect them, where democracy is valued more highly than weaponry and where every decision taken has at least one eye on the environmental impact so that the World is preserved for future generations. If you can then you are a socialist. You may also be a feminist or an environmentalist – these things are not mutually exclusive. To hold these beliefs you don’t have to be British, European or English-speaking, because socialism is an international language.

 

Contrary to what some people might think you do not need to be poor to be a socialist. Actually, it makes little difference how much wealth you currently possess, socialism is not a creed based on envy. You do not have to hate billionaires, I don’t know any billionaires, do you? But, in a socialist society whilst nobody would be a billionaire (simply because nobody needs that much of the cake) those who currently have wealth will benefit just as much as those who are currently poor. Not in terms of their material wealth, but rather in terms of their general well-being. They will no longer live in fear of losing their wealth, but rather will live their lives as human beings engaged in a common endeavour to raise the well-being of everybody not just a tiny minority. Increasingly, a minority who were born with wealth, acquire more wealth and are encouraged to think that this alone makes them superior to others who have not been so lucky.

 

As socialists we want to create a society in which work is not just a means to earn a living, but a way in which we express our inherent creativity. Where boring, repetitive work rather than being the function of a class of people is either mechanised or done collaboratively. Nobody will want to have servants, cleaners or menial workers. More importantly, no self-respecting citizen in a socialist society would be prepared to be so demeaned as to be reduced to cleaning up after others, apart perhaps from their own family.

 

Would there be wage differentials? Indeed, would there be wages as we currently understand them? It is relatively easy to imagine a World without money for, as Marx described it, money is the ‘universal panderer’, a more efficient means of exchange than simple barter. But, money has become more and more obsolete, a process speeded by the pandemic where most transactions are done using an electronic transfer of figures on a sophisticated spreadsheet. Where once currency was related to something material – the gold standard, which both Britain and the United States abandoned in the 1930’s, it is now related only to a country’s need to print currency. So, what does money represent? It represents value, specifically surplus value which is the means to capitalist profit. Without profit as the goal of all human endeavour what role would money play?

 

Can you imagine working for the intrinsic pleasure of doing so? Not in the job you do now necessarily, but in socially useful work of one sort or another? Can you imagine a society where instead of working to earn a wage that barely allowed you to survive, you worked because there were jobs to do that would benefit your community? Such a World is not only possible but is pregnant within capitalist society. Let us be clear that capitalism has achieved plenty in terms of lifting the living standards of millions of people and creating efficient systems of production. But it is now a fetter to the further development of humanity. It can only reproduce the structures we now have that work only for the few, a few that are constantly at war with each other in a desperate attempt to maintain their market position. Socialism has to change the relations of production using all the methods bequeathed by capitalism.

 

Work, specifically production, would no longer be organised on the basis of private capital. We have been victims of a great fraud in which natural resources, which should be common resources, have been stolen by private individuals and companies. We have been conned into thinking that private enterprise is efficient and innovative whilst public enterprise is wasteful and inefficient. This is plainly not the case. Without public schools, hospitals, universities, roads, electricity grids etc private enterprise could not exist. Without public expenditure the private sector would certainly not appear efficient, and it is arguable that it is any more innovative than the public sector.

 

People do not have good ideas because somebody pays them to do so, they have good ideas because they have a curious mind. The private sector is a parasite, creaming off the profits when times are good and demanding state handouts when times are bad. If you want to know who are the real benefit scroungers look no further than the banks. On October 8^th 2008 they received a rescue package worth £500 billion in the U.K. alone to bail them out because of their pitifully poor (and greed driven) business practices. In April this year, £7.5 billion was paid to big business to help them survive the COVID pandemic. In 2019 EasyJet which received £600 million in the package posted pre-tax profits of £427 million; Greggs which received £150 million had profits in 2019 of £108.3 million. 

 

Now perhaps there is an argument for not letting banks go to the wall, but why should you and I pay our taxes to support a budget airline and a sandwich maker? Admittedly these are unusual times but these transfers from the public purse to the private are not unusual. A socialist society would not see profits as the be-all and end-all of human endeavour. Far more important than how much would be what worth? Worth would no longer be counted in dollars or pounds, but in whether it would increase the well-being of people whilst at the same time protecting the environment for future generations. And, innovation far from being left in the hands of a privileged elite would emerge from ordinary people having good ideas, that their community wanted to develop. And, what worked in one community would be shared in others allowing all humanity to benefit from the innovation of each other.

 

But, how would things be organised if there were not employers, managers and professional politicians to tell us what to do, how to do it and, critically, what to think? Can you imagine a society where ordinary people would have a say in all those important decisions? From whether there should be a new school, road or housing estate to how rubbish was collected, streets were cleaned or what the speed limits should be? The experts, the real experts, on your local community are the people who live in it, not the egoists who profess to speak on your behalf. Democracy will not be casting a vote for one of an identikit array of people who want to “represent” you. A socialist democracy would create an informed electorate who would make decisions based on both evidence and their lived experiences. The officials and administrators would not work for the mayor or the local council but for the people. All positions of civic responsibility would be open to all, shared and subject to democratic recall.

 

We have been conditioned to think that the epitome of democracy is the possibility to vote for a representative every few years. These representatives then go some way from the communities they ostensibly represent and make decisions in their own career interests, which may not always align with the interests of those who voted for them. Liberal democracy is held up as some kind of gold standard in which the only debate is how to vote for those representatives: essentially a choice between first-past-the-post or some form of proportional representation. But it is possible to imagine a democracy which was more direct. They had such a democracy for a short time in the Paris Commune. Liberal democracy is certainly preferable to autocracy. But, the debate we never have is what do we want the democracy to provide? Is it a means to provide a good career and networking opportunities for a small cadre of people, or is it the means by which decisions are taken which have the consent of a majority of people affected by them? Is it a place to discuss the concerns of a small elite or a place or places where ordinary citizens can express their views and pursue projects they consider worthwhile?

 

Autocratic rule is always accompanied by an attempt to close down the free press. Presently in western democracies the press and media serves the interest of a minority and rather than holding power to account, assists power to cover up the defects of its own system. Socialists do not fear a genuine free press, we encourage a press that can report the news impartially and ask awkward questions. The media will not, as now, be dominated by the privately educated but as private education would be an anachronism, would be staffed by people from all walks of life. Ordinary people in a socialist society would have a significant role to play in the media, in culture, in the judiciary, in decision making, indeed in every facet of socialist life. In short, in sweeping away social class socialism would bring ordinary people from the shadows into the light.

 

Of course, this sounds ridiculous because the petit bourgeois and bourgeoisie have convinced us that they, and they alone, have what the Liberal theorist John Rawls describes as “talent and abilities”. This is quite a neat trick for it has convinced generations of workers that the boring, low paid jobs that they are forced to do in order to survive are exactly what they are supposed to do in order that those with “talent and ability” can have better jobs, better houses and just a better life all round. But what is a ‘talent’ or an ‘ability’ – is it really the case that the children of better off parents are born naturally talented? Do poor people possess none of the abilities that bring esteem in our society? The future socialist society in bringing about an end to class society will also sweep aside such childish notions. 

 

At the heart of the socialist endeavour will be lifelong education. What this will mean is that every citizen will be continually able to test their abilities, for without trying things how is anybody supposed to know whether they can do them well? How is it that those from wealthy backgrounds can find out that they can (or can’t) play the piano, or dance, or act or compose? Where exactly is it written that if your parents are rich you will have talent, but if your parents are poor you do not? In a socialist society the ending of class distinctions based on wealth and income will mean that every child, no matter who their parents, will have a, roughly, equal chance to excel in whatever natural tendencies they possess. 

 

Can you imagine an education system which is not obsessed with cramming children’s heads with “facts” that mean little to them and then testing them on their memory of those disconnected facts? Education should be about preparing young people for adult life, but it should also be about teaching people how to solve problems and make decisions. In case anybody thinks that in the society I am describing children would be forced to recite Marx, Lenin and Mao, rest assured whilst these theorists would be accessible for study nobody in a society based on maximising freedom will be forced to recite obscure texts, and that includes the bible, Quran and Torah, though of course all of these texts will be accessible so that people can explore their spirituality or not, as their predilection takes them.

 

The socialist education system would be, because it will have to be, holistic. Currently education is used as a means to further the class system by turning out pegs for holes. Thinking skills are low down the list, as are basic survival skills. Of course, we will still want people to learn math, science and technology, but to do so in an environment where life skills – problem solving, morality, ethics, politics, physical and emotional well-being -  are developed.

 

Can you imagine a World where the concept of nationality was of no more importance than the concept of height. Where Nationalism would be as unimportant as the colour of your hair? In such a World racism would be swept away as we learned to relate to each other on a human level. There would be no more “illegal” immigrants because we would live in a World without borders. And, whilst naturally people on different parts of the planet would have different cultures related to their particular circumstances, they would share freely with one another the fruits of their labour.

 

In short, where do we want to be? A World without irrelevant distinctions, a World where men and women, regardless of skin colour, ethic background, religion or other arbitrary factors would be accorded the maximum freedom compatible with the same for others. A World where civic duty and responsibility would be the background to everything we do. A World where resources far from being scarce and something to hoard and fight over would be marshalled to the benefit of all. A World, one World, where the sum of individuals would not be isolated individuals but a Worldwide commonwealth of freethinking, free acting citizens pursuing their individual abilities for the benefit of all. A World in which each would put in what they were able and take out what they needed. A socialist World.

 

How do we get to this World? That is the subject for next week’s blog.