An article in Psychology Today 16 March, about the Bronze Age Harrappa civilisation is titled, The Indus Valley Civilization: An Ancient Utopia?

The piece infers some interesting suppositions. ‘In the Bronze Age, Harappans had nothing to kill or die for and no religion.

First, they did not have palaces or monuments to monarchs. Indeed, this is one reason we know relatively little about the IVC: unlike in Egypt, there are no rich burials like Tutankhamun.

The Harappans did have citadels but no standing army. The primary purpose of the citadels was to divert or withstand flood waters. Although the standardization of bricks, road widths, and weights and measures over such an extensive area speaks of a strong central government and efficient bureaucracy, the lack of a monarch and standing army argues against the idea of a conquering empire.

Finally, they did not have temples, and so, it is inferred, no organized religion.

Could this utopia have been the first secular, egalitarian state or confederation?’

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/202403/the-indus-valley-civilization-an-ancient-utopia

The following is from the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

It may be hard to imagine a society totally without exchange, but nevertheless for the vast majority of human history, around 15.000 years, this was exactly the way things were organised in a stage of human history called primitive communism.

At this time humanity lived a tribal existence with each member of the tribe as important as another: the men as hunters, the women as gatherers of fruit and roots. The young, as the future of the tribe, the old as the wisdom of the tribe, who knew the migratory patterns of animals, where the best roots could be found and much more besides. When the men and women returned with food it was not (as portrayed in some of the more pathetic films such as One Million Years BC) a mad rush for food and the strongest getting the most but a fair and equitable share-out, as the tribe realised the importance of each member of their society.

Examples can still be found today of such tribal societies: the Kalahari Bushmen and Pinaro Indians to name but two who, when first confronted by colonialists and asked about greed and property and who owned what, could not even find words in their language for such concepts and would end up laughing and looking bemused.

Socialist society

The Socialist Party however is not advocating a return to primitive communism. Far from it. but we can learn from history. Socialism must be on a world-wide scale, to replace worldwide capitalism — no individual countries, just one world. Also, it can only be established when the majority understand and want it. There will be no leaders and it can only be brought about democratically, by the ballot box, through conscious political action.

Socialism is only viable when the means of producing and distributing wealth are sufficient to provide for everyone’s needs. Even the most conservative estimates of food production conclude that with farming methods now available we could feed six times the present population of the world — a total of five billion people.

Money is only necessary today because, living in capitalism, the means of producing and distributing wealth are in the hands of a tiny minority of the population. A person’s position in society is determined by their relationship to these means of production. If someone is lucky enough to be one of the owning minority then they are members of a capitalist class whose ownership of the means of producing wealth means that they do not have to work but are able to live off rent, interest and profit. If however you are one of the vast majority of people who do not own factories, banks, shipping lines or whatever, then you are a member of the working class. You must make a living by selling the only thing of any value you own; this is your labour power — your ability to work — for which you receive a wage or salary.

Some people say that even workers do not have to work. They could live on social security, but anyone who has tried to manage on this pittance realises how hollow this argument is and that, if a worker is able to get a “decent” wage, he or she is forced by necessity to take it.

Workers, even though they and their class produce everything in society and run it from top to bottom, are only able to gain access to the fruits of their labour through money. A worker who helps to produce, for example, £50.000 worth of cars a week will only receive a small fraction of this in wages; the rest is the surplus value (unpaid labour) extracted from all workers, which yields the rent, interest and profit from which capitalists derive their wealth.

In socialism however things will be very different. Once a majority of people want and understand socialism and how to get it, then they will take control of the various state machines and implement it. When socialism is established the land, factories, transport — all the things we need to live — will be taken into common ownership and democratic control. No one will own anything (apart, of course, from personal items). This is not to be confused with nationalisation, which is merely state controlled capitalism as exists in countries such as Russia. China and Cuba.

Production for Use

How will things be produced? Who will produce them? They will be produced as they are now. by the people who produce them now. The important difference will be that instead of the rationing of a wage or salary, there will be free access to all wealth for everyone. Everything produced will go into a common store from which everyone will take what they need. Everyone will have free access to the common store because you cannot buy what already belongs to you and everyone else. People will not be left out because they are too old, young or sick to contribute to production as happens now. These people will be looked after to the best of society’s ability. Things will be produced directly for human use, not for sale with a view to profit as now. when, if there is no profit there is no production and if you are unable to pay then you are not able to consume.

Human Nature

One of the arguments socialists often encounter is that all the greedy and selfish people will take more than they need. How correct is this argument?

First of all, in a socialist society people would have to be very greedy and foolish to consume so much as to cause any kind of problem. However, apart from that the notion of greedy people is quite wrong.

“Human nature” does not exist. Human behaviour, which is its proper title, is not fixed but is the result of the society people are conditioned to live in. At present we all live in a “dog eat dog” society of competition; a vicious society where the weak are fair game. Yet even now anyone can point to examples where people forget about the greedy nature of this society to help others. They co-operate even though there is no economic reward; think of voluntary workers, or blood donors for example. There is no reason why our rational desire for comfort and human welfare should not allow us to co-operate even further in a sane society based on cooperation.

So-called human nature is no barrier to a concept of “from each according to ability, to each according to need”. Human beings are not naturally greedy, selfish, aggressive, or naturally anything else; human behaviour is determined by the kind of society people are conditioned to live in. There is only one barrier to socialism: a lack of understanding by people and therefore a lack of desire for it — in other words, a lack of socialists.

The Socialist Party does not have or need leaders; the party is only used by politically conscious socialists as a vehicle to get socialism; when socialism is established the need for the Socialist Party will disappear. Its job done, it will go out of existence.

Steve Colborn

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2020/09/society-without-exchange-1987.html 

‘Thomas Piketty et al have analysed wealth inequality in India. Their findings add a little bit more meat to the information bone of global wealth inequality but are, in the context of capitalism, not that surprising.

‘ India’s richest 1% of the population earned 22% of the country’s income and held 40% of its wealth during the last financial year, a new study published has suggested. These levels are “historically high” for India and even above those of developed economies such as the US, the paper notes.

The research paper, co-authored by economists Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi, claims that wealth in India, the fastest-growing large economy globally, is largely concentrated among the richest 1% of the population, whom they refer to as India’s modern bourgeoisie. They claim that the wealth distribution in the country is now more unequal than during British colonial rule.

“In 2022-23, 22.6% of national income went to just the top 1%, the highest level recorded in our series since 1922, higher than even during the inter-war colonial period. The top 1% wealth share stood at 40.1% in 2022-23, also at its highest level since 1961 when our wealth series begins,” the study says.

Citing data from the Forbes billionaire rankings, the paper said the number of Indians with net wealth exceeding $1 billion increased from one in 1991 to 162 in 2022. Over this period, the total net wealth of these individuals as a share of India’s net national income surged from under 1% in 1991 to a whopping 25% in 2022.

At present, India’s richest person, Mukesh Ambani, who is also the richest in Asia, has a net worth of $114 billion. He was recently in the news for hosting a lavish wedding for his son that was attended by dozens of international celebrities, including Bill Gates, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Blackrock co-founder Larry Fink, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Ivanka Trump, and others.

Despite the reported disparities in income, the Indian economy is growing robustly and is poised to become the third largest in the world within the next three years. The country’s GDP grew 8.4% between October and December 2023, the fastest pace of increase in six quarters.

The country’s central bank, in its latest bulletin, noted that India can maintain its 8% GDP growth given the favourable macroeconomic environment.’

The “Economic Calculation” controversy: unravelling of a myth by Robin Cox (2005)

 Event Details

THE ECONOMIC CALCULATION ARGUMENT (Zoom)

Speaker: Tim Kilgallon

To connect to the Zoom meeting, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305

 (or type the address into your browser address field). 

Then wait to be admitted to the meeting.

 Event Details

THE ECONOMIC CALCULATION ARGUMENT (Zoom)

Speaker: Tim Kilgallon

To connect to the Zoom meeting, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305

 (or type the address into your browser address field). 

Then wait to be admitted to the meeting.

From the BBC website, 21 March

Absolute poverty: UK sees biggest rise for 30 years

The energy price crisis caused the sharpest increase in UK absolute poverty in 30 years, new figures show.

Steep prices rises, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, meant hundreds of thousands more people fell into absolute poverty.

The figure jumped to 12 million in 2022-2023, a rise of 600,000 – or 0.78 percentage points.

Absolute poverty is the measure used by the PM when describing the government’s record.

Even more families would have fallen into absolute poverty had it not been for government support like the Cost of Living payments.

Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride – whose department compiled the figures – pointed to the government’s “biggest cost of living package in Europe, worth an average of £3,800 per household”.

The government says that without these measure the increase would have been three times worse.

Mr Stride said the government’s “unprecedented support prevented 1.3 million people from falling into poverty in 2022-23”.

The figures were collected before the 10% rise in benefits and pensions that took effect in April 2023.

Labour said the statistics were “horrifying”.

“The Conservative government crashed the economy and unleashed a cost of living crisis, pushing families across the country into poverty and a million children into destitution”, said shadow employment and social security minister Alison McGovern.

The figures were a “wake-up call moment”, according to the Liberal Democrats.

“This is a devastating rise and behind these numbers will be stories of children going hungry and families unable to heat their homes,” said the party’s Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68625344

Suff(e)rage

With votes, like fortune’s lots, having been cast,

What does the following count amount to?

Omniscient autocrats can accrue

More votes than voters, just by playing fast

And loose with democracy, for nation,

Or God, or both. With destiny fated,

Opposition can’t be tolerated;

An image is a fragile creation.

Yet, where there’s left, right and centre et al,

Parties compete with vainglorious boasts

To purloin lucrative government posts,

But won’t impinge on the rule of capital.

Whether blatant or subtle, all depends

Upon market forces and dividends.

D. A.

Workers living in the state of Germany find themselves, like many others, suffering from the vagaries of capitalism.

‘Germany’s 2022 living standards took the biggest downturn since World War Two a report released by the Forum for a New Economy has suggested. The decline is attributed to the energy shocks that sent prices for consumers soaring.

Economists from the Berlin-based think-tank highlighted that the decline in Germany’s economic output recorded in 2022 is comparable to the financial crisis of 2008 and the short-lived decline during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

The failure to protect the country’s industrial sector from energy price spikes is expected to turn the 2020s into “a lost decade for Germany,” the analysts have warned, calling the crisis “the worst economic downturn in the country since World War II.”

For years, Germany’s prized industrial sector had been fuelled by relatively inexpensive Russian gas. However, since the Ukraine conflict erupted in 2022, Berlin has opted to forgo energy from Russia in favour of costlier alternatives, including American liquefied natural gas.

According to the report, real wages measured against pre-crisis forecasts dropped by 4% from April 2022 to March 2023, while output declined by 4.1%.

Germany’s economy shrank by 0.3% in 2023, according to the federal statistics agency Destatis. However, the country managed to avoid a technical recession after the second-quarter figures were revised to 0.1% growth.

Two consecutive quarters of negative growth are widely considered to mark a technical recession.

The Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, recently forecast growth of 0.4% in 2024. However, some financial institutions, such as the country’s two largest lenders, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, expect German GDP to decline again this year.

Meanwhile, EU Commission’s most recent forecast for the Eurozone shows an expected increase in GDP of only 0.8% in 2024, down from the previous forecast of 1.2% growth made last November.’

This Editorial from the August 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard contains much still of interest.



‘The present situation in Germany, and the international financial crisis springing from it, brings into clear light some of the contradictions bound up with the capitalist system of production.



Germany was defeated in the war and the victors hastened to collect the fruits of victory, but there were a host of obstacles in the way. The fruits could only be obtained from the surplus value (unpaid labour) wrung from the German workmen. In order that German workmen should be able to labour German industries must flourish. This fact, and the international nature of capitalist investments and banking operations, along with the international complications of buyers and sellers, frustrated any attempt to ruin German national capitalists. The victors dared not kill the goose that they hoped would lay the golden eggs. Germany was like the debtor with “expectations” who had to be kept alive and well.



Since the war German industries have developed and German industrial competition has been keenly felt in all direction. When attempts have been made to curb their industrial aspirations, or press for reparation settlements they just pointed to probable ruin as the result. Their plan of campaign has been aided by the mutual distrust and jealousy of the erstwhile allied nations. France, in particular, whose position looked to be most promising, has constantly felt the pressure of its allies in thwarting its industrial designs.



Although France has undergone a rapid and thorough industrial revolution in recent years, the progress of its industrial magnates is hindered by the intrigues and jealous activities of their rivals in other nations who have suddenly discovered an altruistic interest in Germany’s welfare. These other nations frequently call upon France to make concessions to Germany and foster the idea that France is the thorn in the rosebud. In the meantime, German capitalists pile up their fortunes and their debts, grin, and groan about the burden of the peace terms—which deprives them of a portion of the fruits of the German workman’s labour.



In particular, the growing gold reserve of France has been the subject of much feeling to outside capitalists. The present German crisis has been seized upon at once to try to induce France to disgorge some of it. The “News Chronicle” for July 14th in an editorial article under the heading “France’s great opportunity,” puts the matter bluntly as follows:

The world is face to face to-day with an economic situation more sinister than any with which it has ever been confronted. Unless from some source credit and confidence can be promptly restored in Germany, Germany will collapse.

The situation thus created places France in a position which is really decisive. On the one hand she is the only European nation which possesses the financial resources necessary to meet the case, and, on the other hand, she alone can create the atmosphere of goodwill and confidence, without which no outside financial help is likely to be forthcoming.

Conferences of international financial advisers and political “heads” have been held and, at the moment of writing, France appears to have been induced to do her share in backing a loan.



The “Sunday Express” for July 19th printed a long article setting forth the financial details of the situation, from which the following points are taken :—

Germany owes America £650 millions; America also has £300 millions invested in German industrial securities and real estate.

Germany owes England £150 millions, and about £100 millions to France, Switzerland, Holland and Sweden, but not much of it to France.

Included in the above totals is £300 millions of short term loans to Germany repayable in October. It is this money that has caused the crisis as Germany is unable to find it.

£150 millions of this short term money is due to America and £100 millions to England.

France’s interest in the above is negligible. On the other hand she has a large amount on short term loans in Roumania, Hungary and Poland—which goes if Germany collapses. Apart from this, France’s main interest is in the £50 millions reparations money guaranteed annually under the reparations agreement. The fall of the German government, which seems certain if they either accept conditions for a loan or fail to surmount the crisis, will probably ruin English and American merchant banking houses and compel France to say good-bye to the £50 millions a year.



The “Daily Express” article contains one statement to which we must call attention, although it is really outside the subject of this article. There has been an almost unanimous moan about the shortness of money in this country, and an attempt to trace industrial troubles to this source. It is therefore useful to note the following from the above mentioned article:

  “Meanwhile,” what about Great Britain? She is in a good position. If it were necessary for her to meet her foreign obligations we could mobilise from all sources—we could send out of the country —as much as £100,000,000 in gold, without disturbing the necessary cover for the note issue of the Bank of England.”

The real crisis in Germany, however, is political rather than financial. It is a fight for life on the part of the coalition Government parties. The Hitler Party and the Communists repudiate the reparation terms and seek to blame reparations for the present situation, and with them the Government and also the Social Democrats, whose votes have more than once saved the Government from defeat. These parties are on the horns of a dilemma. If they repudiate the reparations agreement and Germany crashes, they will go down too. If they stand by the terms of it Hitler and his group (now the second largest party in Germany, the Social Democrats being the largest) will probably swoop into power. There is a third way out for them—to invite Hitler into a coalition Government, in which case they would all stand or fall together. At the moment the interested parties outside of Germany are anxious that the coalition parties should retain control on account of the risk of debt repudiation in general.



At the moment the Social Democrats are using their votes to prevent the defeat of the Government. On the 17th July the Reich and State Governments were given power to confiscate or suppress at discretion any periodical in the country. They can compel any periodical to insert in the position, in the type, and with the headings they demand, and without any comment, any statement or declaration whatsoever. (“Sunday Times,” July 19th.)



That such steps should be deemed necessary is an indication of how frail is the Government’s hold upon power.



There is one lesson the last few days should make plain once again. Socialism cannot gradually arise in a capitalist world. The German S.D.P. has professed to be aiming at Socialism and believes it possible to introduce it gradually while still assisting in the administration of capitalism in association with capitalist parties. But the running of capitalism demands so much (quite apart from corruption and the like), and its financial operations are so complicated, that there is neither the time nor the means left to do other than make the machinery run smoothly. When the machine gets out of gear those at the head of affairs and all parties supporting them get their due—the antagonism of the masses

The reparations question, and the financial crisis generally, is occupying the whole of the attention both of the German Social Democrats and of the British Labour Government. Mr. MacDonald told the London Conference on Monday, July 20th, what was the issue. He said (”Daily Herald,” 21st July) :—

Our position, therefore, in a word, is to restore the confidence of the foreign investor in Germany.

What a spectacle for laughter! The English and German Labour leaders struggling to avert the ruin of the bankers and to restore the confidence of the investing class in the stability of German capitalism !’

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-german-crisis-1931.html

As capitalism continues to exacerbate the financial problems of very many, living as we all do in a social system that is exploitative and profit based, the ‘solutions’ on offer are, as usual, of the band aid type rather than of the drastic surgery which is the only panacea.

The Guardian reports that, ‘A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt.

A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds.

Although energy bills and some other prices have fallen from their peak, rents and mortgages are much higher than before the crisis and are straining household budgets.

The Insolvency Service’s latest figures showed 10,136 people entered insolvency in February, a rise of 23% on the same month last year.

Debt Justice said it wanted all political parties to commit to helping those in unmanageable debt to make a fresh start and to give them protection against harassment by debt collectors.

Joe Cox, a senior policy officer for Debt Justice, said “We need to see policies in party manifestos that can match the scale of the UK’s household debt emergency. As millions of people are currently weighed down by debt and under intolerable strain, it is time for some political leadership.”

Bruce Connell, Crosslight Advice’s chief executive, said almost half of those who contacted the charity for help have had to cut back or go without food because of financial pressures.’

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/mar/18/record-numbers-of-uk-people-in-debt-warns-charity

The following is from the Socialist Standard, June 2016

‘From Shakespeare’s Shylock to Dickens’ Scrooge, moneylenders have generally had a bad literary press, probably revealing people’s instinctive reaction to them, but their place in society remains central. We examine the role of debt in working-class life.

Robert Roberts’ The Classic Slum describes life in Salford in the first part of last century. The pawnshop was an essential part of the local community; many people were dependent on the short-term loans offered, with women often pawning the family’s ‘best’ clothes on Monday until the following Saturday. There was a social hierarchy among the working class, with skilled workers at the top, and various ‘disreputable’ individuals at the bottom; and position ‘was judged not only by what one possessed but also by what one pawned’. True destitution meant pawning not just clothes but also pots and rugs, and finally not being able to redeem what had been left with the broker. The interest charged was usually a penny in the shilling per week; sky-high, but less than the moneylender, who charged threepence in the shilling per week.

Pawnbroking is not now the widespread industry it was in the days Roberts was writing about, but it began to grow again from the 1980s. There are now over two million loans a year, and the market as a whole is worth £850m, though the average loan is less than £200 and is for three or four months. The National Pawnbrokers Association states that 88 percent of loans are redeemed, but that still leaves around 250,000 which are not (though this does not mean that the value of the goods has been completely lost). The NPA describes pawnbroking as ‘a serious alternative to using the services provided by the High Street bank’ and ‘a modern, friendly and convenient way of getting cash quickly’. They claim it is cheaper than a bank loan or using a payday lender.

In July 1954 war-time food rationing came to an end, as did restrictions on hire-purchase (‘never-never’) agreements for consumer durables such as radios, fridges and vacuum cleaners. This meant buying what were then relative ‘luxuries’, in contrast to buying essentials such as furniture this way back in the 30s. Nowadays, hire purchase is often used in buying cars, including companies buying a fleet of cars. For personal consumers, it avoids the need to pay a big sum up-front, but it can lead to problems: if you return an item after paying less than half its cost, you have to pay enough on top of what you’ve already paid to make up that half cost (so you might get just three months’ use of something but have to pay a year’s worth of instalments).

The extreme case of hire-purchase is that of the weekly payment stores, which make big profits, primarily from the massive interest rates they charge on their loans and the service cover they also sell. Back in 2012 the Guardian gave an example of an oven that could be bought from one such company for £562 (or £389 elsewhere) but would cost a whopping £1433 if bought on weekly instalments from that same company with service cover over three years. Sales pressure plus an inability to pay by other means can easily result in people taking on such commitments without quite realising what they are letting themselves in for.

If people are having trouble repaying any kind of debt, they may well have recourse to one of the payday loan companies that now exist on almost every high street. But these again are incredibly expensive, with annual interest rates sometimes topping several hundred percent. The debt charity Step Change gives an example of someone borrowing just £200 for twenty days at the maximum allowable rate of 0.8 percent a day. If you repaid the loan on time, you would pay back £232, which is already quite a stiff rate of interest. But if you are late, then the interest mounts up, a late fee is added and you have to pay interest on the late fee. If you are ninety days late repaying, you would repay £400 (double the original loan, and the legal maximum that can be charged).

As this suggests, being poor is in itself expensive. Using prepayment meters for energy is more expensive than a standard tariff; and borrowing money means a higher rate of interest if you do not have a good credit record. No wonder debt counselling has become a minor industry in its own right. Some writers have even referred to there being a ‘poverty industry’.

Mortgages are of course the biggest source of debt, while students typically have over £40,000 in debt when they graduate. But plenty of people borrow – especially from payday loan companies and even doorstep lenders – to pay for everyday expenses such as food and energy as they struggle to make it to the next payday. They also borrow to pay for Christmas and so avoid disappointing their kids. And they borrow to pay off existing debts, which can swiftly lead to things spiralling out of control. Losing your job, falling ill, the break-up of a relationship: all these can tip people over the edge into chronic indebtedness.

The Money Charity provides a great many statistics on the extent of debt. For instance, in February this year, the average debt per household, including mortgages, was over £54,000. Outstanding consumer credit lending was £180bn, including £63bn on credit cards. Every day over two hundred people are declared insolvent or bankrupt, and twenty-five properties are repossessed. Other sources have noted the big increase in household debt over the last year or so, with the average increasing by over a third to £13,500 (mortgages aside). Shelter reported that one in ten parents thought that they might be unable to pay their rent or mortgage bills in January this year. Moreover, in March the increase in borrowing was the biggest since March 2005, before the recession began, leading debt charities to become increasingly worried.

The definition of ‘problem debt’ is when a family pays more than 25 percent of their gross monthly pay on servicing unsecured debts, and this applied to 3.2 million families by 2014 (up from 2.5 million in 2012). The pressure of debt can be overwhelming. In the words of one man who eventually did cope with his problems: ‘I felt like I was drowning, felt trapped. There was no light coming from anywhere, it was horrendous. And at one point I did go really dark and I did want to end it all’ (BBC Online, 20 January). Some people do in fact commit suicide because of their debt problems. In November 2013, for instance, a 60-year-old man from Southampton killed himself after taking on £20,000 in debts from twelve payday loan firms: his jobseeker’s allowance had been stopped on the grounds that he was fit to work, even though he had an illness that prevented him from swallowing (Daily Mirror, 22 July 2014).

Pawnbroking dates back at least to Ancient Greece, but it takes capitalism, with the cash nexus touching almost all aspects of life, with the never-ending influence of advertising, and with the insecurity felt by many workers, to make so many people subject to the worry and pressure of debt.’

Paul Bennett

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2016/06/living-on-tick-2016.html