One contribution that caught my eye this week is Tony Clark's discussion of the Labour party ('United Front'). I do hope the comrades don't mind me reproducing it here:
The June 19 aggregate meeting of the CPGB, as reported by Peter Manson, was right to maintain the view that the Labour Party remains a bourgeois workers’ party (‘The Labour Party and communist strategy’, June 24). Lenin also held this view, which I believe is still correct. Sectarian circles reject it, especially after the Blairites moved the party further to the right, although this did not change the essence of Labour. It remained essentially the same - a classic example of a bourgeois workers’ party, meaning a workers’ party with a bourgeois political line.In sum, the Labour party, as a bourgeois workers' party, has languished under the domination of its bourgeois pole since its inception because this coincided with the period of capitalism's ascendency. However, because of the problems stemming from the crisis of dwindling oil reserves, the coming period is one of capitalist decline: a period that does not rule out the possibility of the working class taking total control of Labour and wielding it as a weapon in the struggle with decomposing capital.
The Labour Party has always been dominated by the rightwing capitalist-roaders and the reason for this is that since the party’s formation capitalism has been in ascendancy, punctuated by recessions and a depression. This expansion and globalisation of capitalism in the 20th century was all made possible by supplies of cheap oil. As the rise of capitalism led to the domination of the capitalist-roaders in the party, we can expect that the decline of capitalism should lead to the rise of the socialist wing.
The ‘energy theory of society’ indicates that capitalism will be unable to overcome this present energy-related economic crisis and set itself on the path of recovery; growth will have come to an end, as we enter the declining second half of the oil age. This will lead to the collapse of free-market ideology and the loss of control of the right wing in the Labour Party. As the right loses their grip on the party and capitalism descends into permanent crisis, the choice facing the Labour Party will be either to break with capitalism or face complete dissolution.
If the party was to choose the former course, there are no laws of history which dictate that it cannot become the main vehicle for the transition to socialism in Britain. This will probably be some form of austerity socialism to begin with - far better than the barbarism and gang rule which will be the alternative to socialism, as the oil age slithers to an end and capitalism collapses.
As for the argument about propping up the Labour Party, my reply is that we are faced with a new paradigm. Never before has capitalism faced an energy-related economic decline, so it is useless dogma to say that the Labour Party will simply behave in the same old way, with the right remaining in control, pursuing an increasingly impossible capitalist road.
This leads me to argue that the best communist strategy towards the Labour Party is to maintain a flexible attitude. The CPGB has done well to ignore the siren calls from the dogmatists and sectarians for a new workers’ party when one already exists. These calls are a diversion which fails to recognise the real nature of the crisis and what this will mean for the Labour Party. The advocates of the new workers’ party are driven by emotions, not by a true understanding of the crisis and its permanent nature.
The real choice facing the left will be a united front with the Labour Party from within or from without. Interestingly, the left has nothing to lose from a united front within because, when the Labour Party moves to the left, we gain and, if the party fails to move left, we gain again. However, a successful united front policy from within would require the left to break from its dogmatic versions of Marxism and totalitarian and bureaucratic forms of socialism, and stop blaming Stalin for bureaucracy, instead viewing bureaucracy as a problem for the left in general, as the recent exclusion of the CPGB from the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition so amply demonstrates.
While it is true capitalism is staring down the barrel of an energy crisis, as a social system it is in long term decline anyway. This isn't the same thing as the usual catastrophist nonsense you get from Trotskyist gurus: it is the observation that as they operate, capitalism's own laws of motion progressively undermine them. The "unproductive" bureaucracies thrown up by big business, capitalism's need for a large public sector, the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, all of these point to a social system gravid with contradictions and the seeds of future crises. And this is before we start talking about its destruction of the very environment it depends on.
But Tony's argument is too inevitablist for my liking. It is not ordained that the right will lose its grip on the Labour party, nor that a revanchist working class will sweep all before it. Marxists can analyse tendencies and trends and draw tactical and strategic conclusions based on them, but these will never crank out class struggle victories by themselves: that always requires political activity in the workplace and on the streets as well as the "traditional" avenues.
Nevertheless Tony's letter raises a number of intriguing arguments that strengthen the left case for being in the Labour party.
"capitalism's need for a large public sector"
ReplyDeleteWell that problem is being dealt with.
Am I the only one who views socialism as a place where there will be more 'unproductive' labour and not less?
But it's not. The cuts the Tories will make to the public sector are as devastating as they are outrageous, but they cannot turn the clock back to the 19th century. In the grand scheme of things it's a temporary reversal - the public sector will grow again.
ReplyDeleteAlso, unproductive labour here is being used in the sense of creating value, as defined by capitalist economics. In a socialist society value will be completely different.
Quite right on the State Phil, and I would add that I'm not at all sure the Tories will make much impact even here. They are already facing opposition from that State, and from the ideologists of Capital. Its not in Capital's interest.
ReplyDeleteOn the wider point. Tony Clark is a Stalinist who parrots the old Stalinist "catastrophism" theories. There is an energy crisis of sorts, but Capitalism has frewquently in the past turned such "crises" to its advantage. There was a "crisis" of being able to transport huge numbers of goods effectively at one time, for instance. It led to the development of the huge industry of railways. There was a crisis of producing some natural products for clothing etc., it led to the petro-chemical industries, to the development of plastics, and synthetic fibres. Today it is leading to the development of alternative energy technologies etc. I see huge industries and profits on the horizon.
I'm also not convinced by your own argument about Capitalism being in long-term decline, for the reasons I've set out elswhere. By the same token you can say that the natural processes of biology, mean we are all dying from the moment we are born. If anything I think Capitalism in its Imperialist Phase is far more dynamic, far more powerful than it has ever been.
I don't see that as a bad thing, because I agree with marx that it is when Capital is booming that workers are strongest, and vice versa. I see it as creating the best conditions for workers to establish their own alternative forms of property, for those to compete with Capital, and for that to be integrated with the overall class struggle. But, the workers struggle, unlike previous class struggles has to be more ideological, it requires that workers be fully class conscious, and that is why the Workers party fills a crucial role. That is the real reason that Marxists have to be in the LP, and why that is more important now than ever.
I detected a negative connotation in the rise of this unproductive labour in your post. Maybe I was wrong.
ReplyDeleteFor me the decline of this 'unproductive' domain is a problem.
On the current cuts to public services, they are already happening. Local authorities are proposing cuts based on priorities - their entire regional development money has been axed. Those that are deemed lower priority areas are to be cut. Pay, pensions are being slashed.
But it isn't just cuts, privatisation is on the agenda, capitalism wants more productive labour and not less.
We shouldn't use the 19th century as the benchmark for the 21st century, otherwise anything the government does looks OK.
Arthur, it's how you see 'decline'. There are few iron laws of social development and this isn't one of them. The way I see it is as a general descriptor of a number of tendencies that work to undermine the operation of the law of value. But it can be offset by government action - New Labour tried with its introduction of private capital into public services, creating a relatively sizeable sector of capital who competed over services formerly provided by the state. And of course the Tories are doing this too - though their efforts will wipeout state-centered markets Blair and Brown created. As you say the Tories' stupidity put British capital-in-general at risk: the latest wheeze being the stupid scrapping of the census.
ReplyDeleteChris, as far as I'm concerned I would like to see more sections of the economy removed from the tender mercies of the law of value (I would like to also see the cooperative economy grow which, at first glance, doesn't contradict the logics of the market). In one sense these sectors of economic life, in a partial and incomplete way, are harbingers of the socialist society to come. This is why they should be protected and deepened.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteI don't deny that cuts are happening, but having worked in the Public Sector I know how the bureaucracy deals with them. The general course is that actual services to the public get axed, whilst the number of bureacrats then rises, and these are usually higher paid, higher status than those axed, which means those higher up can justify higher pay themselves. Remember even under Thatcher the size of the State increased!
Phil,
I think there is a confusion on the left over what the Law of Value is. For Marx it was basically the inescapable fact that there is a choice that has to be made for any society about how it allocates its available labour-time to meet its needs. Different types of society determine their needs, and allocate labour-time by different mechanisms. The law of Value has come to be limited to mean only effectively the market.
In the Critique of the Gotha programme, Marx effectively says that any attempt to go beyond the market, and avoid making choices prior to Socialism is Utopian. He phrases it in terms of "Bourgeois Right". In fact, what we see is that globally Exchange Value is becoming even more dominant, ever more extensive. And, as I've argued there are developments within Capital today that have a tendency to RAISE not lower the rate of profit, due to incrasingly imnportant industries having lower not higher organic compositions of Capital, because they use little fixed/Constant Capital, and relatively high levels of very skilled, very complex labour.
I agree about Co-ops obviously, but for a different reason. Marx never fetishised planning or repalcing the market. In the Critique he argued against redistributive Socialism, arguing that Co-operative production was the only way to REALLY affect distribution, because it is OWNERSHIP of the means of production that is decisive. It was getting the means of production/Capital into workers hands that was his first priority. That in itself would strengthen workers economic position, and distribution. But, Co-ops would come into conflict with Capital economically and politically. Logically Co-ops would have to collaborate, co-operate to be economically efficient. And workers would have to learn the political lessons as Capital used its political tools to prevent the effective development of Co-ops - just as the aristocracy had done against Capital. In reality as marx and Engels recognised, for a long time even an economy dominated by Co-ops, and under a Proletarian Dictatorship would have to function in large part through a market.
Boffy,
ReplyDeleteCouncils are faced with a much reduced settlement from central government. They will have to allocate resources based on this reduced settlement. This is why they are asking departments to work out the impact of 10, 20 and 30% cuts. These proposals are then put to cabinet where councillors decide what to cut and what not to cut. And projections are even more stark for future years. During the New Labour years much of this ‘fat’ was already cut through an intense ‘efficiency’ process, budget setting at every stage included ‘efficiency’ targets. The growth in public sector work in the New Labour years was ‘value added’ labour; it is not as if local authorities advertised for jobs saying “Bureaucrat needed to drain money away from essential services”. It is a right wing myth to suggest that the public sector is hugely wasteful. To qualify this I have been told by one local authority finance director that his department should be safe as when there are cuts there is a requirement to do much work on business cases – but that reflects need rather than empire building. It also highlights the insanity of ConDem top down cuts.
On Marx, I would like to know where he argued against redistributive socialism! If you look at the political programmes he had a hand in drafting they were full of redistributive policies!! Are we saying increases in VAT are irrelevant to us? Please do me a favour.
Reply To Chris
ReplyDeleteChris,
I worked for a Local Authority from 1989 to 2003. I'm not speaking from a theoretical perspective here. For all that period up to 1997, each year we were asked as a “Service” Department to provide cuts of around 5% sometimes 10% each year. I've outlined elsewhere how the Department management went about that. “Yes Minister” is not at all far from the truth. At the same time, we were always really pissed off that at the same time that we made cuts in services, there always seemed to be no reduction in Accountants, Solicitors and so on. In the last few years, at the Council where I worked it has got worse. The actual services have declined further, whilst the number of people from outside responsible for all sorts of activities and areas such as “Safer Communities” whatever that means have mushroomed. Before I went to work for the Council I worked for myself in ICT converting small and medium size businesses payroll and accounting systems. I can tell you from experience that what in such companies was done by one person, required dozens of people to do at the Council! A comparison of overheads between private companies and Public Sector enterprises shows that fact. In the private sector the figure is around 2%, and in the Public Sector 10%. At the Council I worked at, which is not untypical for a small/medium size Council, more than 60% of the net budget went not on providing services, but on “Finance and Management”, for which read the salaries of the Chief Officers, their Deputies and Assistants, their expenses for offices etc., the tier of Management below them, the large number of Administrative Staff, the Accountants, Solicitors – the PR Dept, which when I started at the Council didn't even exist! - and the massive amount spent on IT largely to deal with the collection of Council Tax, plus those employed in Housing and Council Tax Benefit. In other words most of the money went on administering the Collection of Council Tax, not the provision of services, and on administering a benefit against a tax, which largely did not cover the provision of services!.
On Marx, and redistributive socialism read,
“Any distribution whatever of the means of consumption is only a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themselves. The latter distribution, however, is a feature of the mode of production itself. The capitalist mode of production, for example, rests on the fact that the material conditions of production are in the hands of nonworkers in the form of property in capital and land, while the masses are only owners of the personal condition of production, of labor power. If the elements of production are so distributed, then the present-day distribution of the means of consumption results automatically. If the material conditions of production are the co-operative property of the workers themselves, then there likewise results a distribution of the means of consumption different from the present one. Vulgar socialism (and from it in turn a section of the democrats) has taken over from the bourgeois economists the consideration and treatment of distribution as independent of the mode of production and hence the presentation of socialism as turning principally on distribution. After the real relation has long been made clear, why retrogress again? “
Critique of the Gotha programme
Read also what he says about the futility of redistributive socialism and economism in Wages, Price and Profit,where he writes, that attempts to raise wages by strikes, or by taxation will only result in Capital taking counter action to reduce wages such as the introduction of machinery, or else a reduction in Capital Accumulation resulting in unemployment. It is he says why workers should not give too much attention to such struggles.
Boffy,
ReplyDeleteI think we need far more democracy in the setting of state budgets and the lack of democracy accounts for many of the problems we see. That I agree will on.
Local authorities employ architects, building surveyors, engineers, solicitors etc etc who have charge out rates way way below those on the private sector. So much for overheads!!
Overheads include all non basic pay elements and as we know the private sector is very good at keeping sick pay, pensions etc down to a minimum.
Your experiences are in no way typical of all local authorities, in recent years so called back office functions have become rationalised. Some of these functions have become shared services, and in some authorities private companies like BT have taken over IT and procurement. The impact of these cuts will be uneven (even within the same authority!) but for many areas they will be devastating.
The fact is that cuts are being made and every cut will have a consequence. It could be that fewer workers have an increased workload, lower pay, reduced pensions. It could be that the public no longer have the level of service they had before. These cuts will not get rid of waste but impact on real services and people's wellbeing. It could be that services are privatised and the justification for this will be the sort of arguments you are making here. The reality will be worse conditions for workers and reduced services for the population. The Condem policies are thoroughly reactionary.
On redistributive socialism
It is one thing to point out the limitations of such policies but quite another to argue outright against them. Marx did not do this, which is why when **personally** drafting worker party programmes he included redistributive measures!!
Capitalist economies collect taxes from the public and business, those taxes can be 'progressive' or 'regressive', socialists (including Marx) argue for 'progressive' taxation. Socialists also support Trade unions fighting for a bigger share of the cake, so BT workers have just won a 9.3% pay rise after stingy bosses had originally offered a miserly 2%. If your socialism stops at that then yes it should be criticised but if your socialism rejects that then you are living outside the real movement.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteYou say,
“I think we need far more democracy in the setting of state budgets and the lack of democracy accounts for many of the problems we see. That I agree will on.”...
And you really want us to believe that the Capitalist State is going to agree to that? What do you think the Capitalist State exists for? It is to look after the needs of Capitalists not workers. That is why I find your defence of it, and its bureaucratic, inefficient practices bizarre for a socialist.
“Local authorities employ architects, building surveyors, engineers, solicitors etc etc who have charge out rates way way below those on the private sector. So much for overheads!!”..
What does this have to do with overheads? Actually, most Local Authoritiy professional services such as Solicitors were effectively protected under Best Value. If they had not been and Service Departments had been free to buy them in, they would have done.
I could give you Chapter and verse on not just a few, but lots of examples of money being wasted that amounted to tens, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds. My experience is not just limited to working for one Council either. I do not doubt that cuts are, and will be made, and that they will have significant effects on the most in need. That is not the point that Phil, or I was making. Cuts that affect those unable to defend themselves are not the same thing as capital needing a big state, nor is it the same thing as that State continuing to grow whilst it makes cuts in those services.
Your point, “These cuts will not get rid of waste but impact on real services and people's wellbeing.” is correct from that perspective. In the past it has meant reduced services, and bigger bureaucracy.
“It could be that services are privatised and the justification for this will be the sort of arguments you are making here.”..
The fact that the Liberal-Tories propose a reactionary solution to these problems is no reason for a socialist to deny the problems, any more than the fact that McCarthyism used the horrors of Stalinism to witchhunt socialists, was a reason for socialists to deny those same horrors. The task of socialists is not to oppose the Tories by denying the truth, but to recognise the truth, and provide our own solutions to the problems that exist.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteI said that Marx attacked the idea of “Redistributive Socialism”. I would say his calling it “Vulgar Socialism”, his description of it as regressing is pretty clearly an attack! Of course, if workers strike for higher pay, Marxists support such action, but there is nothing socialist in that. If there is a choice between a regressive tax or a progressive tax, then Marxists argue for the progressive tax, but again we make clear that neither have anything to do with socialism. In fact, we make the point that with things like Income Taxes, the rich usually are able to avoid paying them, and so they fall instead upon the working and middle classes. Moreover, they are used to finance the workers biggest enemy – the huge Capitalist State that stands above them. Moreover, we explain as Marx did that neither wage increases nor taxation can improve the workers position in the long run.
“But during these eleven years they introduced machinery of all sorts, adopted more scientific methods, converted part of arable land into pasture, increased the size of farms, and with this the scale of production, and by these and other processes diminishing the demand for labour by increasing its productive power, made the agricultural population again relatively redundant. This is the general method in which a reaction, quicker or slower, of capital against a rise of wages takes place in old, settled countries.”
“At the same time, and quite apart from the general servitude involved in the wages system, the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society.”..
The only Programme for a Workers Party I am aware of that Marx was involved in writing was that of the French socialists. Here it is true he calls for the abolition of indirect taxes, and conversion of all direct taxes into a single direct tax on incomes over 3,000 francs, as well as a tax on inheritance over 20,000 francs. But, there is nothing of redistributive socialism here! This is not put forward as the idea that you can create socialism by simply taking money away from one part of society and giving it to another! The whole basis of the programme is the expropriation of Capital, the transfer of the means of production into the hands of the working class.
The Programme of the Parti Ouvrier
There is, of course, the Communist Manifesto, but both Marx and Engels moved away from its statism, unlike Lassalle. Both said it was outdated in its demands. And the demands were really nothing more than radical Liberalism, which is demonstrated by the fact that nearly all of them have been implemented by not even that radical bourgeois governments!
There is also the programme of the First International, which was not a Party in the strict sense of the term, but your argument gets even shorter shrift from Marx there. In its Instructions for the Delegates of the Provisional General Council of 1866 it says,
ReplyDelete“a) No modification of the form of taxation can produce any important change in the relations of labour and capital.
(b) Nevertheless, having to choose between two systems of taxation, we recommend the total abolition of indirect taxes, and the general substitution of direct taxes. [In Marx's rough manuscript, French and German texts are: "because direct taxes are cheaper to collect and do not interfere with production".]
Because indirect taxes enhance the prices of commodities, the tradesmen adding to those prices not only the amount of the indirect taxes, but the interest and profit upon the capital advanced in their payment.
Because indirect taxes conceal from an individual what he is paying to the state, whereas a direct tax is undisguised, unsophisticated, and not to be misunderstood by the meanest capacity. Direct taxation prompts therefore every individual to control the governing powers while indirect taxation destroys all tendency to self-government.”..
Instructions for the Delegates of the Provisional General Council.
In other words Marx is arguing for Direct Taxation not as a means of redistribution, but as a means of workers and the middle classes seeing how much they were being ripped off by taxation to finance a burgeoning Capitalist State! It is explicit, he wants to keep the State small so as to encourage “self-government” i.e. the aspect he and Engels argue consistently for workers self-activity to resolve their problems through the establishment of Co-operatives, Friendly Societies, Trades Unions, and the Workers Party. Read the other documents of the International where they set out that Programme for the establishment of Co-ops etc. read Marx's Inaugural Address where he sets out the historic role that Co-operatives were playing.
Boffy,
ReplyDeleteMy ‘defence’ of the capitalist state is in reaction to the current attacks by the ConDems. I don’t see what is unusual about that.
Charge out rate calculations includes an overhead rate, i.e. the % of overheads to basic salary, the higher the overheads the higher the charge out rate. If service departments had brought in professional services from the private sector then the cost would have been much higher and a drain on service budgets!! Privatising utility companies and Bus provision has not reduced prices, Sky TV charge far more than state TV and increase those charges more steeply and more regularly. We are not living under perfect competition.
On redistributive policies our positions appear to be slowly converging. I would just make the point that your position seems static, summed up by the comment ”which is demonstrated by the fact that nearly all of them have been implemented by not even that radical bourgeois governments!”
In reality the position is constantly moving, is different from nation to nation. If government X decides to increase VAT to 20% then socialists point out that this is a regressive measure and will hit the poor disproportionately. They do not say don’t bother about this, it is irrelevant in the great scheme of things and anyway we are better off than we were in 1847.
In the 1869 Eisenach program of the Social democratic workers party, which Marx viewed favourably against the lassallean program, one demand read: “Abolition of all indirect taxes and the introduction of one progressive income tax and inheritance tax” For Marx redistributive policies were part and parcel of the transition to socialism.
Your view that “In the Critique he argued against redistributive Socialism, arguing that Co-operative production was the only way to REALLY affect distribution, because it is OWNERSHIP of the means of production that is decisive.” goes further than attacking the idea of redistribution, if effectively asks socialists to avoid the question of distribution entirely. That position makes no sense in any economy or society I have ever lived in.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteI don't see any reason why socialists should defend the Capitalist State. I see a reason why they should oppose privatisation. The two are not at all the same. As Trotsky pointed out, if you base yourself on defending lesser evils, you will end up defending some pretty awful “evils”.
On overheads, I'd like to see some actual figures rather than your assertion. I know from my own experience that as a service department we could have bought in the legal services we needed much cheaper than we were charged for them. There are lots of ways that Councils can juggle the figures to move overhead costs away from where they should be. For example, the department I worked in was charged £90,000 a year for the IT costs of running an ordering system. The real cost was nothing like that – I introduced a PC based system that cost just a few thousand to buy, and had no running costs – but the Council spread the cost of the mainframe computer required for collecting Council tax on to other departments.
Your other examples don't hold up. Actually, in real terms most utility costs HAVE fallen. The Licence fee for the BBC covers only a small range of programmes compared to SKY, and yet costs £145.50, whilst you can get hundreds of channels, plus phone, plus Broadband from Sky or Virgin or others for around £25. In fact, my Freesat box cost me a one off payment of £150, and I get more than 200 channels including HD, for FREE. But, this is besides the point. I am not interested in whether State capitalism is more or less efficient than private Capitalism. I am opposed to both.
No our position clearly is not converging. Of course, we point out that increasing VAT is regressive, but as I showed, Marx DID say, that the condition of workers as against Capital cannot be changed by the question of direct or indirect taxes. Your statement,
“For Marx redistributive policies were part and parcel of the transition to socialism.”..
is a complete fabrication, and falsification as the position he set out for the First International demonstrates. As for the Eisenachers 1869 Programme its statement on taxes is exactly that of Marx in 1866, but as I have already showed, Marx did not put that forward as a measure of redistribution, in any shape or form. Quite the opposite. If anything his position here is closer to that of the Taxpayers Alliance that to yours. I repeat what he said,
“a) No modification of the form of taxation can produce any important change in the relations of labour and capital.
(b) Nevertheless, having to choose between two systems of taxation, we recommend the total abolition of indirect taxes, and the general substitution of direct taxes. [In Marx's rough manuscript, French and German texts are: "because direct taxes are cheaper to collect and do not interfere with production".]...
Because indirect taxes conceal from an individual what he is paying to the state, whereas a direct tax is undisguised, unsophisticated, and not to be misunderstood by the meanest capacity. Direct taxation prompts therefore every individual to control the governing powers while indirect taxation destroys all tendency to self-government.”..
Its not my view, that is what he says in the critique. Clearly you are one of those Vulgar Socialists he was speaking about who want to regress to the forms of socialism prior to his economic analysis. History has proved Marx correct. A hundred years of redistributive socialism has got the workers nowhere. Unfortunately, as Marx said of those who could not rise above the level of Trade Union consciousness, you seem happy to just keep bargaining within the system you live in rather than building an alternative to it.
Boffy,
ReplyDelete“I don't see any reason why socialists should defend the Capitalist State.”
Your caricature makes it necessary, it is called establishing the truth. The trade unionists in the health service have just written a letter to the government asking them to clarify the implications of their cuts. Other unions are preparing anti cuts protests of one kind or another. Whose side will you be on in this battle?
Just a note on the cuts. Local authorities view these as ‘unprecedented’, which will ‘radically alter the way public services work’ and ‘tough times’ lie ahead. This isn’t my assertion but the view of Chief executives I speak to. I am told councillors share the same view. I think your points about capitalisms need for a large state fails to see the scale of what confronts ‘us’.
It seems that on overheads we have reached my ‘assertion’ vs. your ‘assertion’. When you introduced the new PC based system it presumably reduced the cost of IT in that local authority, so the authority was making a saving? I would think spreading the cost of the mainframe computer required for collecting council tax to all departments is not an accounting practice that is common. I reckon they would have a budget for council tax which would include IT charges. Legal services provide a service for the **whole** authority and the cost is often spread across departments but if each service area bought their own legal advice the cost would be much much higher. Many local authority ‘corporate’ services function in this way, you have a central team servicing the whole authority. One year the service department may not get full value, the next they may get over the full value. If each service area was free to procure outside services the cost would be higher and the bargaining power would be less.
You were comparing the private sector favourably to the state sector and I challenged that. With the privatisation of water, prices rose by 50% in the first 4 years!! Operating profits have more than doubled. Pre tax profits rose in real terms by 142%. Profit margins in Britain are 3 to 4 times greater than in other European nations who do not have a fully privatised system. Add onto this director pay increases of 200% and we get the story of the drive to ‘efficiency’. Bus service provision tells the same story, worse conditions for workers, higher charges for customers.
On redistribution
The Eisenach program of the Social democratic workers party included a demand for a progressive income tax and inheritance tax!! So you deny this??
A vulgar socialist would be one who sees redistribution as THE solution to what Marx called the ‘social question’ but clearly I am not saying this. I am saying that socialists address these issues and fall down on the side of progressive rather than regressive policies, which is what you seemed to be suggesting and why I said we were slowly converging. My argument is that the real movement will always address these issues, be it unions fighting for better pay or workers parties fighting for ‘fairer’ taxation and socialists need to provide qualified support or in times of intense battle outright support. Marx himself in opposition to Weston provided arguments why workers were correct to strike for higher pay, and not all his arguments were economic, some addressed issues such as morale. He believed workers who did not fight for a higher share of the cake would become enfeebled.
Your wish to ditch these issues because of a ‘century of failure’ positions you outside the real movement.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteI've already answered your question on whose side a Marxist would be on in confronting the Tories attacks. Its you that is distorting the truth, and acting like a troll in trying to muddy the water. A form of argument that is familiar. I gave you the simple answer, opposing the cuts, opposing privatisation, and supporting workers under attack is not at all the same as depending the Capitalist State. Marxists point to how that State is their enemy, highlight its inadequacies, and put forward a programme to deal with them. You just support the Capitalist State, and ask workers to ignore and put up with its inadequacies.
No introducing the PC system did NOT reduce overall IT costs, because the cost of the mainframe, and of running the IT Department remained exactly the same! Spreading mainframe computer charges is very common. Different ways of doing that exist. If they are done on any kind of pro rata basis they will always overcharge those who only use the mainframe because it exists for other purposes. That is because in accounting terms these other Departments are really making a contribution to fixed costs. If they didn't use it that cost would still exist, and would fall entirely on the service for which the computer was actually bought. To put it in terms of economic theory, the Marginal Cost of those other departments using it is zero – or near zero.
The same applies to your argument on other central Support Service charges, for which you have still provided no actual figures. We looked at it, and the cost was less. I was not arguing in favour of private industry as against the Public Sector, I was merely pointing out that the Public Sector is inefficient and bureaucratic, which is not news to anyone who has worked in it. That's not an argument for private industry, its an argument for workers to fight for greater democratic control, which they will find can only be won if they take ownership for themselves, or create their own worker owned alternatives as Marx suggested.
“The Eisenach program of the Social democratic workers party included a demand for a progressive income tax and inheritance tax!! So you deny this??”..
Where did I deny it. I accepted it, but pointed out that it was exactly the same as the demand Marx raised in 1866.
Marx did not use the terms “Progressive” or “Regressive” here, nor does the Eisenach Programme, he only referred to “Direct” or “Indirect” and his support for “Direct” taxation has nothing to do with it being “progressive”. His argument was that a direct tax enabled workers to see how much they were being ripped off by the State, whereas an indirect tax did not, and therefore, facilitated a growth of bureaucratic government at the expense of the workers developing their own “self-government." He could not see it in terms of “progressive” or “regressive” for the reason set out at the beginning.
“a) No modification of the form of taxation can produce any important change in the relations of labour and capital.”..
cont'd
You misunderstand the use of the term “progressive” as used in the Programme. It does not mean “progressive” as against a “regressive” indirect tax. It is peaking of the kind of Income Tax they were calling for i.e. not a flat rate Income Tax, which would take the same amount from all incomes, but a percentage income tax, which takes more the more you earn.
ReplyDeleteIncome Tax is not progressive, for the reasons Marx sets out. Capitalists do not acquire their wealth through income, but through Capital Gain. They frequently have their dividends reinvested for that reason. But, whether they receive income or Capital Gain, they mostly do not pay tax, because they are able to avoid it. The cost of maintaining the Capitalist State, therefore, falls not on the Capitalists, but on workers and the middle class. As Hobsbawm pointed out, Welfarism, redistributive Socialism, meant only taking money from one section of the working class and giving it to another, and at great cost.
Marx balanced his statements about the need for workers to engage in what he called “guerilla fights” with his comment not to exaggerate their importance, arguing instead that they should use the forms that Capitalism provided them – Credit, Co-operative production – to create their alternative “self-government”. Neither he nor I propose abstaining from those guerilla fights, but unlike you we recognise that remaining on that ground traps workers in an endless fight WITHIN Capitalism.
What I find difficult to understand is that in nearly 40 years in the Movement I have never known anyone who considers themselves a Marxist to argue that Marx was a Redistributive Socialist! On the contrary it is one of the great dividing lines that separates Marxists from Fabians, or the Revisionists such as Bernstein. Its certainly true that many themselves have fallen into that category, but they would not agree they have done so, and certainly would not try to defend such a position by claiming that Marx was a redistributionist!
I find it odd that you should try to present your argument as a Marxist, and yet appear to only have the kind of acquaintance with Marx's views that comes to someone who merely Google's for them, rather than has been part of the debates and discussions of the Movement.
“Marx did not use the terms “Progressive” or “Regressive” here, nor does the Eisenach Programme,”
ReplyDeleteSo you do deny it!!
Progressive means here taking more from those that earn more – i.e. redistribution through taxation!
Go to the attached link and take note of demand 9
http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=688
To quote Jack Nicholson: Your problem is that you cannot handle the truth.
Again progress through ignorance.
“Neither he nor I propose abstaining from those guerilla fights”
That is not the impression I am getting from you. The impression I am getting is that you think we should forget these battles entirely.
“What I find difficult to understand is that in nearly 40 years in the Movement I have never known anyone who considers themselves a Marxist to argue that Marx was a Redistributive Socialist!”
Maybe you will have to wait another 40 because I haven’t said that. I have made it clear that seeing redistribution as the solution is vulgar socialism. The point is that Marx argued against Weston in saying workers were correct to strike for higher pay. He formulated arguments to support his case!! Do you deny this??
“I find it odd that you should try to present your argument as a Marxist, and yet appear to only have the kind of acquaintance with Marx's views that comes to someone who merely Google's for them, rather than has been part of the debates and discussions of the Movement.”
“No introducing the PC system did NOT reduce overall IT costs”
ReplyDeleteSo you replaced one system with another and the new system was more costly. That seems like a dramatic failure of budget monitoring. Were you fired?
“Different ways of doing that exist. If they are done on any kind of pro rata basis they will always overcharge those who only use the mainframe because it exists for other purposes”
So this is the mainframe computer that runs all the authorities networks, applications, web based systems etc etc and not just the council tax, which is the impression you gave originally. Most employees in all services have computers and use them every day, the cost of those individual computers, internet access, specific software licences etc are costed directly to users within the service. Marginal cost is not close to zero. The same goes for things like capital charges for assets, they are costed directly to the service department. It is practice demanded by financial regulations, external auditors and statistical reports to government. Though with your irresponsible use of public money on the PC system you were obviously in need of financial regulation and management training.
Now in a previous life I was required to provide costing for local authority land charges, the government required authorities to change the way they calculated these charges. They were required to move to a cost based calculation. During that lengthy work, which required me to travel to Local Authorities all over the country, I had to compile the cost of all the IT systems that went into delivering the Land charges function. I found that in the majority of cases IT systems costs were charged directly to the relevant service.
You say I have no costs for my ‘assertions’ but you portray Local government as a hotbed of waste and inefficiency. You provide no evidence for this assertion, other than your own stupid actions. It is clear that if each service paid for it’s own legal advice instead of using it’s own in house function then the cost would be far greater.
Then you say you are not favouring Private services but then provide some assertions that utilities have reduced prices!! This defence of Thatcher’s privatisation must be another first for Marxists. If not you must tell me other Marxists you have met in your 40 years of activity who share this view.
“I was merely pointing out that the Public Sector is inefficient and bureaucratic, which is not news to anyone who has worked in it.”
To those who see vacancies unfilled, who have to send efficiency proposals to Cabinet every year, who have to provide information for the Medium Term financial strategies, who have their pay frozen and reduced in real terms, to those who have moratoriums on spend imposed on them halfway during the year it isn’t news at all. To those who read the Daily Telegraph and take it as Gospel then yes this would not be news. You see your caricature, your inability to grasp the changes that have taken place in recent years, you inability to see how efficiency is really a drive to lower workers living standards does not help your analysis one jot. You cannot establish the truth on the lies you are putting forward. Progress though ignorance seems to be your method.
Whopps, missed the most important bit (see the final point),
ReplyDelete“I find it odd that you should try to present your argument as a Marxist, and yet appear to only have the kind of acquaintance with Marx's views that comes to someone who merely Google's for them, rather than has been part of the debates and discussions of the Movement.”
How the hell you can debate when you fail to listen to what others are saying is a mystery to me. Your Google comment made me laugh, what a cop out! In fact I have been rereading 2 of my old books this week, The economics of Marx, edited by MC Howard and JE king and Surveys from exile, introduced by David Fernba. Cover design by David King. You can test me on it if you want. On second thoughts don’t bother, debating with you is clearly time wasted.
“So you replaced one system with another and the new system was more costly. That seems like a dramatic failure of budget monitoring. Were you fired?”..
ReplyDeleteNo, because I had been instructed to do this by – the Chief executive who was the previous Treasurer!!! To clear this up, and answer another point you make later let me give the full history. The council had a mainframe Computer. Its main purpose was to run the Council's Revenue systems, originally rates, then Poll Tax, and latterly Council Tax. The costs of running the mainframe, and staffing accounted for 20% of the Council's Budget. In actual fact, it would have been cheaper to have outsourced this function to a neighbouring Council such as Stoke. Other large associated systems such as Council Tax Benefit, and Rents and Housing Benefit were also run on the mainframe. Other distributed systems were also run off the mainframe, but these were only minor such as payroll.
One of the first things I was asked to look at was the Department's, ordering, and Commitment Accounting system, which at that time was a thoroughly chaotic system based on a series of duplicate books! I found from speaking to a former Auditor turned IT guru, that the Council actually already had a Stock Control and Order processing system. It had been bought by another Department. In investigated this with the Computer Manager. It turned out that the Council had bought this package 2 years earlier at a cost of £50,000. Since that time it had sat on his shelf waiting to be installed, because the department that had bought it, had not decided to use it!!! On top of that, there was an annual licence fee of £5,000 that the Council was paying for it to sit unused on his shelf. After some discussion he agreed that it was perhaps about time that it was installed, particularly if someone did want to use it. I remember that someone from the Company came up to give a demonstration, and to assist in the installation, and that one of the first remarks he made was “I'm not here to try to sell this to you, because the Council has already bought it.”
In fact, we were quite happy to use the system. The way the mainframe computer charges were calculated was on the basis of processing time. It was on that basis that out of a total IT department cost of £2 million, the charge apportioned to this system came to £90,000. I could point to other charges racked up by the IT Department such as the fact that I found they were paying £600 a year each in maintenance charges for PC's that were only worth about £150 each, but that's another story. Because this £90,000 in IT charges had to be recharged out to the other functions of the Department, and this impacted on the costs when it came to CCT, the Treasurer, suggested that we could get a system to do the job, for much less, even though this would mean the Council as a whole incurring an increased cost. So I was instructed to find an alternative, which I did, which including the costs of PC's to run it on, came to around £3,000, and was in fact, a system used by Marks & Spencer amongst others.
In fact, we would have been quite happy to have continued using the original mainframe system, but it was typical Local Government bureaucracy that led us to have to overcome what was really an internal accounting matter, by incurring additional cost. Incidentally, the same system could have been put on to a server, and extended for use across the whole council, for only several thousand pounds – as I said it was used by much larger organisations such as Marks and Spencer. Instead a few years later the Council spent £250,000 on a new mainframe system that after several years still was not fully functional.
cont'd
Cont'd
ReplyDeleteForgive me, if I'm not convinced by your arguments in this regard. The fact remains that the last set of accounts I saw, which is some years ago, showed that two-thirds of the net budget went not on providing services, but on Finance and Management, a breakdown of which showed that amounted to the wages and expenses of the top management, the costs of administration, IT, and other Central Support Services, and the costs of collecting Council tax, and dealing with Benefits arising from it. That can hardly be described as an efficient provision of services to workers can it?
I do not intend to respond any further on this point because it is meaningless. I have made my position clear that just because State capitalist provision is bureaucratic, undemocratic, and inefficient that does not mean I favour privatisation. On the contrary, it means I favour struggles to democratise it, and to establish worker-owned and controlled alternatives, and replacements. If you wish to continue to misrepresent my position on that I can't stop you, but there is no point debating with someone who adopts that attitude. Its the method of the troll not a serious debater.
Telling the truth that the prices of utilities such as Gas, Electricity and Telecoms have fallen is not a defence of privatisation. I was not in favour of privatisation then, and I am not now. But, that opposition is not based on your misguided adoration of the Capitalist State, it is based on the simple Marxist idea that private capitalism is historically regressive compared to State capitalism. Marxists oppose both, and advocate workers ownership and control instead.
As for your rant about unfilled vacancies and so on, that has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the services are run efficiently or not. The bureaucrats in charge of the North Staffs Hospital spent millions on building new facilities, and then left places unfilled, and sacked nurses, because they ran out of money. The latter was a sign of that incompetence and inefficiency, not vice versa. I am not by any means accusing workers in these services of being inefficient, quite the opposite. I am saying they have to put up with those conditions, with shortages and so on, which in turn breeds low morale, high sickness rates, and inefficiency, precisely because they work in an inefficient bureaucratic system over which they have no control! On a more general point, after the budget of the NHS was trebled, try telling the patients and relatives of patients who died at Stafford Hospital that resources were used efficiently.
"Chris",
ReplyDeleteThe words used in the Eisenach Programme at the link you provided read,
“9. Abolition of all indirect taxes* and introduction of one progressive income tax and inheritance tax.”..
You will note that as I said there is no mention of the word “Regressive” here, and it does NOT say the introduction of an Income Tax because it is “Progressive” as opposed to Indirect taxes because they are “Regressive”. It says, a “Progressive Income Tax”, which as I explained simply means a percentage income tax, as opposed to a flat rate tax, an explanation, which you have conveniently failed to address. To make matters clearer from marx's position if that were necessary after he has already state clearly that the choice of Direct as opposed to Indirect taxes cannot change the position of labour as against Capital, and has explained that the only reason for arguing for Direct taxes is to encourage workers to demand that Government expenditure be kept to a minimum – which is hardly consistent with redistribution – he addresses your argument directly in attacking your formulation as effectively put by the Lassalleans. In the Critique of the Gotha Programme he says,
“That, in fact, by the word "state" is meant the government machine, or the state insofar as it forms a special organism separated from society through division of labour, is shown by the words "the German Workers' party demands as the economic basis of the state: a single progressive income tax", etc. Taxes are the economic basis of the government machinery and of nothing else. In the state of the future, existing in Switzerland, this demand has been pretty well fulfilled. Income tax presupposes various sources of income of the various social classes, and hence capitalist society. It is, therefore, nothing remarkable that the Liverpool financial reformers — bourgeois headed by Gladstone's brother — are putting forward the same demand as the program.”..
I draw your attention to that comment, “Taxes are the economic basis of the government machinery and of nothing else.” Far from this “progressive Income tax” actually being “progressive” or in any way socialist it is part of the programme not of socialists, but of “the Liverpool financial reformers — bourgeois headed by Gladstone's brother.” That is the company you are keeping! The company not of Marx, but of those Marx was the enemy of.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteChris,
ReplyDeleteThe introduction to "Surveys From Exile" is by David Fernbach, not Fernba.
What is the 6th word on page48?
Boffy,
ReplyDeleteMany local authorities have moved to a corporate procurement system. This means all procurement must go through this central team. All invoicing is done electronically and every order must be authorised by one of the admittedly overpaid managers. But where are managers not overpaid?
The days of separate procurement teams are all but over. Maybe in the old days the calamitous problems you encountered were commonplace, it all sounds rather carry on public serving to me. It bears no relation to the local authorities I have done work for. It is a caricature of the real world, and for that reason your analysis is seriously compromised, I repeat that again because this is the critical point, your analysis is seriously compromised.
In today’s local authorities everything is measured, planned, monitored, benchmarked, scrutinised, set to a performance indicator. You imagine we can cut waste tomorrow and have little effect on service delivery, you are spinning the same yarn as the ConDem rich boys intent on redistributing class power. Judging by your views on redistribution all this is obviously a side issue to you. I only wish the ruling class shared your attitude!
Your assertion that finance and management or central services make up two-thirds of budget is incorrect. I will assume you were talking about revenue budget and excluding capital budgets. I will also assume you were talking about net budgets and about the whole local authority and not just a typical service department. So many assumptions so little time! Though whatever assumptions we care to make your facts are wide of the mark.
Now from my experience I would say that in a typical local authority, of the total net revenue budget approx 19 to 20% is what you would call central support services. This would include financial services, chief executive and central services, such as Legal. The gross expenditure would be made up of approx 45% Employees, 20% contracted services, 3% Central and Tech support, 4% capital charges and the rest supplies and services etc.
The funding would be typically 25% dedicated schools grant, 15% council tax, 15% business rates, 1% reserves and the rest grants and other charges.
I would estimate that in a typical authority 1% of staff earn over
£50k per year, though that figure may alter slightly depending on which part of the country we are talking about.
Now before you embark on your slash and burn policy, you need to get your facts straight. Then after the tiresome but crucial task of fact gathering, instead of saying to workers local authorities spend such and such on central support you need to look at what central support *actually* entails and what *implications* arise from any proposed changes. A close scrutiny of local authority budgets by the public may then reveal areas they wish to see cut. I know the Mayor of Doncaster (a man you would like as he takes your view that redistribution is something the lower orders should not concern themselves with) stood on a platform of getting rid of equality officer posts and asylum seeker support programmes among others. Faux frais of production I think is the term popular among vulgar Marxists, hang on let me just Google that, yes that is the term. (Incidentally employee costs would typically make up only 12% of the Asylum seeker support budget).
Central support includes Legal, Health and Safety, IT and financial services (which is typically 80% employee costs). Items such as maintaining statutory registers are also included under central support. So some areas of expenditure must be excluded from any cuts or factored into any analysis, this is why generic calls for cuts to central support and comparisons of overheads between public and private are a total abstraction. A thorough detailed analysis is called for. Your method of throwing around half truths (I am in a generous mood) will inevitably lead to flawed solutions.
ReplyDeleteThe costs of management and administration in central departments are accounted for in accordance with the recommendations of the CIPFA Best Value Accounting Code of Practice (BVACOP). These are almost wholly recharged to services as support costs on the basis of recorded time spent by staff on service activity or on the basis of the number of transactions undertaken.
Now let us take a single function within an authority, such as Drainage, as I have specific knowledge of that service. Typically we may have a total of say 10 staff totalling say £255,000 salary. (Avg. £25k). Added to this £255k would be direct employee overheads for NI and superannuation of say £62k (24%). This section would comprise say 4 engineers, 1 environmental health officer, 4 technicians and 1 admin support officer. Added to this would be say £21k management costs. So management and admin make up approx 6% of total salary costs. Let us say the total gross expenditure is £1.2 million, this includes all operatives involved in main drainage work, gulley cleansing etc. Typically departmental and central costs, which include office accommodation, health and safety and other such faux frais of production, would come to at most 9% of the gross budget. That is £90k. This would include legal, debtor and creditor processing costs, HR and Audit costs, business support charges etc etc. If we add the 90k support costs to the admin and management cost and then add the NI and Superann we are looking at 13% of total budget.
“As for your rant about unfilled vacancies and so on, that has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the services are run efficiently or not.”
It wasn’t a rant but some examples to highlight your caricatures. The keystone cops local authority culture you describe just doesn’t exist today. Failing to see that means your analysis is irrelevant to the working class in the here and now.
You seem to be having your own debate in relation to redistribution. The argument is about whether we address these issues or not. The argument isn’t whether these issues lead us to socialism. Marx in debating Weston, provided arguments to say workers were correct to struggle for a greater share of the pie. Do you deny this?? The Eisenach program demanded a progressive form of taxation (I am well aware of what that means but thanks for the lesson). What theory do you have as to why this demand was included?
The ever clearer impression I am getting from you (apart from the ignorance underpinning your analysis) is that these issues should be ignored and avoided. That goes against what Marx did, pure and simple.
The solution to these problems is the democratisation of society, which includes democratic control over state budgets. Only when the public take a greater interest in these matters can proper evaluations and decisions be made. Until then we all fly blindly through an atmosphere of assertions.
The answer to your riddle is Provinces.
ReplyDeleteThe general editor was Quintin Hoare.
The back of my copy says edited and introduced by David Fernba, I stupidly just copied it out! You will also find on the back confirmation of David King as cover designer.
Do you want to test me on The economic of Marx?
Chris,
ReplyDeleteYou can quote whatever figures you like, and so could I, and this is not the place where those figures can be properly tested. It's irrelevant for another reason. I have never suggested that I am in favour of privatisation. Let us assume that your figures are correct, let us assume that State capitalism IS more efficient than private Capitalism, it would not change a thing in my argument. Unlike you I am not a defender of State Capitalism, I am a proponent of Socialism, and therefore like Marx, I am in favour of “Workers Self-Government”. Like Marx I see the capitalist State as my enemy not my friend, and so like Marx, I am not in favour of its expansion!
No Marx does NOT argue that workers should struggle for a bigger share of the pie! His argument is exactly the opposite of that. His argument is that they have to try to defend themselves against attacks by Capital, because otherwise they would become completely demoralised, and diminished, and in organising such resistance they build the kind of organisation and confidence that enables them to engage in the struggle they DO need to engage in, the struggle to establish their own forms of property, their own “self-government” in opposition to Capital and its State. Far from arguing that workers can increase their “share of the pie” simply by trade union struggle, he shows at length why that is not possible! This is precisely the point. Marx shows at length that it is the accumulation of Capital, which raises absolutely the demand for labour power, together with the drive of Capital to cheapen wage goods so as to reduce the value of labour power, which enables Capital to increase real wages – which it needs to do because of its need to sell wider ranges of Use Values to workers – whilst increasing the exploitation of labour i.e. increasing relative surplus value. This is what he calls Capitalism's “Civilising Mission”. But, it is precisely this economic constraint determined by the needs of Capital Accumulation that means that workers CANNOT increase their share of the pie by wages struggle, or by redistributive taxation. If wages rise, either as a result of higher actual wages, or else as a result of an increase in the social wage, then Capital will respond by all the methods he sets out and more to reduce it again. It will introduce new machines, reduce investment, move overseas or whatever so that the demand for labour power is reduced, and wages fall back. As he says that is a function of the mode of production, and you cannot as you want to separate Distribution from that. That is precisely as he says what bourgeois economics does. The only way to change those relations of distribution is to change the relations of production i.e. workers have to become the owners of Capital.
100 years of Welfarism, and high taxation has NOT resulted in a shift of wealth and power towards the workers. All that the Welfare State has done is take money from higher paid workers and give it to poorer workers at a massive administrative cost, and the other consequence is to create a division within the working class between those from whom the money is taken, and those to whom it is given. The other effect is what Marx wanted to avoid, to undermine the idea of Workers Self-Government. It turns masses of workers into virtual serfs dependent on, and therefore tied to the capitalist State. That's why Capital introduced it. It is what lay behind the ideas developed by Neville Chamberlain for it in the 1920's. They introduced N.I. To drain resources from workers Friendly Societies through which workers could protect themselves against sickness, and unemployment and so on (which is why Marx demanded the State keep its hands off them), they introduced the WEA as an attempt to undermine Independent Workers Education. Its just a big version of the kind of Truck System that employers introduced in the 19th century, and against which socialists and Trades Unionist campaigned!
You still have not understood the difference between a progressive form of taxation and a progressive Income Tax. A flat rate Income Tax, for example, most certainly is not progressive, because it takes the same amount from all incomes! The reason the Eisenach program used that formulation was precisely to distinguish the two. It had nothing to do with the idea you want to put forward that this tax was itself “progressive”. As Marx argued his advancement of Direct Taxes had nothing to do with it being “progressive”, which is why he attacks that formulation of it in the Gotha Programme, and points out that it was a demand being raised by the financial bourgoisie. If you want another example of it, it is the US, which does not have VAT, and is heavily resisting the idea of introducing it, collects little from Indirect Taxes, and collects most tax from Direct Taxation. Perhaps that's why so many workers in the US, as Marx suggested they would, resisted those Direct taxes being raised on them to cover socialised healthcare, as opposed to that cost being met by their employer!
ReplyDeleteYour idea about democratisation and democratic control of state budgets is just as reformist and bourgeois as your suggestions about redistributive socialism. Of course, Marxists argue for a struggle for greater democratic control, but only in the context of explaining in advance, why such democratic control over the bourgeois state is IMPOSSIBLE. The example, of the Plebs League, is a classic example. Ruskin College was set up by the bourgeois for workers education. In part, it was intended as an alternative to the Workers education that was already being conducted through the Co-operative Movement. Workers at Ruskin demanded control over the syllabus, and economics based on Marx's Capital. In the end, the only way they could get what they wanted, was to break away, and form the National Council of Labour Colleges. This is precisely the point workers can only exercise democratic control if they establish their own property, and organisations. That was the lesson Marx set out, it is what he meant by “Self-Government”. Its why he said that the involvement of the State in education was “wholly objectionable”, and so on.
Odd that your copy of “Surveys From Exile” has a misprint. I appear to have the same copy, and mine has David Fernbach's name there quite clearly. I have tested you on the Economics aof Marx, and you have been found wanting.
Boffy,
ReplyDelete“Odd that your copy of “Surveys From Exile” has a misprint. I appear to have the same copy, and mine has David Fernbach's name there quite clearly.”
Yes very odd, let’s call in Mulder and Scully or Scooby Doo and the gang to solve this mystery. Was Provinces correct by the way, you failed to say? I presume that question was a test. I presume the test YOU set had a purpose. So did I pass and if I did what does that tell us? You should know as you set the test!!!!!!!!!
“Let us assume that your figures are correct”
That just isn’t good enough. You asserted that two thirds of budget was on finance and management. You set yourself up as someone with solutions but you are ignorant of real conditions. Democracy cannot work if you give people false information. You should have more respect for that concept and more respect for the people you are trying to influence. Marxism recognises that conditions change and theories need to adapt to meet those changes, so facts are crucial. One of the things I took from reading ‘Surveys from Exile”, edited by Fernbach, apart from the fact that tax is a class issue, is that theory is developed in the fall out and aftermath of upheavals. That in upheavals ideas are destroyed, refined or created. So as we are currently in a period of upheaval theory takes a back seat to struggle. The working class are being attacked they have to defend. Only in the fall out from this battle can theory be developed and ideas advanced. And in this period of ruling class attacks you are providing spurious facts to aid their propaganda. It is only right that your facts be challenged, that is what I have done.
I have made it clear that I do not see redistribution as the solution to the ‘social question’. Clearly a fundamental change in the way production is organised is required. A fundamental change in social relations is needed.
”This is precisely the point workers can only exercise democratic control if they establish their own property, and organisations.”
ReplyDeleteThe conditions faced by workers today are very different from the conditions faced by workers in the late 19th century. The fact is a ‘welfare’ state was created and expanded. Within these organisations many people work. I presume you believe these new property forms should replace existing hospitals, schools etc etc. In other words a massive costly building programme would be conducted, extra materials demanded and once this infrastructure is in place workers will attempt to persuade workers in the NHS/Education system etc etc to decamp to the newly created co-operative sector. Just explain the economics and practicality of that as my copy of the economics of Marx isn’t helping! Neither is Google!
Forgive me if I prefer using existing state property to facilitate the transition to socialism. After all workers paid for it all one way or another.
Forgive me if I don’t think workers controlling state budgets and state property equal reformism.
“His argument is that they have to try to defend themselves against attacks by Capital, because otherwise they would become completely demoralised, and diminished”
So his argument is the same as mine, they should address these issues. I am glad that has been settled. If you read back I made the point that Marx didn’t just use economic arguments but also addressed issues such as morale!! Actually judging by your quote above, whether you acknowledge it or not, our views are converging.
As I said earlier we are currently in a period of attacks by the ruling class, this is a period where the working class need to defend. Like Marx in his debates with Weston I will provide arguments to strengthen that defence.
“You still have not understood the difference between a progressive form of taxation and a progressive Income Tax.”
The demand is for a progressive income tax and **inheritance** tax. The inheritance tax speaks for itself. The income tax was to be a single, direct, and progressively higher income tax based on earnings. And my point about his argument with Weston backs up my case anyway.
An Example, of actual figures for a Local Authority is given here.
ReplyDeleteThe data here shows Net Revenue Spending as £17 million. Of this, as can be seen on Page 13, the Central Support Service costs come to approx £13 million i.e. 76%. £8.6 million of that is recharged out to other Departments.
The significance of that £12m figure can be judged by comparing it with the cost of providing some actual services to the Public (bearing in mind that this cost includes some of that £8m recharged out of the Central Service Budget). For example, the Gross Cost of Cultural Services only came to £6.6m, and the vast majority of that cost was itself paid by workers in the form of charges for entry to Sports Centres etc. The same is true for Environmental Services, which despite being one of the few remaining actual services the Council provides to residents, still had a Gross Cost less than the Central Services Cost.
The only Gross Budget is for Housing Services (not for the provision of Council Housing as this has been privatised to an ALMO), but here too, as much of this is for Improvement Grants etc. rather than an actual cost of providing a service, the Net Budget is reduced to just £2.6 m as the Council is really just taking in money, and handing it out in grants.
Following Phil's original article that began by citing a letter from the Weekly Worker, there is this week an excellent article in the WW by James Turley that makes many of the same points I have been making here about the need for marxists to offer workers a better vision than just defending the current bureaucratic and inefficient, State capitalist provision.
ReplyDeleteWeekly Worker
I asked you the question to determine I have exactly the same copy. Having done so, it is indeed odd that two exact same copies should result in yours having Fernbach's name misprinted. Anyone would think you might have just used Google Books, or one of the other online editions. But, its the kind of diversion a troll is interested in. I'm not.
ReplyDeleteI didn't assert that two-thirds of the Budget was on Finance and Management. The Council's Budget Book showed that to be the case! You provided NO counter facts. Everything in your response was typical of a troll, phrases like “Many local authorities”, or “today's Local Authorities”, “I would say”, or a “typical Local Authority”, or “I would estimate”. Not one single fact in sight. Not one single actual Local Authority's books cited. And, from my experience of working in Local Government, and being a Councillor, it is your account, which is wide of the mark. But, its a pointless discussion, because my argument is that whether or not State capitalism is more or less efficient than private Capitalism (the reality is that sometimes it will be sometimes it won't) it makes not one jot of difference to my position. I am opposed to both! I am a socialist, I see socialist production as a more efficient alternative to both State capitalism and private Capitalism. Moreover, it is only Socialism which enables workers to exercise control. You claim to be a socialist, even a Marxist, and yet increasingly your argument comes down to a defence of the status quo, of State- Capitalism AGAINST socialism. But, then from your style of writing, and method of argument I think that you are just a troll of old.
Where have I said that workers should engage in building new hospitals to compete alongside existing hospitals, or any other such nonsense. I have argued exactly what Engels suggested in relation to factories that Capitalists closed down i.e. workers take them over and run them as Co-operatives. There are already Co-operative Pharmacies, and some Co-operative GP's facilities. There is even a hospital that has been transferred into the ownership and control of its workers along the John Lewis model. I wouldn't necessarily recommend any of these particular models as being ideal, but they demonstrate that workers can take over existing facilities without your odd idea of having to build alternatives! There are lots of examples of workers taking over Council Housing, and turning it into Co-operative Housing, an alternative that my union UNISON, put forward as opposed to the establishment of ALMO's. That didn't require them to build new Council houses to rehouse themselves into.
Your idea that workers can exercise democratic control over the Capitalist State IS precisely reformism. Both Marx and Lenin emphasised that workers cannot “simply lay hands on the ready made machinery of the Capitalist State”, but that this State has to be SMASHED. I suggest you Google Lenin's “State & Revolution”, it will give you another few phrases you can make vague allusion to in your next outing.
On Marx and workers defending themselves you give us the words of a troll once again. No Marx is not agreeing with you that through such struggle they can as you put it “increase their share of the pie”. He is arguing the exact opposite. All of your argument including your suggestion of simply trying to control Capitalist property is the opposite of what Marx wrote, and the same is true of what you write about tax, where you have failed to reconcile your view with that of Marx. He did not see Income tax as “Progressive” in the way you have tried to define it. He didn't see any taxes as “progressive” in that sense. A while ago, someone proposed a “Fat Tax”, which would basically mean you had to pay “progressively” more tax, the more your BMI rose over a certain level. That is all the term “progressive Income Tax” means, it just means going up more as the thing being taxed goes up.
Boffy,
ReplyDelete“But, its the kind of diversion a troll is interested in. I'm not.”
But you asked the question!! You set the test!!! So it was something you were bothered about!!! And now you tell us this test told us nothing!!! How is that for stupidity, you set a test that means nothing and by your own definition you are a Troll!!! Personally I was scratching my head as to what the point of this all was, I am still unclear. For what it is worth? on page 373 the final index says: illusions of, 146-8.
Now onto your false assertion that two thirds of budget is spent on finance and management (even commonsense should tell you this is bollocks),
“The data here shows Net Revenue Spending as £17 million. Of this, as can be seen on Page 13, the Central Support Service costs come to approx £13 million i.e. 76%. £8.6 million of that is recharged out to other Departments.”
You will firstly have to explain why you are using Gross expenditure on Central services and taking that as a % of the net expenditure of all the other services. If we apply that logic to say Housing Services we can see it accounted for 112% of spend!! Secondly you will have to explain how Central services = finance and management, as underneath it gives a brief summary that includes Elections, Land Charges. Are you in favour of banning Elections? Thirdly, you assert that £8.6 million is recharged out to other services, when all it says is that income is £8.6m?? Fourthly, have you ignored Central services in the total net budget figure when working out your figures? Fifthly, do you know what % of central services budget is employees? In my experience finance is above 70%.
Though any analysis we care to make is abstract because we do not know what central services actually entail. That would require an in depth audit, some inner knowledge that accounts cannot provide. The problem is you are using spurious facts to present an argument and seem unconcerned by doing so. I am simply pointing out that workers are being attacked by the ruling class and we need to prepare a defence. You are using this attack not to defend workers in the here and now but opportunistically to push forward your alternative vision. A vision that you yourself admit in your weekly worker article is a minority position even within Marxism! Now if that wasn’t being done on a mountain of horseshit I may have some sympathy.
Below is a series of links to Newcastle City council:
ReplyDeleteIf we look at the first link, we see that the vaguely titled other services accounts for 8% of Gross expenditure and 13% of net expenditure. Even if we use your method of applying gross to net we get 22% and if I also assume you keep the other services net out of total net we still only get 25%!
The Income and Expenditure account on the second link puts central services Gross exp at £44m and Income at £35m. I will assume all this is charged to services. Total Gross exp is £968m. But we need to take off the £36m that constitutes Central services, so we have £932. Now if we add the income back onto the Gross Exp, Central = £44m + £36m = £80m. This is still only 8% of total Gross exp. It is only 27% of Net Expenditure!
The third link gives some detailed information of budgets, page 9 gives a breakdown of subjective spend in line with my breakdown earlier, though I should stress mine is from different sources.
http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/wwwfileroot/cxo/annualreport/draft0910/ExplanatoryForeword.pdf
http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/wwwfileroot/cxo/annualreport/draft0910/CoreStatementsandNotes.pdf
http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/wwwfileroot/cxo/financial/budget1011/SectionC1011.pdf
“You provided NO counter facts. Everything in your response was typical of a troll”
I am actually an accountant in a local authority but didn’t want to say as you would undoubtedly use this against me. You would question my impartiality. For nearly 10 years I have been producing revenue outturn reports to central government. I am literally just finishing compiling this years set of figures. I am also responsible for compiling the budget information that appears in the council tax leaflet. So my job description requires me to know exactly where council money has been spent. The figures I provided are the result of all that experience. My knowledge in this area means I cannot let your lies stand unchallenged. My experience does tell me, however, that the system would be improved greatly if workers were directly involved in the process of setting and controlling these budgets. The fact that you were once a councillor and you push such claptrap as you have in relation to budgets confirms this belief is correct.
The working class is in a period of struggle, people are facing job losses and cuts to services and instead of assisting the defence you are contributing to the attack! And doing so with the sort of statistical underhandedness I would expect from a company negotiating a pay deal with its workforce. You are completely ignoring reality as it stands and basing your arguments on some society you would like to see in the future. Yours is a utopian method. This is why I claim you stand outside the real movement, you do not move from the concrete but from the abstract. This is why you have to make up statistics to fit your position, the fact you are doing this says everything about your method.
The only way you could justify your stance would be from a ‘productive’ ‘unproductive’ split of the workforce. You are saying to the ‘productive’ section, here are a number of workers who are a parasitic element. This parasitic element need disposing of and you, the ‘productive’ workers, need to establish what ‘unproductive’ sectors you need. Now maybe Marxism is a tool of the ‘productive’ working class and excludes the ‘unproductive’ class and maybe this stance is correct. If that is the case then I guess I wouldn’t consider myself a Marxist.
James Turley’s conclusion that we should make the case for the alternative is very nice revolutionary speak but that alternative must be built from the real conditions that face us. The argument isn’t about the need for an alternative but how to get that alternative!! I reject the idea of simply dismissing the ‘public service’ sector as a hotbed of waste and inefficiency, in many areas they are more advanced in planning, management, benchmarking, networking and the like than the private sector. It would be better for the working class to take control of that hude network of state assets and state budgets, which they have paid for. Why should the ruling class be left all those assets that workers have sweated to create? I also reject the idea of alternative meaning absolutely separated from anything that already exists, that is alternative infantilism Imo. So even if the productive unproductive split of the working class is correct I would still argue that your failure to start from concrete conditions makes your analysis flawed. I would advise ‘productive’ workers to take over state budgets and take ownership of state assets.
ReplyDelete”On Marx and workers defending themselves you give us the words of a troll once again. No Marx is not agreeing with you that through such struggle they can as you put it “increase their share of the pie”
I never said that, you are making it up or putting a false spin on things to aid your argument. Very much similar to the way your Council figures are interpreted. Who is the ‘troll’ here? You certainly have some front to set me up as a Troll by ascribing to me an opinion I did not give!!
This is what I actually said, “Marx in debating Weston, provided arguments to say workers were correct to struggle for a greater share of the pie.”
I didn’t say Marx believed they could increase their share of the pie, I said he argued that they should fight these battles and that socialists should support them, though qualifying that support with educating workers in seeing ownership of the means of production as key to their emancipation. Here is what I said, “socialists need to provide qualified support or in times of intense battle outright support”. But actually he did say they could increase their share of the pie, at least for a period. But I would imagine such subtleties are lost on you.
Marx included in a programme he personally helped write the demand for a minimum wage. I will assume being an expert on Marx you will know what I speak of but if you need the source just ask.
Maybe Marx didn’t see income tax as progressive but I guarantee you something, the workers these programs were intended for DID see it in those terms and Marx was very aware of that fact. But I would imagine such subtleties are lost on you.
“Where have I said that workers should engage in building new hospitals to compete alongside existing hospitals”
When you said my idea of workers taking ownership of state property was reformism!!!
Jesus, I ask again, who is the Troll here?
“Your idea that workers can exercise democratic control over the Capitalist State IS precisely reformism.”
I didn’t I said workers should take over state property and therefore state budgets. That is what democratisation means to me. You called this reformist but now you seem to be implying something similar. Are we seeing convergence in this area also?
Just one futher point on your Newcastle-Staffs example,
ReplyDelete“and the vast majority of that cost was itself paid by workers in the form of charges for entry to Sports Centres etc.”
You do understand that if you got rid of charging then that shortfall in income would have to be made up for somehow. So either the service would be cut, savings would be made to cover the loss of income from somewhere within the authority’s budget or the government would have to make up the balance from grants. Now possibly privatisation of squash courts etc would make the service cheaper, though I would guess the prices would increase and those areas that were unprofitable would be axed. The law of the market would then be free to rule everywhere.
I'd said I wasn't going to comment on the issue of the figures because its irrelevant. Your posts show why. I'm not going to agree with your interpretation, you are not going to agree with mine. As you admit the presentation of Local Government Accounts changes, and that makes them opaque. I know many LG Accountants who struggle to plough through the different formulations to make comparisons, so its certainly not going to be the case that non-Accountants will understand it, or be interested in trying to follow a discussion of it here. Moreover, as I've already said I accept that sometimes the Public Sector will be more efficient, sometimes it won't. The point is I'm opposed to both, whereas your argument comes down to a defence of the status quo.
ReplyDeleteI will deal briefly with the points you make on the Accounts, but this will be the last time I will comment on this for the reasons set out above. Firstly, I never said THESE accounts referred to were the accounts I was referring to which showed that 66% went to Finance & Management. If they were I wouldn't have quoted the 76% figure! If you look back I think you will see that I spoke about the last accounts I had seen at the Council I worked at. That goes back to around 2000. Having said that, these figures DO show the Central Services Budget making up 76% of the Net Revenue Budget. You ask why I use the gross figure for Central Services as against the net figure for the Budget. As an Accountant you should know the reason for that. The Net Budget for Central Services is arrived at by deducting the income it receives for the services provided, for IT, legal Services, Accountancy and so on. Who pays those charges? The other Departments! I agree that in this case some of that income might be from external charges, but you know as well as I do that this would constitute a very small proportion of that 8m. But, as you say if you compare the Central Services Gross Budget to the Gross Budget, from which you would actually need to deduct most of the Housing Services Budget, because it amounts as I said to just taking in money and paying it out in grants, you still arrive at a significant proportion of the Gross Budget. Its more than 20% even including the Housing Budget. Take that out, and it comes to 33%! But, as a LG Accountant you know that in determining the percentage of overhead costs even this is not accurate. The Gross Budget figures on p13 includes a certain amount of double counting, because that £8m, of recharges also appears in the expenditure of the other Departments Gross Budget. More than that, you know that even this understates the element of Management and Administration in total costs.
I'm not sure what the Management set up at Newcastle is , but I believe that they have at least 3 Departmental Directors in addition to the Chief Executive. The salaries of the Chief Officers appear in their Departmental Budget not the Central Services budget, as do their other expenses, the same is true of their deputies and Assistants, and the Principal Officers beneath them. Given that these Chief Officers salaries alone are around £80,000 this is not an insignificant amount. In the Accounts of my last Authority out of a net Budget of £10m, the saalries of the Chief Officers and their deputies and Assistants, amounted to £1m out of a Net revenue Budget of £10m. Each Department also has its own Admin Section, which typically has a Chief Admin Officer, and around six administrative clerks of varying salary grade. On top of that even within the actual Sports centres etc. some of the work is administrative. Add all these other Administrative Costs together, and you come to an even larger percentage even of the Gross Budget. I agree that even under Socialism some of these Admin costs will continue, my point is that they can be considerably reduced if workers own and control the means of production.
You are right I am basing myself on the kind of society I want to see rather than trying to defend the society of today. That's because I'm a socialist! A lot of Marx's work also consisted of attacking the inadequacy of Capitalism, and especially of its State for workers, as part of proposing a better alternative to it! As I said previously your attitude is the same as that of those who wanted to turn a blind eye to the horrors of Stalinism, and the bureaucratic and inefficient system that existed in the USSR for fear of giving succour to Imperialism. Well we say how that turned out. In the end given no progressive alternative to Stalinism the workers of eastern Europe invited capitalism back in. The same workers you want to invite to play a democratic role in determining State budgets – and which of course Capital will never concede – are effectively doing the same thing and voting with their feet. Attendance at Council Leisure centres continues to fall, whilst new private Leisure centres are booming, for instance.
ReplyDeleteYes, my method is that its not up to Marxists to say to workers just keep handing over huge amounts of tax to the capitalist State, just so some other group of workers can be kept in a job! Actually, if you read any of those Marxist Economic textbooks you say you have, you'll see that Marx from the beginning took that attitude too, for instance in his approving comments about the way that Adam Smith railed against the unproductive elements in Capitalist Society, such as the clergy and bureaucrats. The whole point of Marx's approach is that workers can organise production and provision more efficiently than capitalist Society, precisely because it can remove a lot of this unproductive expenditure.
I didn't say arguing for workers to “take-over” State property was reformism, I argued that your suggestion that they could exercise democratic control over State property was reformism. If you are now arguing for workers to take over state assets rather than just calling for workers to be able to exercise “democratic control” all well and good. But that is not what you said previously. For example you said,
“Forgive me if I don’t think workers controlling state budgets and state property equal reformism.”
But, starting from where we are also means dealing with the question, “What if the State will not hand over ownership of its assets?” You are then left with the same old, Leninist concept of the political revolution that has failed for the last 100 years. As Lambeth demonstrates, it may be that the local State might hand over its assets, but I think they are likely to frame that within tight bounds. Some fairly large assets, such as Housing estates can be taken over, but starting from where we are means, building from the ground up, on the basis of some fairly small gains. Utilising some of the Tories proposals, and pushing through the limits they want to place on that is one way of achieving that aim.
On struggling for pie, I fail to see how your quote now that Marx provided arguments for workers struggling for a bigger share contradicts what I said! All of his arguments showed why they could not get a bigger share of the pie. The struggles he spoke of were about making sure that they didn't get so little that they deteriorated. A rising level of real wages is not the same as a bigger share of the pie. As an accountant you should know it depends on the size of the pie. The point is that earlier you asked the question “Where did Marx argue against Redistributive Socialism?”. The whole emphasis of your approach has been precisely to argue on the ground of a Socialism that is based on such redistribution either through wage struggles, or through tax policy, and a similarly reformist approach based on the idea that workers can gain meaningfully more democratic control over Capitalist property, particularly State capitalist property. That approach is that of Fabian reformism, not of Marxism. In that context it is no wonder that you defend existing State capitalist property.
ReplyDelete“Maybe Marx didn’t see income tax as progressive but I guarantee you something, the workers these programs were intended for DID see it in those terms and Marx was very aware of that fact. But I would imagine such subtleties are lost on you.”
So when Marx made those comments at the beginning of that section in the programme of the First International, about whatever form of taxation being unable to affect the relation between Capital and Labour, and his further comments about tax ONLY being the economic basis of the Government machinery and nothing else, and advocated Direct taxation for the expressed purpose that workers should minimise the size of the State, he was not addressing those comments to workers then????
Finally, to deal with the assertion you made in your first post here. Nowhere have I said that I am not in favour of defending Public Service workers against Tory attacks, nor defending Public Service provision for workers who depend on those services. A lifetime of being involved in such struggles should be proof of how ridiculous such a suggestion is. The point is how that defence should be organised. I am not in favour of organising such defence purely on the basis of your Economism, or on the basis of ignoring the very real problems that workers face in relation to State Capitalism both as its employees, and as recipients of its provision. The method I am proposing has a long tradition. It can be seen in those works of Marx I have referred to. It can be seen in the approach of Trotsky and the Left Opposition in relation to Defence of the USSR, and more recently it can be seen in the approach of those Marxists who supported the LOR workers whilst vehemently opposing the nationalistic, and wrong slogans adopted by those workers in relation to “British Jobs For British Workers”. Your position is that of Fabianism in relation to the first, of those like George Bernard Shaw in relation to the second, and of the CPB in relation to the third. They were all wrong, and so are you here.
It is interesting that modern Marxists make grand (and false) statements about the % of finance and management in public services and then admit they have no real way of substantiating that fact!! And then when challenged on these assertions claim those standing up for truth are merely apologists for the capitalist state. If you are incapable of establishing the facts why not just say workers cannot rely on the capitalist state and must develop an alternative to it? Why make yourself look idiotic?
ReplyDeleteThe problem with your position is that the real problem with state budgets isn’t so much the level of finance and management but the fact that the whole state is built on the taxes of workers and the surplus they create and they have little influence over how this money is spent or prioritised. Your point about progressive taxation being achieved in capitalist society could equally be applied to public services with low financial and management costs. There is no law within capitalism that means this couldn’t be the case, capitalism could easily achieve a more efficient public sector, in your terms, itself. In fact it is a side issue to the real problem. If we take your hated USSR as an example in the aftermath of its demise national output fell by 40%, life expectancy reduced greatly. The danger is your subjective choice of finance and management as parasitic factors could actually reduce outcomes. Your abstractions to serve your dogma could result for example in longer waiting times in hospitals. Yours is a silly abstract rant without any scientific foundation.
“A rising level of real wages is not the same as a bigger share of the pie. As an accountant you should know it depends on the size of the pie.”
ReplyDeleteIf BT were to offer its workers 2% but the workers said no we want more and then BT said OK we will offer 4% and the workers still said no we will go on strike and then BT offered 9.3% and the workers said deal. They would have a bigger share of the pie, for a period. Marx in responding to Weston used the following analogy, “Citizen Weston, on his part, has forgotten that the bowl from which the workmen eat is filled with the whole produce of national labour, and that what prevents them fetching more out of it is neither the narrowness of the bowl nor the scantiness of its contents, but only the smallness of their spoons."
Here is the link for the demand for a minimum wage (economic section B point 3):
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm
“The whole emphasis of your approach has been precisely to argue on the ground of a Socialism that is based on such redistribution either through wage struggles, or through tax policy, and a similarly reformist approach based on the idea that workers can gain meaningfully more democratic control over Capitalist property, particularly State capitalist property”
Well apart from where I specifically said that isn’t what I was arguing for! I couldn’t really make it any clearer that I don’t see redistribution as THE solution. Anyone can judge that for themselves by looking at every statement I have made. Anyone can also see that my idea of democracy is workers taking ownership of the state and taking democratic decisions about how to allocate those resources. Your response to this is confused. On the one hand you say all well and good and in the next breath you are criticising the idea. If you think workers cannot take over state assets then we are back to building alternative structures which means a costly building programme etc!!
“Nowhere have I said that I am not in favour of defending Public Service workers against Tory attacks, nor defending Public Service provision for workers who depend on those services.”
I am afraid as someone in the front line of that battle every utterance you have made says otherwise. With solidarity like yours who needs the ConDem’s!! In fact whatever support you think you are giving, you can shove it where the sun don’t shine. You may as well join Cameron and Clegg on the hill above the battlefield ordering the artillery to fire.
p.s. You never said if provinces was correct?
I did substantiate the facts as anyone can see. I don't think that the kinds of percentage figures even on your basis of calculation can be seen as anything other than an indication of bureaucracy. Worse, as James Turley points out workers themselves see the Capitalist State and its provision as inefficient, oppressive and bureaucratic. If socialists do not provide them with a socialist alternative they are likely to turn to the only other, which is private Capital. They are already doing that, and given the fact that they just voted for a Liberal-Tory Government committed to cuts, and given the tories opinion poll rating has gone up, a sensible person would think seriously about that.
ReplyDeleteI have said that the workers should create an alternative to the capitalist State, that is precisely the point! The rest of your paragraph here seems just rambling and incoherent, typical of a troll. If Capitalism could make the State bureaucracy more efficient, then why do you think it has not done so. It tries, but bureaucracies have their own interests too. That applies with the bureaucracies that run large private companies as well. The difference is there that the Capitalists who own them can every so often have a clear out of bureaucrats who step outside the bounds, and as those bureaucrats tend to have their interests tied to that of Capital they will only push their personal interests so far. What the facts about the USSR have anything to do with it, god only knows. As for hospital waiting times, its the hospital bureaucracy that objects to having to meet targets on such things! In fact, in the health care systems in most of Europe there are no such waiting lists, and worekrs in the US covered by decent employer funding health Insurance would wince at having to wait, which is why so many opposed Obama's plans. And before you pick up on that and turn it against me, that, of course, is not an advocacy of private healthcare, and certainly is not a solution for those millions of Americans who do not have such cover.
If BT's output rose by 10% as a result of higher labour productivy then the workers share of the pie would FALL after a 9.3% pay rise!
Exactly how do you propose that workers take ownership of the State???? Its not me that is confused here, but you. You do not seem to understand the difference between the State and assets owned by the State!
You didn’t substantiate any facts as you have already admitted. You have no idea what % of central services is charged out, you have no idea what central services consists of and I have provided other examples to show your figures are claptrap. I have now just finished preparing the revenue outturn reports and have submitted them.
ReplyDelete(I have emailed them to
LGF1.Revenue@communities...this info is to show I am not a troll but someone with direct first hand experience). I will admit the deadline for completion was 16th July, I will let you speculate as to why this deadline was missed. Even if we use your seriously flawed method of statistical analysis central services costs come to only around 25% on my report. Central services includes Emergency planning, Land charges, elections, registrars, coroners court services, retirement benefits, democratic core, finance and management. Just for added info these all appear on RO6 of the revenue outturn report. Emergency planning is line 450. Incidentally you are required on the form to breakdown where finance and management income is recharged to. In my authority approx 50% of income is for recharges to other accounts within the authority. These figures appear in RO6 lines 491 to 495 on the revenue outturn report. This all gets fed into the RS summary sheet line 690. Just to give this a contemporary flavour Icelandic impairment charges are entered on line 781 and any interest is credited to line 786. Again this is info a troll would not have to hand. I think Trolls are like farts, he who accuses is usually the guilty one.
So to repeat I have professional accountancy qualifications, I get paid to analyse and compile Local authority accounts. I get paid to conduct due diligence checks on private companies we are in partnership with. This involves analysing the last 3 years audited accounts. I have every right to challenge lies whether they come from ConDem politicians, right wing media or Marxists.
“What the facts about the USSR have anything to do with it, god only knows.”
It illustrates the danger of your fetish with finance and management. The planning and management apparatus was dismantled in the USSR with disastrous affects!! Probably due to ideologues like yourself. Workers beware!!
“As for hospital waiting times, its the hospital bureaucracy that objects to having to meet targets on such thingsAs for hospital waiting times, its the hospital bureaucracy that objects to having to meet targets on such things”
Yes but New Labour got those waiting times down!!! The bureaucracy can be defeated even within the capitalist state!! There is no law within the system that prevents it!!!
All that the differences between the USA and the UK tell us is that the road to socialism will have differences given the real conditions. Of course we should use those nations that have greater outcomes for workers as examples to nations where the outcomes are less advantageous to workers. Share of the pie/spoons spring to mind here.
If BT workers had taken the 2% initially offered instead of the 9.3% they would have less share of the pie!!!!!! It is only by threatening strike action and through struggle that they got the higher deal!!! It is clear Marx believed these issues should be addressed. Your logic would have said take the first deal that comes along!!!
“Exactly how do you propose that workers take ownership of the State????”
By taking control of state assets for a start!!!!! By looking at the concrete conditions, how decisions are made, who makes them, what processes/accountability are in place. What is good practice/what is bad practice. By a democratisation of the whole process.
How do you propose workers build a separate alternative?
One of the things I am being tasked to do currently is the cost implications of the Pitt report which has led to the Flood Risk Regulations 2009 and Floods and Water Management Act 2010. How does your alternative structure deal with these processes? How do you factor them in or out? What criteria do you use?
“Chris”,
ReplyDeleteI have argued that State Capitalist provision is bureaucratic, inefficient and oppressive to workers. I have suggested as an alternative, workers owned and controlled co-operatives providing goods and services, and worker owned and controlled commissioning Co-ops. In other words the very system of workers' “Self-Government” proposed by Marx and Engels, and other Marxists. You oppose this solution on the basis that it is Utopian, and in any case you believe its unnecessary because you deny that State Capitalism is bureaucratic and inefficient, describing such claims as lies! You have been at pains to defend State Capitalism, including attempting, unsuccessfully, to challenge the actual data, which even using your own basis of Gross Expenditure, shows a high proportion of spending on Administration and management compared to the actual costs of direct service provision. But, if you really believe that your other arguments make absolutely no sense.
You say, “I think we need far more democracy in the setting of state budgets and the lack of democracy accounts for many of the problems we see. That I agree will on.”. But, what problems? You have told us there are no problems! You have told us that State Capitalism already is efficient. The only purpose of more democracy could be, because currently the process is not democratic. If its not democratic then it is bureaucratic, a fact you deny, and say is a lie! Presumably, you believe that a democratic process, where by workers had control, would result in different decisions about how money was spent etc. But, that means you believe that money is currently being spent in ways that do not meet workers needs. If that is so, isn't that a waste of workers money? Does that not constitute waste, and inefficiency. Is it not exactly the point I have made, and that you have denied?
You say, ”Yes but New Labour got those waiting times down!!! The bureaucracy can be defeated even within the capitalist state!!” What bureaucracy is that? You have told us there is no bureaucracy! And if State capitalism is already efficient, as you claim, why does this bureaucracy have to be “defeated”? Your argument is completely contradictory!
Your argument on the USSR shows that you have no knowledge of the economic system there, before or after the collapse of Stalinism. If anyone wanted an indication of your bankruptcy, this is it. The workers of the USSR, to the extent they were at all, fed,clothed and housed, was not the product of accountants or planners, but of other workers in agriculture, construction etc. Unfortunately, and for no small part due to the monstrous bureaucratic weight and mismanagement of those same bureaucrats you seek to defend, most of the industries in which those workers were employed, were grossly inefficient, and bankrupt. The reality of which manifested itself in the collapse of the system. It was that collapse which resulted in the massive drop in output, not the disappearance of bureaucrats! For years, the bureaucratic management of the enterprises sought to get round the bureaucratic performance indicators of the planners, by every trick in the book. We see the same thing in the way bureaucrats in the State Capitalist Sector, today operate, massaging their returns to put a positive spin on them etc.
cont'd
Your argument in relation to BT is trivial. The question is not whether 9.3 is bigger than 2, but whether even at 9.3, this constitutes a bigger or smaller share of “the pie” than previously was, or will be the case. Moreover, because your argument is formalistic and static rather than dialectic, it is also quite simply wrong. Much to your amazement I am sure, 9.3 can be smaller than 2. Marx's dialectical answer to you would be the same as he gave to your argument made by Weston. If as a consequence of having to concede a 9.3% pay rise rather than 2%, BT cut the workforce by 10%, then the workers' “share of the pie” will in fact be 2.7% smaller than had they accepted a 2% rise. If you really are an Accountant, I wouldn't employ you, because you seem to be ignorant of some very basic financial principles!
ReplyDeleteYou have cited Marx's quote in respect of “size of spoons” several times, but it is clear that this is just another piece of basic Marxism that you misunderstand. The whole point of Marx's reference to the size of spoon in this respect is precisely the argument that I have made. They are unable to increase their “share of the pie”, because they lack the tools (size of spoon) to do so. If they raise wages by strike action, Capital can respond by a myriad of means to reduce it again. Again if you really are some kind of Marxist, you are not a very good one, because time and again you seem to completely misunderstand basic tenets!
Another aspect of that is your response to my question about how do you propose to “take control” of the State. A basic tenet of Marxism is that workers CANNOT take control of the Capitalist State, but that it has to be smashed. Again something you appear completely oblivious to. Nor do you seem to have any kind of basic understanding of what for a Marxist the State is! Asked how you intend for workers to take control of the State, you reply by taking over State Assets. Firstly, when I have suggested such a course of action, you described it as unnecessary, and Utopian. Secondly, if as you claim State capitalism already is efficient, then there is nothing to be gained by such a course of action. Thirdly, it is clear that you cannot distinguish between Assets and the State that owns them! If workers take over ownership of a school, currently owned by the Capitalist State, they have not taken over the State, or any part of it. They have merely taken over a school!
If by taking over you mean not taking ownership, of, but taking control of, which is the implication that some of your statements would seem to lead to, then you should tell us exactly, how outside a revolutionary situation, you expect that to happen. If you own a car, and I say I want control of it, you are likely to say no. If you are the Capitalist State and own a school, and I say I want control of it, you are equally likely to say no, and the State is a much more powerful force than any individual. And Marx's point is that short of ownership, even were such concessions to be wrung by workers from Capital, private or State, then without workers themselves becoming the ruling class, such concessions would be rolled back by the State at a time of its choosing, just as an employer rolls back concessions made to workers. This is precisely what distinguishes a Marxist revolutionary from a Fabian reformist.
“Your argument in relation to BT is trivial. The question is not whether 9.3 is bigger than 2,”
ReplyDeleteYou are missing the point. The point isn’t whether a larger share of the pie is ultimately achieved or not, the point is the value of struggle and how socialists relate to it- hardly trivial!!! You are too fixated on the economic argument, this is something Marx described as dangerous in his argument with Weston. Your little scenario is bullshit anyway, as you say “If as a consequence of having to concede a 9.3% pay rise rather than 2%, BT cut the workforce by 10%, then the workers' “share of the pie” will in fact be 2.7% smaller”, but if they don’t do this then it won’t be smaller!!! Now I may be wrong but I don’t think the unions agreed to a 10% cut of the workforce as part of the deal, actually I think the argument was that BT had previously reduced the workforce and then were producing record profits!! The unions pointed out that BT were using the current crisis to screw their workers. And here comes along a Marxist to tell them they were wrong to do it. Unfuckingbelievable. I don’t think the workers will call upon your backing when negotiating the next round of deals!!
But share of the pie can also be extended to scrapping Trident or bringing the troops home from Afghanistan. People are saying we don’t want you spending money on this we want it spent on the schools where our kids go!! Or we want the share of the pie spent differently!! But you turn around and say, NO! Leave these demands to one side until we have sufficient control of the sphere of production!! That is the very thing Marx called dangerous.
Incidentally the demand for a minimum wage in the French workers party read “Legal minimum wage, determined each year according to the local price of food, by a workers' statistical commission”.
“A basic tenet of Marxism is that workers CANNOT take control of the Capitalist State, but that it has to be smashed.”
But in order to smash something one must have control of it, at least to some extent!!!
“Firstly, when I have suggested such a course of action, you described it as unnecessary, and Utopian.”
What I described as utopian was your refusal to move from concrete conditions. You seem to want to put your head in the sand and pretend the welfare state was never created. You seem to want to avoid the truth that the capitalist state extends out to such an extent that not dealing with it is problematical. You begin your analysis from the grand co-operative vision you have instead of from where we are right now.
“Secondly, if as you claim State capitalism already is efficient, then there is nothing to be gained by such a course of action.”
ReplyDeleteI haven’t said if it is efficient or isn’t! All I have done is counter your assertions because they are false and being a local authority accountant I am in a pretty good position to judge!! I have seen fit to do this because the workers in the public sector are facing job losses, they are under ruling class attacks. I should know as I am costing out the implications of these cuts!!! You are blasting off like some ill informed Tory. Your attacks on the public sector and the way you frame them, inefficient etc, is an attack on the workers within those organisations and is speculative at best. You cannot estimate what efficiencies can be achieved without a very thorough process, which presupposes a layer of financial management support.
The more pertinent point, and one which motivates my belief in democratisation, is what resources are actually used for!! I.e. By workers having control of spend and being more directly involved in the process they can prioritise that expenditure and their priorities will no doubt be different to that of the ruling class. The current cuts to the school building programme means some kids with mobility issues have suffered, call me a deluded romantic but I think workers would put the most vulnerable first, rather than stick to the market mentality of let us cut those things that cannot make a profit.
So efficiency and prioritising are 2 different concepts or at the very least they are not the same thing. Try applying dialects to this instead of your simplistic and false assertions.
Actually it is interesting that your idea of efficiency is almost identical to that of the Tory propagandists. They try to pull the old trick of cutting things = efficiency savings. No 99.9% of the time it is simply cutting things.
“but taking control of, which is the implication that some of your statements would seem to lead to, then you should tell us exactly, how outside a revolutionary situation,”
That seems to be a deterministic way of looking at things. Don’t we have to take some steps to initiate a revolutionary situation rather than sitting waiting for it to happen?
“And Marx's point is that short of ownership, even were such concessions to be wrung by workers from Capital, private or State, then without workers themselves becoming the ruling class, such concessions would be rolled back by the State at a time of its choosing, just as an employer rolls back concessions made to workers.”
So you want to delay addressing state power until the working class have reached a certain level of control over the sphere of production. Only when the working class has developed co-operative production to a certain level will a natural conflict arise where this new power will challenge the old one. If that is your belief then why bother saying anything at all? Why spread half truths?
So outside a ‘revolutionary’ situation the only way your vision can work is a gradual increase in co-operative production. In the meantime, until that glorious day arrives we just have to sit back and accept everything the ruling class throw at the workers. Well, that being the logic of your position, why don’t you do those of us engaged in struggle the courtesy of keeping your mouth shut.