Some Thoughts on Human Nature

Some Thoughts on Human Nature For sometime now I have been trying to sort out my thoughts around the many issues that confront us, politically, socially and economically, into some form of structure. I have been active within the Socialist Worker Party, attending meetings, reading their literature and running their social media sites, but have found myself ill at ease with some of the positions that they have taken up. At one level, I cannot find any fault with these positions, and yet I am not happy with them. At times I put this down to the fact that I am from a very different generation to my comrades, what to them is history that they read about, to me is lived experience, either directly or through the experience of my Mam and Dad. What I am seeking to do now is to bring my experience and my reading into some kind of structure. I begin by trying to determine what it is that makes us human – so what are the basic factors that affect us in our every day life? My perspective begins from a very different starting point than my Marxist colleagues. Marx began by looking at the economic base of society. This is the determining factor of social life. He does not see this as a mechanical determination, it is a far more subtle and dialectical relationship. Part of my problem is that, whilst I understand and agree with this approach, it does not provide me with a satisfactory solution to the problem that I face. I will therefore start not with the economy, but with individual humans living within communities. I choose the word communities here, instead of the word society, because the two words have different connotations - but I will not be too strict on this use. The first question I ask myself is “What is it that individual people want?” I begin with individuals, but I do not believe that you can separate individuals from the community in which they are born. Throughout my discussion, I hold that there is a dialectical relationship between the individual and society. I consider that there are four basic desires that are inherent in people. The first of these is that people want to live. I will explore this concept of ‘living’ in greater details later. This desire encompasses a whole host of secondary factors which extend into the whole life experience of individuals. It may be argued that the desire is not universal because of the fact of suicide. This, as Durkheim showed in his study of Suicide, is a symptom of society and not of individuality. This is another factor that I will return to later. The second wish that people have is to be valued. This is something that is very much ignored. There is a major preoccupation with elites of one description or another and we fail to realise that every single person has a wish to be regarded in their own right. We all have our aspirations, a consciousness of what we can and cannot do, a realisation that given the right opportunities we could achieve a great deal more than we actually are able to do so. From an early age, we look for confirmation from those we look up to of the qualities that we possess. This again, I will enlarge upon late, it as a relevant in many areas of life including how pupils and students are treated during their education, and also how political decision are made with respect to in a wide range of policy areas. We seek a recognition for the qualities that are inherent to us, this is very different from sympathy for qualities that we do not possess. The third aspect of our desires is a wish to be active. This is the means by which we express the abilities that are inherent to us. Activity covers a whole range of actions, mental and physical. As children we seek to follow the example of those who care for us. Why else would so many children ultimately take up the professions of their parents and other family members? But, equally we may also take a different approach to life, the relationship been the individual and the community, even when this is the family connection, is not a mechanical connection but as stated earlier, a dialectical one. We absorb the environment in which we grow up, interpret it and proceed in life subject to the understanding gained. This again is not straight forward because it is here that the approach that Marx introduced has a direct relevance. This relationship between the individual and society will need to be further explored. My final aspect to our desires is our wish for understanding. It is a common expression, referring to young children, that their favourite word is ‘Why?’. Life presents to us many questions. So much about life is unclear and people have sought answers in many different directions. It is this questioning nature, and the refusal to accept things as they are that has been the motive force for development. Here again, we have to provide a pointer to Marx, and indeed Hegel, who both drew attention to the role of contradiction in the development of knowledge and history. In all of this I am seeking to relate my understanding to the individual whilst not forgetting that we are a social animal and that the structures of society have the major effect upon our development. I have recently been reading about the Anthropology of Religion. Much of what I have read focusses on primitive communities. The book I am reading is called ‘Anthopological Studies of Religion – An Introductory Text’. The author, Brian Morris, presents different approaches without attempting to present a ‘considered viewpoint’.What is very clear from what he writes is that we really do not know what was the basis for the development of magic, religion or science amongst these communities. What has become clear to me is that these early forms of human relationships within communities, or societies, are far more complex that is often stated. There were divisions and structures within them. The impression given is that the individuals within them were not so very different from modern individuals, despite the differences in structures. I would suggest that early people had the same four desires that I have outlined above. Whilst I was thinking over these ideas, my mind travelled back to my youth. In particular, one incident whilst I was a young boy. We spent our holidays in a caravan at Mablethorpe. I remember one year whilst on holiday, my Dad had given me his collection of silver threepenny bits. I spent all these threepenny bits at the fair ground at Mablethorpe. Looking back, I regret this act. What I had not realised then, but now do, that my Dad must have carefully collected those silver threepenny bits, they were coming to the end of their life as coins. Without thinking of what they meant to him, I frivolously spent them, giving away his collection. He was a tolerant man, he never said anything to me about what I had done nor did he ever say anything about why he had collected them. I spent a lot of time with my dad, we would chat away as we walked up to his allotment, I learnt to play solo whist sat at his elbow whilst he played cards at the Working Men’s club where he was a committee member. I learnt a great deal from him, I understood much of what he stood for, he was extremely important to me in my life. But, there was so much that I did not know. I did not know how he felt. We never discussed what I would now consider as his philosophy of life. He was a man of few words. I inferred his beliefs from what he did, but that was my assumption, and as noted above, my view was narrow and unformed at the time. What is the importance of these comments? If I cannot fully understand someone to whom I was so close and with whom I spend so much time, sharing in many activities, how is it possible to understand those who are more distant? Much of our politics is based on a view that we can interpret, from statistics, interviews, historical events, how people are going to react and what are their beliefs. We are too close to mechanical determinism and not close enough to understanding the motives of individuals. That is my fear and that is what I want to examine. Although I am far from being an expert on History, I feel a brief review is necessary. If we consider the earliest forms of human existence, we come to the hunter gatherers. People who lived in tribes. It is difficult to differentiate the four desires outline above within their mode of existence. The battle they faced was how to exist amongst all the perils they faced. Their primary aim must have been to exist, to live was important to them. They had to function as a unit. It is, in many respects, to infer practices of pre-historical tribes from the evidence of those forms that have been found in remote places in more modern times. It does seem clear that there was a division of function within tribes, although this was different for different situations. There must, therefore, have been some recognition of value, even if this was a recognition of the value of others rather than a desire to be valued for ones own contribution. There was no alternative but to be active, the future of the individual and of the tribe depended upon this. It is the question of understanding, or put differently the question of knowledge, upon which there is a considerable negative opinion. To have succeeded, as they must have done, required wide ranging knowledge. Without an understanding of their environment, of the behaviours of the other species, both predators and prey, the properties of plants, both beneficial and dangerous, of suitable tools and equipment, and social organisation to ensure that the tribe functioned effectively, they could not have survived. All of this was accumulated over time. As has been noted by anthropologists, aspects of what early humans learnt through their experience gained in this survival are to be found in the subsequent behaviours of later generations of humans. Coming closer to the modern era, we find the life under feudal regimes much easier to understand, even though the literary evidence is biased towards those who were able to write, namely the economic and religious elites. One contrasting feature of this period, as compared to modern capitalism, is the suggestion of the mutual relationship between the classes. The concept of property, as we are now accustomed to view that concept, was very different. The land did not ‘belong’ to anyone, rather the concept was that people had the ‘right of usage’ of the land. The king had the right of usage of the whole country, granted to him by God. However, it was not given without limitations. In return for this right over the land, the king had duties both to God and the people. In turn, the king granted rights to the land and to other privileges to his key followers, the barons and lords of the manors. This again was limited, with duties placed upon those receiving these privileges, both towards the king and to the peasants living on those lands. The process continued down with peasants being granted use of land and privileges, which also came with duties which they had to fulfil with regard to their lords. I should add, that in this society, it was considered that everyone had a duty towards God. This is an ideal presentation, it is a class structure and there was class conflict. Neither the ruling class nor the peasantry was completely homogenous. However, there was a generally accepted view that there existed certain rights, which at times could be called upon to justify action. One factor that has to be recognised is that the importance of knowledge has changed over the millennia since our early hunter gatherers. For our early ancestors, what was important was a practical knowledge of their environment. By the times we are now considering, literary knowledge had become far more important, a knowledge largely confined to the ruling elite. The detailed knowledge that peasants needed to carry out their functions was seriously downgraded. It was still essential to provide the essential needs of society, but was not relevant to most of the ruling elite. They may have an oversight of developments in the science affecting their estates, but the detailed care of land and livestock was in the main left to the actual practitioners. This changed the power relationships within society to a significant extent. The elite became the owners of knowledge whilst the knowledge of the mass of people was considered to be of no value. The pattern of life for most people is to a large extent kept within their own class. The life of peasants would follow a familiar pattern. It was largely a pattern of hard work at certain seasons of the year, culminating in the various celebrations around certain festivals. However, underneath this apparent tranquillity, dissent simmered. The history of this age, apart from the wars waged by the ruling elites, was featured by a series of peasant wars. If we return to our four desires, it is the first of these, the desire for life, that is the key factor. It is where Marxist concepts of class division comes into play. Whilst the economic system enabled the peasants to live within a relatively comfortable existence, there were times when this was not possible. The key economic aspect of life was the price of corn and subsequently of bread. It was when the peasants believed that the ruling elite were failing in their duty towards the peasants (an aspect of the mutual responsibilities), particularly in relation to basic provisions, that they would act in their own defence. One of the results of increased power and position, as enjoyed by the ruling elite, is that they seek more power. For most people, for most of the time, people just want to get on with their lives, to enjoy the pleasures that are available to them. They may look upon those who are more prosperous with some regret that they are not able to act with similar ease, but by and large they are content. They have a realistic expectation of what life can offer them. It is when their sense of what is right is offended, and sections of the community seek, what to their mind, is an unfair advantage, that they react. There are three events in recent British history that I believe are of importance to our present situation. The first of these is the Civil War. However, I am not concerned with the usual presentation of the events around this period. To me, the importance is that, for the first time in British history, the opinion of the common people was expressed and became significant. The Civil War was, of course, a conflict between two classes, a conflict to resolve the way in which society was to be run and in whose interests it would be organised. Parliament, the rising bourgeoisie of the day challenged the aristocracy, through their attack upon the King. As in all such conflicts, throughout the ages, the actual fighting was done by the common people. They took sides, the forward thinking sections saw opportunities to develop their own interests and so gave support to Parliament, the more backward sections held to what they had known and sought to defend the status quo. However, the more progressive section of the common people had a clear understanding of what they wanted. They saw in the slogans and ideas of the Parliamentarians things which they could adapt and use to their own advantage. The significant event of the war was what has come to be known at The Putney Debates. At this event, the Model Army debated the reasons for the war and the nature of society that should follow from the end of hostilities. To me, the most important statement was that made by Colonel Thomas Rainsborough in the second Putney Debate when he said ‘For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it is clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government, and I think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under it; and I am confident that, when I have heard the reasons against it, something will be said to answer those reasons, in so much that I should doubt whether he was an Englishman or no, that should doubt of these things’ [Colonel Thomas Rainsborough – Second Putney Debate 29 October 1647]. These debates and the various views expressed by those who became known as The Levellers were some of the most progressive expressions of the rights of the common people. The group, led by Gerrard Winstanley, known as the Diggers, or True Levellers as they termed themselves, went even further. Their approach was to move onto common land that was not being developed and to use that land to grow produce to feed themselves and others. They looked to the time when land was free. It was this, Model Army, that brought victory to Cromwell and his class. However, once he had defeated the aristocracy and gained control of the government, he then turned on those who had enabled his victory, dealing with them as severely as he had dealt with the King and his followers. The second important, but neglected group, in the history of the British common people, were the Luddites. This group came from a section of the common people who earned their living, to a large extent, by producing clothing using simple machines known as frames, the framework knitters. This was at an early stage of capitalist development when middle men hired out the frames to workers, provided them with the raw material, and then took and distributed the finished product. The framework knitters were skilled men, they were aided in their work by their whole family. The work was conducted in their own homes and the men set their own pace. They were able to do other things so that their lives did not depend wholly upon this form of labour. Above all else, they were in control of their own labour. Technical developments led to the introduction of more advanced machines which required less skill labour. These machines were too large to be employed in individual homes and needed a source of power, mainly running steams of water. This meant that they had to be housed in factories and workers had to go to work in the factory. This development had a serious effect upon the framework knitters. The price of goods produced in the factories was much lower that that of the product of the framework knitters. However, the product of the factories was much inferior to that of the individual workers. Those who worked in the factories were exploited to a greater degree that those who controlled their own work in their own home. The reaction of the framework knitters was to organise against these new machines and the factories that housed them. This was not mindless violence by a group opposed to technological development in society as is usually portrayed. We are writing of a group of skilled men, leaders within their communities, who saw the threat that the new means of production were bringing, not just to them as individuals but to their communities. A modern day parallel would be with the coalminers who opposed the pit closures in the mid 1980s. Who can say that the fears regarding their communities that guided their actions then have not been shown to have been only too perceptive by the present state of many of those communities. The reaction of the framework knitters was to organise and to seek to destroy that machinery and those factories that threatened their existence. The battle was to preserve a way of life. At root is was a question of who controls the process of production. Hindsight is no judge of activity. Technology has brought many improvements to people’s lives and fossil fuels are now known to have seriously damaged the climate. However, as with the miners, so with the Luddites, what they were defending was important, the defeat in each case has had serious consequences for the development of communities and society. Each was a victory of capitalism over the working class. In both, it was the principle behind the fight rather than the direct actions or demands that was of the greatest importance. A book, that I have recently read, 'Breaking Things at Work' by Gavin Mueller, takes an interesting slant on the efforts of the Luddites, he records the fact that an approach, in many way similar to Luddism, is often adopted by workers as they seek to maintain some control over the work situation. Go slows, putting in a spanner to stop a conveyor system for a period to give some relief to workers on a track, and other means of reducing the pressures which are part and parcel of many work situations. The importance of the Luddites is that they recognised the need to control the work situation and were prepared to do something about it. E P Thompson in his book The Making of the British Working Class, notes that histories of the working class in Britain tend to start with the Chartist, which he considered as a reformist approach, rather than with the Luddites, who were more revolutionary. I always connect the Chartists with the events at Peterloo, when troops were sent in to break up a political gathering of ordinary people in Manchester. They had gathered on St Peter’s Field, on what was a really festive occasion to hear speeches from some of the leading orators who spoke on behalf of working people. What followed, the indiscriminate attack on ordinary people and the death of some of them, has gone down in memory as the Battle of Peterloo. It was a one sided battle, the common people came peacefully to listen and celebrate, the attack upon them was unprovoked, a ruling elite feared any thing that might empower the people and would do what they could to prevent the ideas, that those orators who were due to speak, from influencing and spreading amongst the common people. This event took place earlier than the development of Chartism but, as I say, in my mind they are connected. The approach, now taken by the common people, was different to that taken by the Luddites. They determined upon an approach within the constitution. It was a reasoned case which could be defended by argument. As such it could be described as a request within the law of the land. The People’s Charter requested the following Six Points 1. A VOTE for every man twenty-one years of age, of sound mind, and not undergoing punishment for crime. 2. THE BALLOT – To protect the elector in the exercise of his vote. 3. NO PROPERTY QUALIFICATIONS for Members of Parliament – thus enabling the constituencies to return the man of their choice be he rich or poor. 4. PAYMENT OF MEMBERS, thus enabling an honest tradesman, working man, or other person, to serve a constituency, when taken from his business to attend to the interests of the country 5. EQUAL CONSTITUENCIES, securing the same amount of representation for the same number of electors, instead of allowing small constituencies to swamp the vote oflarger ones. 6. ANNUAL PARLIAMENTS, thus presenting the most effectual check to bribery and intimidation, since though a constituency might be bought once in seven years (even with the ballot), no purse could buy a constituency (under a system of universal suffrage) in each ensuing twelve month, and since constituencies as now. The People’s Charter was a massive achievement, signed by millions of people. It was taken to London accompanied by a heavily supported march of people. They waited outside of London as the Charter was presented. With the number of people who joined the march and waited, it would have been quite possible for them to have gone in to London and pressurised the Government to accept the Charter, but this did not happen. The Charter was rejected. Looking at the demands of the Charter, we see the same desire, as expressed by the Luddites, to be able to have some control over their lives. I began this discussion by outlining the four basic wishes of all people. The first was that people wish to live. The examples and events that I have discussed above all show that the manner in which society is organised presents serious obstacles in the way of the common people from being able to live their lives. As Rainsborough states, ‘the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he’. However, the class nature of society means that this is not possible. I wish now to discuss this situation, in some greater details, by considering the thoughts of two people who have given thought to the structure of society, namely Adam Smith and Karl Marx. The most fundamental change that came with the transformation from feudalism to capitalism was in relation to property. As noted earlier, the land was held in trust, bringing with it rights and responsibilities. Society under feudalism held to the idea that individuals were members of groups and between the groups there were set relationships. There was clearly a dominant and a servile grouping within society, quite extreme in many ways, but this was tempered to some extent by the accepted view of society in general. The peasant class could claim certain rights and at times act, violently if necessary, to uphold these rights, however limited such action might be in achieving its end. With capitalism came a new concept, that of individual ownership and consequently the triumph of individualism over corporate identity, a situation accepted by the new ruling class, but opposed by the now subservient working class. The basis of this new structure came from an adaptation of the concept of the market. Under a natural economy people produced for need. When they produced more of a product than they needed they would exchange the surplus with another person who, whilst needing the product that the first had in abundance, in turn had an excess of what the former needed. It was this simple concept of exchange that Adam Smith took as his basis for the relationship between the owner, the capitalist, of the means of production, that is the factories, machines and raw material, and the workman who had the ability to use those means of production to produce goods that the capitalist could sell in order to make a profit. This arrangement, Adam Smith put in the following words; ‘What are the common wages of labour depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between two parties, whose interests are not the same. The workman desires to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter to lower the wages of labour. It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the to parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine more easily; and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit their combination, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of Parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a manufacturer, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workmen may be necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate’. [Adam Smith – An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations – Book 1 Pages 83 – 84] In this first book of Smith, he makes clear two things. He tackles the question of value, particularly when goods are exchanged. He concludes that the value of goods depends upon the amount of labour that has been used in producing those goods. The exchange, therefore, takes place on a basis of the equivalence between the amount of labour that has gone into making the respective goods. One interesting consideration, from two different, but related aspects, is in relation to corn. This brings the fundamental change that occurred in this transformation from feudal ideas to those of capitalism into much sharper focus. One key result of the relationship between people and the land came at the end of harvest. Once the corn had been harvested and the grain safely stashed away, there was left in the field pieces of corn, which the women would then go and gather up, piece by piece. This was known as gleaning. It will be appreciated that bread, the product of corn was of fundamental importance to life. By this means the peasants had some means of meeting their need for bread. A major effect of the new concept of property was that the lords of the manor began to enclose the land. They took it as their own property, thereby cutting across years of tradition and denying the peasants rights that had existed from times beyond memory. This was the initial robbery that led to the situation described above in the words of Adam Smith. The effect upon the women just mentioned was that gleaning now became a crime. What had been a universally accepted right had been stolen from them with all the consequences that followed from this. To put this into even clearer perspective, in his very detailed analysis of the value of goods, Adam Smith came to the view that, although value was determined by the amount of labour embodied in the object whose value was being measured, this was not something that was easily measured, He devoted considerable space to considering gold and silver as forms of currency and as means of measuring value, but finds that their value fluctuated from a variety of causes making them unreliable. For Adam Smith, the one thing that closely related to the amount of labour enclosed within it was corn. As a measure of value, corn was the most reliable standard in comparing costs from one place to another and from one age to another. Thus corn was one of the most significant factors in life. In the first of his five books, comprising his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith goes into great details about the many factors that affect the price of goods at different times and in different places. He examined things as he found them. He had complete faith in ‘the market’. He fully recognised the inequalities that existed, as indicated in the quotation above, He knew that the system was not perfect and that there was great variety, but was convinced that the operation of the market would restore the equilibrium. Karl Marx, on the other hand, had a different approach. Whereas Smith was more of a detached observer, Marx was involved, he played a leading role in the politics of his day. He was, also, a serious scientific investigator. It was this dual aspect of his character that made Marx such an important historical person. Marx was not content with studying things as they were. Whilst Smith sought to understand how Nations, meaning his own class, the Bourgeoisie, acquired wealth, Marx looked deeper, his concern was to understand the basic principles that drove the system forward. Smith was concerned with exchange, price and the market, Marx looked deeper at the question of value. Smith never went beyond his concept of the labour theory of value, an important concept, but he had no understanding of where profit came from. Marx developed the concept of the labour theory of value in two respects. First, he looked at the value of a commodity, the goods produced. In order to produce something, two things are required, the means of production and the labour of people. What Marx understood was that the means of production had, in their turn been produced by labour; they had a value based upon the quantity of labour expended in producing them. Further, what Marx also understood was that in the process of using the means of production to produce new goods (commodities) the labourer not only created new value but also preserved the value that had been stored in the means of production. Thus, the labour theory of value was based upon the fact that through work people create value, and this is the only source of value. Marx summarised these ideas in a series of equations. He described the process of productions as follows: The Capitalist determines to produce a certain commodity; he needs to obtain the means of production, this involves a cost (c); the capitalist then has to employ labour to operate these means of production (v). It is this latter quantity (v) that is the subject of the contract between the capitalist and the worker, that Smith describes, the negotiations between master and worker result in this being as near to the level of subsistence as the master can drive it. The outlay by the capitalist is therefore a quantity (c+v). However, during the process of manufacture the work of the labourer adds value to the commodity, a value that Marx refers to as surplus value (s). This is value, produced by the worker above what the capitalist paid to the worker for his labour. Marx summarises this final value of the commodity as (c+v+s). It is from this surplus value (s) that the capitalist gets his profit, the landlord gets his rent, and interest is paid to those who financed the endeavour. In other words, all these three sectors profit from the labour of the worker. Each lives on the labour of others. There is one other important aspect that Marx drew out from this system of exploitation of the working class. Labour, or work, is a fundamental aspect of human life. From the earliest times of human life, people have had to struggle to exist. This struggle is best thought of as work. Work is not necessarily a burden; it can also be pleasurable. If we consider the hobbies that many people enjoy, whether it be gardening or crafts such as sewing or knitting, these are activities which under certain conditions are pleasant occupations, but they are also forms of drudgery If we compare the dark satanic mills where women and children toiled in vile conditions with the old lady patiently knitting away, we see the two possibilities of what work can mean. I well remember, as a trainee mining engineer, lodging at the home of a miner. He was very proud of the work he did, daily he would tells us how badly the fellow on the previous shift had left the work situation and how he had put it right and left it in good order. His job was to watch over a transfer point. At this particular pit, coal had to travel a long distance, over a mile, from coal face to pit bottom. One conveyor belt could not stretch that far so more than one belt was used. Where the two belts met, the coal had to be transferred from one belt to the other. This was a messy business because the coal would fall of the belt into the side of the belt. The attendant at the transfer point had to watch over this transfer and ensure everything ran smoothly and that any spillage was cleaned up. For many people, who had other work to do, this would have been considered mundane and boring, it did, of course, have its importance, and the man I knew took great pride in his labour. The point I wish to make is, that even in the exploitative situation that a worker found himself, he could still find satisfaction in his work. The point that Marx was at pains to make was that the result of the exploitative nature of work under the capitalist system, workers were alienated from their work in two distinct ways. First, the nature of work was changed. Workers were no longer in control of what they did, they had to fit into the structure that the masters created. There was a real sense in that the worker was the servant of the machine, under the control of its dictates. Every aspect of work was taken away from the worker and the worker was subject to control of the bosses. There was also a second aspect of alienation. A craftsman who made, maybe, a chair, could take pride in what he had produced, even if he later sold it, for a time it had belonged to him. The Grandma who knitted a jumper could take pride in her product, even when she had given it to her granddaughter, she could watch her wearing it and feel satisfaction that she had knitted it. Under capitalism, the product of labour never for a moment belongs to the worker who produced it. As industry developed and the division of labour reduced the activity of individual workers to smaller and smaller parts of the finished product (a process well described by Adam Smith) the worker could not even gain the satisfaction of seeing the final result of the labour that had been expended . I began with a statement regarding the four basic desires the all people feel: for life, to be valued, to be active and to understand. What the extracts from human history outlined above indicate is the barriers that prevent these desires from being fulfilled. Marx wrote that people are free to make their own choices but not in the circumstances that they would choose. We exist within economic restraints. How people respond to this situation varies to a great extent. Those of us who seek transform society have to bear in mind both the desires that exist within each individual person, and the constraints that come from the economic structure of society. People, as I have stated desire to live, life is far more than existence. One argument that can be put against this belief is the question of suicide. One lesson I took from reading about the ideas of Durkheim was that suicide is more of a societal act than an individual act; although the final act appears to be individual, deeper analysis shows that the numbers of people committing suicide shows a pattern that depends upon circumstances within society. Durkheim analyses these issues at length. Thus all aspects of our life are bound up within the society within which we find ourselves. Consideration of the four desires lead us to relate our activity, in terms of our political position, the structure of our education and other social provision. It is the former two of these that I wish to examine in greater detail. There can be no doubt that society as it exists today is unequal and unfair. This is true on a global scale and within countries. It has been suggested that inequality within countries is almost as damaging to the future of the life of humans on earth as the inequalities between the various countries and continents. [see Lucas Chancel Unsustainable Inequalities]. There are many ways in which individuals and groups are active in seeking to combat these inequalities. Most of this activity is within the structures of a world economy dominated by capitalism. This despite the lessons that can be learnt from the above outline of history which demonstrates that the immediate cause of our present problems is that very system of capitalism. Those who argue for a revolutionary change are very much in a minority. It is here that Marx’s comment that the dominant opinions in any society and the views of the ruling class is shown to be valid. This is the challenge we face. We are faced with a system that is failing, but with a population who, despite their experience of that system, seem to accept that there is no alternative. There is a general tendency amongst people to accept the life that they have, putting up with all the pressures, unfairness, disadvantages, the lack of decent jobs, housing, opportunities, the misery and despair and all the other factors that makes for life being existence rather than living. Where people are active in seeking to ameliorate these conditions, many work through voluntary groups, religious groups or reformist political parties. The intentions of all of these people are good, worthy and deserving of support. However, they are in the main seeking to deal with the symptoms and not the cause. There are of course many people who find that the present economic system works to their advantage. Having benefited from the system they act in order to preserve and develop the system. Over the years, this section of the community has widened beyond what would be considered as the ruling class. The fact is that these groups are vulnerable from fluctuations within the system. A fact that has been demonstrated by the collapse of leading department stores and others, where senior members of staff suddenly find themselves out of work. There is a growing awareness that climate change will have a devastating effect upon everyone’s life. I need only mention the word Covid to reflect on the serious situation that has arisen with regard to this latest pandemic and the likelihood of future pandemics. Taking society as a whole, I have mentioned those groups who are aware of and seeking to change the structure of society, as mentioned above. There are far more people who are not included within these groups. There are those who derive considerable benefits from society and have a deep vested interest in maintaining, and where possible strengthening, their control over society. There are, however, many people who, though they may benefit to some extent, are vulnerable, as noted above, but persist in defending and supporting the system. In fact, there are many people who, in spite of gaining no benefit at all from the system, in fact the very reverse is true in that they suffer greatly from the system, still defend and support the system, or maybe more accurately strongly oppose those who challenge the system. A great deal of effort, via propaganda, news reports and other means, is put in by the ruling elite to create the dominant ideas that are then held by such groups. The main aim of this effort is to create the illusion that those who have rewarding lifestyles do so out of merit, they deserve to have wealth, prosperity, health, nice homes and living environments, because these come as the result of some quality inherent in the individual, their family or some other related cause. Having convinced the middle group of this relationship between good living and individual quality, it then justifies the elite in having a much more secure and higher quality life style. Far more important, however, is when the same argument is used in reverse, by saying that those who have inferior life styles or suffer from deprivation in any respect, are responsible for their own quality of life. The argument goes that if they behaved differently, made different decisions, based their lives on different principles, worked harder, any number of fallacious suggestions, then they would have been in different circumstances. This is a very simplistic, erroneous argument, but, sadly, it is help by a large number of people, including many of those people who are suffering the worst deprivations. This all provides the context for what I believe is necessary radically transformation of society. The problem, as I see it, is how do we move forward. The revolutionary left is small and divided. There is a gulf between the outright revolutionary sector and those who are working for a somewhat slower transformation through reforms. There is also a gulf between the young people who are adamant in requiring action to safeguard the planet, seeing the dangers of climate change which will become increasingly serious throughout their lifetimes. When we speak of terms of 30 or 50 years, that will be within the lifetime of these young people. Young people who are ignored at best or attacked as irresponsible. A review of more recent events in Britain will further illustrate the situation we find ourselves in. In the 1970’s, a strike by the coalminers led to the Prime Minister, Ted Heath, calling an election, under the banner of ‘who rules Britain’ and losing the election. About ten years later, a much larger and longer strike by the coalminers came to a very different conclusion. This was despite massive support from the public at large. One factor in this defeat was a factor that is always present in arguing for left wing causes. The Left is always required to give details of what they are about, how they respond to criticism, what will be the cost of their policies, and numerous other details. Having answered one set of questions another arises. The establishment, with all their power and control over the media and other forms of publicity, react differently. They pick on one particular aspect, and pursue this relentlessly. What they choose is something apparently so obvious that it does not require need explanation, but is actually not at all obvious, it may indeed be false, but it is a simplification of the situation. In the case of this particular strike, the issue chosen was the question of a ballot. The miners walked out in response to the threat of closure of Cortonwood Colliery. Others followed their example. The decision was made to act. However, miners in the more prosperous, in terms of mining conditions, decided not to follow this action, their excuse was that there had not been a ballot. Particularly in Nottinghamshire the battle between striking miners and working miners was extremely bitter, leading to a death of one picketing miner. There were those who, though supporting the miners, were influenced by this call for a ballot, and so the Government tactics paid off. They provided an excuse for those who wanted to oppose the action but not to do so openly, and a concern amongst those who supported the action but were conflicted by what came over as a lack of democracy. Here we see a practical example of the domination of ideas within society of the ideas of the ruling class. Things are not necessarily as they seem, there is a need to look beneath the surface and consider what the actual situation is. A similar situation arose more recently with the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour Party. This resulted in a surge of interest and support from a large number of people, especially young people, who saw in Jeremy Corbyn a politician whom they could trust and support. It made possible the consideration of many policies and proposals that had lain dormant but met the needs of individuals, communities and society in general. It was a dangerous politically situation, not only for the ruing class, but for those in the Labour Party who had long ago parted from the basis upon which that party had been formed and built. Whereas in the miner strike the response was a distortion of the meaning of democracy, putting crosses on bits of paper is but one form by which people are able to express their views, refusing to act or to work is a more powerful expression of opinion, in Jeremy Corbyn’s case, they resorted to an outright lie and sought to present him in a way that was completely alien to his life’s work. He was accused of anti-Semitism, this based upon his support for the Palestinian people. This despite the strong links that Corbyn had with the Jewish Community in his own constituency and a political career in which support for oppressed people, whatever form that oppression took, had been central to his fundamental beliefs. Sadly, this form of attack was supported by his enemies in the Labour Party, to such an extent that they were prepared to lose the election, as they did, rather than see a Corbyn led Labour Party succeed. These two examples show the power of propaganda, power that is in the hands of the ruling elite, who will distort facts and events in order to maintain their control. All of this may seem to be negative and cause despondency, but that is not my aim or purpose. It is important to be objective and to face the facts as they are. By doing so we can decide how to progress. I discussed above the Levellers, the Diggers, and the Chartists. I have mentioned the way in which large sections of the population who came out in support of the coalminers, requiring major actions from the Government to defeat them. I could also instance the massive gatherings in protest against the Gulf war, the poll tax campaign that defeated Mrs Thatcher, the explosion of activity, inspired by school children and extinction rebellion, around the issue of climate change, the activities around around Black Lives Matter. I have great faith in ordinary people, who though in their personal lives have difficulties and problems to overcome, have an innate believe in the common good, in the concept of fairness and a desire to live in peace with their fellow beings and to wish for others what they wish for themselves. For those of us, who belief in political action to create a society in which this is possible, particularly those of us who believe the only solution is for there to be a revolutionary transformation of society, there has to be a way to translate these innate desires into practice. This will not happen without struggle which will need the support of all those people. United action will be required and we need to find the way to bring about that united action. I began with a discussion about those desires which are common to all people. The desire to live is fundamental and what I have written above shows that the economic structure within which we exist has a critical effect upon the way we are able to live. It is a limiting and a preventative structure which means that the majority of people are unable to live fully satisfying lives. This brings me to the second on my list of desires. The wish to be valued. I believe that this is a common desire amongst all people. As individuals, we all have a set of beliefs. There are a whole rage of influences that have led to the beliefs held by any individual. I do not believe that the beliefs of individuals are determined by external factors but that there is a dialectical relationship between the many factors and the desires of the individual. We all have these beliefs and along with the beliefs a basis for those beliefs. Consciously or subconsciously we justify the way we act, and the way we expect others to act by our internal rationalisation of these beliefs in relation to the experiences we have throughout our lives. All individuals and groups of individuals have very strong belief systems which they consider so important, and correct, that they seek to convert others to those beliefs. This I accept as an important aspect of social life. I belief that it is important, just as one challenges external authorities, asking that they justify their policies and actions,that individuals should be as self-critical and challenge their own position as they seek to challenge the positions of others. I believe that we have to recognise that those who have different views to one’s self hold those views in the same way that I hold my views. They may appear irrational to me, but they must appear rational to the person involved. The dialogue must therefore begin with a mutual acceptance that each has reason for their beliefs. However, that does not mean that you simple let the matter stop there. In many cases of such discussions, beneath the broad statement of beliefs, there are a multitude of issues. If the initial position is to imply that the opponent is wrong and that I am right, there is no possibility of progress. If however, the discussion is allowed to flow and to examine the wider field of possibilities, in most useful discussions, common ground can be found on certain points. This can lead to progress. In the course of the development of the dialogue, it is possible that I may find that my opinion is modified, equally my opponent may react in the same way and so we become closer in our original position, however modified, but the chances are that we are able to move forward, in however limited fashion, in taking joint action around that aspects upon which we are agreed. This, I believe, is the basis of the united front, a means by which groups can work together to achieve certain ends whilst preserving their own perspective over other aspects of their ideology. This, to me, is where the desire to be valued comes in. From early childhood, a person has a sense of themselves. They wish to be accepted, considered, accounted as having worth, and to feel that they have an importance in themselves. This is what I mean by being valued. Children are not empty vessels into which the demands of society are poured into, as though filling a bottle with water. They have a personality that has to be nurtured and developed. This continues through life. No one should be simply dismissed as being of no account, or as not having an understanding of the situations in which they find themselves. Many people find it difficult to express their views, largely because the conditions around them, and the dominance of some individuals, makes this difficult. The tendency in those circumstances is for the person involved to suppress their personal views and to apparently acquiesce but actual resent and to feel alienated. This is the reason why our, so called , democratic system fundamentally fails. It is dominated by the rich, by those who have been fortunate to be born into good circumstances or have been able to obtain a good education. The ones who are failed are the once who, in one way or another, have faced some form of deprivation. There will be an accusation, against these remarks, on their basis as being idealistic and as calling for impossible demands. I reject both of these suggestions. I reject such notions on the same basis as Rainsborough when he spoke of the poorest he and the richest he (in all my writings I make no difference between he and her, or whatever pronoun you wish to use, I hold the human race to be one undivided race of people). Each and every individual has an equal right to be valued by society at large and the value attached to individuals should be a reflection of that value which the individual feels towards themselves. These two corresponding valuations are mutually supportive, the one reinforcing the other. We assess our own worth by the way that others respond and recognise that worth. As we feel that recognition from those around us, so our self-confidence grows. Sadly, the reverse is true which is one of the reasons why alienation and deprivation have such an adverse effect upon the lives of those who are affected in this way. The third wish that people have is that they want to be involved. As we have seen with the Levellers, the diggers and the Luddites, people want to be in control of their own lives. But this is not an isolationist position, there is a general acknowledgement amongst working people that life is a corporate existence . They fully understand that we are all inter dependent. However, people wish to play their full part and to be involved in both the decision and the activity needed to carry out those decisions. Again, there is an interaction between how far the society enables people to be involved, to share in action and decisions, and the attitude of people towards that society. If this desire that the people have is suppressed and the people are repressed, then there will be an adverse reaction from those who are so dealt with. Our capitalist, free enterprise, society has a grave tendency to reward those who use their wealth and power to further their own ends, whilst punishing those who lack the resources to either live a full life or to be involved in the issues relating to their own communities. As noted earlier, work in a capitalist society has been transformed from being an intrinsic part of the fulfilment of human nature, to become an alienated concept, resulting in drudgery and dissatisfaction. Finally, people wish to understand. This desire for understanding extends to the whole of life. It begins with the “Why’s” of early childhood and extends to the desire to understand more about society, nature, the universe and everything. The impulse found among young children to explore, an impulse continued in later life in different forms is an expression of this desire. A fundamental failing of education for working class children is that education has been seen by ruling elites as a means of correcting what is perceived as bad behaviour and poor instincts, or as a means of fitting young people to fit into roles within the productive structure of industry or commerce. The first requirement of education, in this sense is to instil discipline and uniformity. It operates on a selection basis through which the chosen few, usually from families that are already prospering within the system, are elevated to the prime positions. What is lacking in our education system is a recognition of the basic desire of children for understanding and for involvement (action), the desire to celebrate life and above all to feel that the self worth that is inherent in all children is recognised by those who teach and care for them. A child who is encouraged, who worth is valued and who is supported and guided will prosper. However when such things are ignored, the child will draw the appropriate conclusion and withdraw into themselves. All of the above has relevance within society. I have mentioned particularly education, and political practice. As a revolutionary socialist I seek a transformation of society, an end to capitalism, and the creation of a society in which everyone is conscious not only of their own worth, but of the worth of all with whom they come into contact; a society in which all are able to play their full part, enjoying their own work, being in control of their labour and all other aspects of life; are able to develop their understanding of the world in all the aspects that they wish; in this way they will be able to fulfil their desire to live a complete life. In seeking this end, we must be able to relate to those who, though having similar desires may see things in a different fashion, and through this relationship move together towards that transformation that we both desire and that is what society as a whole so desperately needs. Scribar 18.7.21