http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2010/02/22/left-reformation-and-proposals-for-a-socialist-eu/#comments

Paul:

“Having initially damned nationalisation, the authors backtrack and say that they support it for banking and the basic infrastructure. In which case why not say that they favour nationalisation apart from those industries where development costs are too high for individual countries to afford them?”

Thanks for pointing out development costs. I thought outright expropriations or the Meidner tax-to-nationalize route was enough to solve the affordability problem. On the other hand, certain industries could be clustered together to form a “complex” whereby development costs in one industry could be offset by plain monopoly rent or trust monopoly rent extracted from the other:

1) Construction-industrial complex
2) Energy-industrial complex (oil, gas, current fission, future fusion)
3) Agriculture-industrial complex
4) Transport-industrial complex (everything from shipping and shipping ports to airplanes and airports)
5) Communication-industrial complex (communication infrastructure)
6) Health-industrial complex

But since Michael has raised them let me make a few points.
Michael thinks that the CP programme would “utterly destroy the state as a tool of the minority class”.
Well if he was talking about the old 1930s programme that called for a Soviet Britain,
that would be right. But the draft is calling for a sovereign parliament elected by proportional
representation. This is the key demand, and this is where the CP and the liberals
share the same objectives.

MI5 and MI6 are quite peripheral to the exercise of power in the UK. This is not
Nazi Germany or Iran. Of course they gather intelligence on political movements,
but where movements have mass support the intelligence services can do no
more than observe.

No, the key issue is the form of representation that is proposed.
A parliament based on proportional representation is typical of capitalist countries in Europe.
The provision of annual parliaments and a cut the rate of pay of MP’s by about 50%,
whilst good isdeas, are not going to make a big difference. Elections per se are an aristocratic
institution, one based on selecting the best ( greek aristoi ) people to govern us.
As such they always produce a big shift up in the class structure. The average social class
of MPs is on always higher than the population average.
This is the basic mechanism by which an electoral system works to preserve the
class structure.

The old communist idea of soviets elected on a purely working class franchise
was one way of breaking the power of the upper classes. After the Communist movement
dropped that concept ( after the Stalin constitution in the USSR )
they have lacked any distinct idea of how the state should be organised.

Michael thinks I am being bookish by wanting to give priority to explaining
exploitation and prioritising the abolition of exploitation. He objects
that “Neither the Communist Manifesto, the programme of the French Workers Party,
or any of the Bolsheviks minimum programmes had a section on Marxist Economics.”

Well the Communist Manifesto was written before Marx had developed his
theory of exploitation and the Bolshevik programme had as its main aim
the overthrow of Tsarism. But their lack of a clear economic programme
made itself painfully felt when they unexpectedly came into power.

We have now had a 20th century during which a particular model of socialism
came to power in a large part of the world. After 1989 the widespread
view was that socialism had been shown to fail. Under these circumstances
you have to give people some pretty strong economic arguments in favour
of socialism. Otherwise, you speak only to the already converted.

I think Michael reads the draft sympathetically imagining that he
sees things in it that it does not actually say, so he writes
“Unsurprisingly in this new society, or society in formation,
where surplus-value is abolished and necesary labour time reduced
there is a shorter working week and greater social provision – even in a still capitalist form prior to the full abolition of all capitalist economic relations which cannot be done overnight.”

The substance of my criticism of the CPGB’s economic programme was that
it dos not propose the abolition of surplus value. Instead it proposes
to leave the monetary system intact, to leave existing credit balances
with the banks intact, to leave most existing capital ownership
unchanged only confiscating the property of ‘rebels’.

Michael raises Marx’s comments on the Gotha Programme of the German
Social Democrats, a couple of times. This old document raises many questions of
real relevance to socialists today, and is probably best discussed
at length in a different posting.

This article is mis-interpretation at best and cynical at worst. It’s as if the author has not read the CPGBs Draft Programme at all. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so, knives out…

1.”the authors here are a bit better, proposing a number of constitutional reforms, but they are all fairly mild ones, placing them slightly to the left of the Liberals.” ;

* Abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords, and a single-chamber parliament with proportional representation, annual elections and MPs’ salaries set at the level of a skilled worker.
* No to the presidential prime minister. End prime ministerial appointment of ministers and all other forms of prime ministerial patronage.
* Disband MI5, MI6, special branch and the entire secret state apparatus.
* For local democracy. Service provision, planning, tax raising, law enforcement and funding allocation to be radically devolved downwards as far as possible and appropriate: to ward, borough, city and county levels.
* Abolish the 30-year rule and all other forms of secrecy. Public access to all state files, cabinet papers, diplomatic agreements, etc.
* Democratise the state-sponsored mass media. The controllers and top management of the BBC should be elected and recallable.
* For the free communication of ideas. End all forms of censorship – legislative, commercial and institutional.
* Abolish copyright laws and other so-called intellectual property rights.

Add a workers militia to the list, thats always popular on the Left!

Mildy to the left of the liberal democrats!!! Given that these demands, implemented in full utterly destroy the state as a tool of the minority class, and that only a communist government could introduce such measures – and that the couter-revolution would be immediatley on the ruling class agenda following their expulsion from the state and its near total reconstruction along democratic-republican lines… I think its an understatement.

2.”But let me concentrate on their economic aims, since socialism has always been about running the economy in a different way – politics has been the means to that end.”

‘The economy’ as such is a fiction, there are forces of production and relations of production, the aim of the proletarian revolution and democracy is to revolutionise the relations of production. You dont just have a white paper or flip a switch and ‘the economy’ – runs differently. You have a revolution. The revolution has to have power, the masses must be able to have a state that is proletarian and radically democratic, the power of the old oppessor state must be smashed and rebuilt before one can begin comprehensivly re-arranging the relations of production, introduction of working class planning, abolition of the market and so on.

3.”Marx’s concept of exploitation is completely absent from the draft programme.”

Its a political programme and not a economics textbook! Neither the Communist Manifesto, the programme of the French Workers Party, or any of the Bolsheviks minimum programmes had a section on Marxist Economics. This is a very bookish criticism. At best the communist manifesto has the law of absolute immiseration that Marx junked later junked.

4.”“The political economy of the working class brings with it not only higher wages and shorter hours. It brings health services, social security systems, pensions, universal primary and secondary education …”

While it is true that the labour movement has aimed at all these things, it somewhat understates the objectives of socialists.

Paradoxically, the old Clause 4 of the Labour Party written by the Fabian Webb gave a much clearer and more explicit summary of Marx’s aims than anything that today’s authors achieve in a lengthy draft:

“To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.”

Here we have the elimination of exploitation ( full fruits of industry ), egalitarianism ( most equitable distribution ), common ownership, and – stretching it a little – a consciously planned economy.”

This whole section is complete bull manure. Firstly, ‘the political economy of the working class’ implies 1. Working class rule, ie revolution and post revolution. 2. The gradual abolition of the social economic laws of capital and their feautures & transistion to socialism – an entirely new, one might even say revolutionary, kind of society.

Unsurprisingly in this new society, or society in formation, where surplus-value is abolished and necesary labour time reduced there is a shorter working week and greater social provision – even in a still capitalist form prior to the full abolition of all capitalist economic relations which cannot be done overnight.

The guff about Clause 4 is guff, it is an ambigously worded and cynically introduced clause written by the state-socialist reformists of the fabian society. One could argue purely on the wording that the workers do get the full Fruits of their labour in the wage form, or in higher wages. A rightist, centrist, or a leftist interpretation can be spun from this old yarn – hence its usefulness to the labour bureaucracy. If the clause 4 were only the smaller part of the larger revolutionary programme the authors point may even partially stand, albeit in an lopsided fashion. The rest of the programme for working class revolution has never been forthcoming, and never will be. We take it as it is then, in inglorious isolation.

5.” “From the point of view of world revolution, programmes for wholesale nationalisation are today objectively reactionary. The historic task of the working class is to fully socialise the giant transnational corporations, not break them up into inefficient national units“

Their point may some validity in the most technically advanced industries : aircraft, cars and semi-conductors spring to mind, but these are only a part of the economy. Having initially damned nationalisation, the authors backtrack and say that they support it for banking and the basic infrastructure. In which case why not say that they favour nationalisation apart from those industries where development costs are too high for individual countries to afford them?

But no, they are basically against public ownership, for they later say : “universal nationalisation, forced collectivisation and flat-wage egalitarianism are ruled out – historic experience certainly shows that they lead to disaster.””

The use of the term ‘public ownership’ is worrying as it has ,historically, always meant State-Ownership. Is the author seriously proposing that the entire economy ought to be nationalised by the infant commune-state (or even the bourgeois state) on the day of the revolution!!!

Why infrastructre and the City of London? Firstly, unsurprisingly, national infrastrucure is national (gasp). Secondly the City of London is the Financial Hub of the country and of World Importance – any control by the commune state over the bonds and debt market, currencies etc is of life and death importance for any revolution. This is why The French Workers Party Programme (Parti Ouvrier) called for the “surpression of the national debt” as a key economic measure. Today this can only mean one thing, more so given the enlarged role of Finance Capital since then. Again, state, public, private debt is frequently National in form as are currencies and are deeply linked with the state… the Nation-State.

6.”Which country has ever applied the ‘flat wage egalitarianism’ and found it to be disastrous?” Flat wages, ie the immediate jump to everyone getting paid the same is dangerous utopian rubbish that Marx skewered in his ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme’. You cant just have a revolution on day one, then on day two dissolve all existing social-relations with a declaration, implement same-pay, and – effectively- abolish money on Day two! Dangerous and utopian.

7.”It is pretty clear that the denationalisation of industry in the East Block after 89 did result in a disastrous recession, but what disasters followed nationalisations in the 40s?”

This is bad logic and bad history.

The reason that 50% or so of Soviet or East Bloc industry went to the wall was because it was utterly un-competitative in world terms nationalised or not. When ‘Socialism in One Country In A Few Countries’ (Essentially a form of protectionism, which doesn’t work either) was exposed to the world market most of the means of production turned out to not be worth a damn. Why? Becuase no society that is run bureaucratically without a market instead of democratically by the working class or with the law of value to regulate production as under capitalism rots, stagnates, and as it turns out, collapses back into capitalism. Its formal nationalisation hides this content.

This first point about the wholesale nationalisation of the economy and bureaucratic ‘planning’ in the Eastern Bloc States is then linked directly to nationalisation in the context of wholly capitalist societies in the post-war era. Equating these two is ridicukous, as they are two different societies. One has the law of value, one doesn’t -end of story. Unsurprisingly within capitalism nationalisation can serve as a useful tool to prop up the rest of the system – either directly ie infrastructure, or reduced costs of say, circulating captial I.e Coal. Unsurprisingly this is good for capitalism, delaying the effects of the stagnation of key economic sectors on the economy as a whole. The Nationalisation of the banks provides a similiar more recent example. Needless to say immediately nationalising the whole economy of the United Kingdom is premature.

8. “This means that they are happy to see capitalist exploitation continue in the greater part of the economy.”

You cant abolish capitalism overnight, with a declaration, a white paper, a whatever. One doesn’t click ones heels, say “There’s no place like communism” and one appears there.

9.”“socialisation of production is dependent on and can only proceed in line with the withering away of skill monopolies of the middle class and hence the division of labour.”

Nonsense on stilts!”

Workers need to learn valuable information and techniques from skilled workers, managers, technicians etc who must provide it in order that their monolply on a skill/information cannot be used to oppress other workers or subordinate them to themselves. Whilst they can still do this there can be no socialism. Not even on stilts.

10.”Capitalist exploitation rests on wage slavery and can be eliminated by abolishing wage slavery, as chattel slavery was abolished in the past.
It requires only a legal change to the effect that net value added is the property of employees not employers.”
We’ll still need accountants then, so the skill monopoly of acountancy must be broken within firms and society as a whole. This is true on day one of the revolution as it is later on in the development of the world socialist society. Again though deductions from the total mass of value, of capital, profit whatever would have to be made to continue to pay for benefits until unemployment was erradicated, for the NHS and railways and so on – again Marx in the Critique of the Gotha Programme goes over this ground very well.

11.”The authors speak loosely of eliminating the division of labour as if this was either a necessary or desirable goal. Eliminate the division of labour and you eliminate civilised society.”

Putting this in was just petty especially as you know full well that the CPGB is not advocating a return to the stone age … unlike your Year Zero total nationalisation and abolition of money programme.

and finally

12. “What they presumably mean is that they want to see the elimination of lifelong class divisions between mental and manual workers. Well if that is the case they should propose concrete measures to achieve this.”

Yes that is what they mean. They do. And if these are not enough that is because the masses themselves will decide how to do this.

Hope this clears a few things up and provides debate.

Comradely, Michael C.

The programme that we are looking at is a strange mix of policies. Presumably this fits in with their bizarre positions of wanting to decriminalise Pedophilia and demanding immediate open borders.

This so-called ‘Communist Party of Great Britain’ is widely regarded as a bunch of insignificant cranks by anyone who has come into contact with them. I would be tempted to say that they are widely regarded as much by the labour movement, but this would overstate their membership and impact, they have little to no links with the Labour movement which they regularly dismiss as ‘bureaucratic’ or ‘sell-outs’.

The (real) Communist Party’s programme Britain’s Road to Socialism has been updated many times and can be read on its website (www.communist-party.org.uk)

Other than that it’s wordy in some areas (practically everything before “Immediate Demands”) and problematic in others:

1) Their take on corporate personhood is in the “socialist revolution” and not in “immediate demands”;
2) Macnair’s measure on private property rights (and the recent directional commentary I wrote) is absent (!!!);
3) They demand a 35-hour workweek and not a 32-hour workweek (4-day workweek) or 30-hour workweek (6-hour day).
4) Etc.

There are plenty more areas to critique, but that is because they have no solid basis for determining whether a demand is included or not (Hahnel, Kautsky, etc.).