Countercurrents

It's a good article but it all seems a bit cart before the horse to me. The problems mentioned are the result of private ownership of the means of production and production for profit.The solution is not to 'abolish money' but to transform the basis of the system itself, one of the effects of which will be the end of exchange value and money.  We need to be really careful in the use of our terms; over-simplifying things always runs the risk of being misunderstood.

It's not a "failed" submission but merely one that has not yet been published. The editorial committee gives priority to articles on contemporary events and your article was held over, probably till March or maybe April. The same goes for your article on the Incas. The committee never turns down an article without explaining to the writer why in detail. Basically, the position is that if you get an acknowledgement of receipt of an article and don't get a "failure" email then it will appear, sooner or later.

Actually, having an article already published elsewhere is one reason why we do turn down articles, but I'm afraid there's no guarantee that we won't use your article now that we've gone to the trouble of preparing for publication. So there's no guarantee it won't appear.

All letters sent to the Socialist Standard, especially those from non-members, receive a reply whether or not they are published. Some get crowded out at the last moment at the layout stage but are then held over to the next month. We can't know this the weekend when the layout is done.

It has happened. In fact, when we can, the editorial committee send the layout team more articles than they need so they can have some leeway in fitting things in from a design point of view. We do indicate which articles to give priority to, but this is not always followed. For instance, a short piece on the recent elections in New Zealand got left out. Perfection is only an ideal especially when working to a tight deadline.