Publications Index | Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’s Internet Archive
Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 178 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 178, September 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
There is a great vogue at the moment in the Labour Party for something called ‘ethical socialism’, or Blair’s answer to Karl Marx. This consists essentially of one idea: be nice to people.
Being ‘nice to people’ involves a warm fellowship between the master and his menial, a businesslike devotion to competitiveness and strict avoidance of dirty words like ‘tax’.
The problem is that while it shelters behind ‘be nice to people’ Labour genuinely wants to do things.
John Prescott genuinely wants to see full employment; Beckett and Blair really do want to cut crime and improve education. Yet Labour has lost the capacity to ameliorate the ills of society because it has lost the argument on social property. Instead of fighting for something recognisably socialist, the Labour Party has lurched right with the government.
Acceptance of the Conservative paradigm means that Labour will be unable to deal with pressing problems even when it does come to power. Take unemployment, an integral component of modern capitalism. The role of unemployment in driving down conditions and forcing up profits is well understood on the left. Added to this, however, is the fact that joblessness is created by the private exploitation of technology. This means that overall job levels stagnate even as productivity rises. While Labour’s leaders know the money markets will not allow them to pursue Keynesian style reflation, their alternative ‘supply side’ support for private technology will merely lead to further rationalisation and a highly educated dole queue. In fact as production is made ever more efficient through mechanisation and computerisation, the rate of skilled job creation must fall per unit of economic growth.
If ‘Be Nice to People’ isn’t going to work then it is the responsibility of socialists to present a scheme that will. Such a scheme must be based on the concept of social property. Much of what I have to say is not original, and will appear to some to be hopelessly utopian. My conviction is that it is perfectly feasible, and is imprisoned only by the paralysing ideology of the free market. Socialists should argue forcefully in favour of the vast improvements made possible by technological innovation. However, it should be maintained that change can only be handled humanely within a system of social ownership, a system entailing the equal distribution of the fruits of technological advance.
Social ownership need not be exercised solely through the medium of the state: units of production could be held in common at the most efficient level of management. So all citizens of communities, regions, states and international federations could participate in a graduated economic democracy.
In an egalitarian society unemployment could be solved by a redefinition of work. Work could come to be valued as any activity which improves the quality of social life. Men and women would be free to develop their natural creative impulses: indeed they would have a duty to work to the best of their ability. Incentives springing from greed and the fear of shortage would be replaced by a dedication to the collective good; competition would be superseded by cooperation, and sustainable development ensured by flexible planning.
Such a society would by no means be perfect, but it offers a glimpse of what we could be fighting for – something slightly better than ‘be nice to people’.
Socialist Review Index | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 21 June 2017