The waste of maintaining capitalism

[legacyofcolonialism]

Your message (entitled "The waste of maintaining capitalism ") would 
not normally be approved because this list is concerned specifically 
with matters relating to land ownership and land rights mainly in the 
UK. Your exploration of political philosophy, while not something on 
message for this list, when this list is concerned with the Land is 
Ours network whose ethos is primarily "Direct Action" in recognition 
of the fact that heavily concentrating on political philosophising 
can sometimes breed flawed ambiguities in thinking (rather, we 
concentrate on the "doing" rather than the "speaking about this 
wonderful hypothetical utopia of a just society built upon voluntary 
cooperation `anarchism' ") – your e-mail has nevertheless been 
approved because you have written so eloquently and concisely on the 
subject.

List moderator – Mark 



--- In diggers350 at y..., Jan Pole <anticapitalist2 at y...> wrote:
> The defenders of capitalism argue that the chief feature of the 
market system is its efficiency in allocating scarce goods and 
resources to the areas where they are most needed. Socialism, they 
argue, would inevitably be destroyed by its own inefficiency and 
inability to meet even the most basic economic needs of society. This 
argument is flawed on two counts. 
> 
> Firstly, the last thing capitalism does is allocate goods to the 
place
> of greatest need. Instead, it responds solely to signals 
transmitted in
> terms of money, and thus allocates good to those activities able to
> gather together the most money to attract effort and resources. 
> 
> The vaunted "efficiency" of doing this is thus measured solely in 
terms
> of managing to match the means and resources put into a branch of
> social activity to the amount of money involved in it. In other 
words,
> the efficiency of capitalism is that it manages to behave like
> capitalism on a sustained basis.
> 
> Secondly, even given its capacity to allocate its means to its own
> ends, capitalism throws up problems inherent to its own nature, 
that it
> must actively counter. A clear example of this is unemployment. 
> 
> Unemployment
> 
> Not only is unemployment a cruel waste of human talent and 
potential,
> it is also is a drain on financial resources, in terms of the 
welfare
> budget and its administration. 
> 
> This is a waste on a gargantuan scale, tolerated solely because
> capitalism requires an industrial reserve army to potentially supply
> labour, and regulate the price of commodified labour-power on the 
open
> market. Capitalism must waste resources on unemployment or else see 
the
> wages system, at its very heart, would not work properly.
> 
> The waste unemployment represents is a problem that has not gone
> unnoticed. Political and economic pundits continually struggle with
> ways of combating the "evil of idleness"; politicians of every 
stripe
> try to woo workers' votes with promises of ending unemployment; and
> trade unionists call for a government policy for "full employment".
> There are, however, other wastes of resources inherent to 
capitalism,
> that its harlot voices cry much more softly about.
> 
> Armies and arms
> 
> One particularly relevant to current world events is the need of the
> capitalist class for military force to pursue its ends. In 2001 the
> British state spent £23.5 billion on the "teeth elements" of its
> military budget, which is, believe it or not, comparatively low in
> world terms (fifth overall, and the third highest in Europe). 
> 
> This level of expenditure persists despite the so-called "Peace
> Dividend" that came about after the collapse of Russian
> State-Capitalism. In 1991 the expenditure figure was around £25 
billion
> (2001 prices); and the Labour government has even reversed that
> marginal decline in expenditure.
> 
> This marginal reduction in military spending is itself a response to
> the immense drain on resources such military commitment represents. 
The
> aim of the reductions has clearly been to retain fighting 
efficiency,
> at lower cost. At present, personnel costs represent some 37 
percent of
> military expenditure (with 41 percent going on equipment). 
> This breaks down as a total of 188,000 fulltime trained military
> personnel, backed up by some 288,000 reservists and 93,000 civilian
> staff. This compares to 1991 with a total of 282,000 full-timers,
> 341,000 reservists and 169,000 civilian personnel. 
> 
> This indicates that the military budgets have been reduced largely 
at
> the expense of an increased workloads of the workers in uniform.
> Regardless of this, however, it also shows the amount of human
> resources being diverted to the cause of destruction and slaughter,
> rather than producing useful items such as houses, hospitals or
> schools. 
> 
> Of course, military spending is not entirely unproductive, nor
> unprofitable even if wasteful, and thousands more workers are 
engaged
> in the process of producing the equipment and weapons with which the
> soldiers are expected to kill and maim.
> 
> As ever with capitalist production, wherever it finds profits are 
to be
> made, it gradually reduces the cost and effort that goes into 
chasing
> those profits. So too, thus, do weapons, and particularly small 
arms,
> become cheaper to produce and obtain, and thus so too do the small-
time
> capitalists of the criminal world find it easier to find suitable
> military force to the scale of their operations. In so doing,
> capitalism drives forward yet another harmful and wasteful aspect of
> its own system.
> 
> Police and prisons
> 
> Accounting for the difficulties of recording crime, according to the
> statistics on crimes reported to the police, there were 18,000 
violent
> crimes against the person in 1990, as compared with 23,300 in 2000.
> Rising violence has become a concern for many people, fuelled by
> squalid social conditions, the absence of hope, the alienation of
> people from each other and by the increasing availability of weapons
> with which to do harm. 
> 
> As these figures rise, the state finds itself obliged to plough 
money
> and resources into combating both the ill effects of the market 
system
> upon its subjects and also to thwart the ambitions of the 
entrepreneurs
> seeking a violent short-cut to profit.
> 
> In mainland UK there are some 113,000 people employed as full time
> police, accompanied by some 9,000 special constables, applied to
> tackling this task for the capitalist class. As the recent
> demonstration by police officers in the heart of London suggests, 
the
> cost of paying for this manpower is beginning to become burdensome 
on
> the capitalist state. In England and Wales the numbers of police
> officers have fallen from 110,790 in 1990, to 101,683 in 2001: 
falling
> over a time when their actual workload was increasing.
> 
> Part of the response to rising crime rates, has been to resort to 
more
> imprisonment. The prison population in England and Wales has risen 
from
> 45,000 in 1990, to over 64,000 in 2001. The running costs of the 
prison
> service in England and Wales in the latter year were £2.2 billion. 
> 
> Attempts to "privatise" prisons under deals similar to the public
> private partnerships seen elsewhere in government policy, represent 
an
> attempt to claw back some of the unprofitable expenditure the system
> must waste on keeping so many people incarcerated; likewise, the
> government's continuing attempt to find cheaper alternatives, such 
as
> tagging and curfews.
> 
> This barrage of figures simply indicates the amount of resources 
that
> the capitalist system is compelled to spend maintaining itself and
> overcoming its anti-social logic; both in terms of the might of 
police
> forces directed at, and the overall military force directed by those
> who have decided that the opportunity costs of violence are 
reasonable.
> 
> 
> The more capitalism severs social bonds at home, and is compelled 
into
> war abroad, the more it must set aside from productive activity into
> the sheer waste of maintaining the means of violence.
> 
> Socialism, based upon co-operation and the strong social bonds 
derived
> from common ownership, will be freed from the imperative to spend on
> such branches of activity, and will instead be able to direct them
> towards satisfying our social needs as a priority, realising the
> potential that our free and common labour can deliver for 
ourselves. 
> 
> Obviously, there are functions currently undertaken by the police 
and
> military that will continue to be needed. Currently the police deal
> with most aspects of sudden death, from investigating it to breaking
> the sad news to relatives; and obviously, such a function will 
still be
> required under socialism. 
> 
> Likewise, the armed forces carry out about twelve hundred search and
> rescue missions each year, saving thousands of lives. However, we 
can
> look to the world around us now, for examples of how such socially
> necessary functions can be organised. A clear case being the life-
boat
> service, staffed by part-time volunteers who put their own lives at
> risk to help their fellows in distress.
> 
> Jan
> 
> http://www.real-socialism.org.uk/links.html
> 
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