Democratic socialism

Socialism will replace the chaotic competition of to-day with the organised co-operation of to-morrow. The overwhelming majority of the population consists of wage-earners, men and women who have no means of earning a livelihood except by the sale of the labour-power in their own bodies to those who possess or control the means of making wealth. The ordinary workers of our day possess little property to speak of, and, more often than not they do not own or control their own tools. On the contrary,  machinery, in one shape or form virtually own and control them, dictating the speed at which they shall work and the amount they shall produce, while control passes out of their hands, as does the product.

True, the modern wage-slave is nominally free and possesses certain  political rights which the chattel slave or feudal serf did not enjoy.  But these freedoms and these rights have not emancipated the wage-slaves from economic servitude to the capitalist class which has succeeded the old land-owning aristocrats or slave-owning patricians. The fact that a certain proportion of the workers receive good wages, in comparison with others who are paid on a lower level of subsistence, makes no difference to the system. Some highly-educated slaves received considerable remuneration from their owners, and even became rich men. What prevents many of the present wage-slaves from understanding how little freedom they really enjoy is the payment of wages in cash. This blinds them to the fact that they receive but a fraction of the value of the wealth they produce in return for the use of their capacity to labour; just as their liberty to change from one employer to another obscures the other truth that they are always, in reality, under duress from the threat of unemployment to the capitalist class as a whole. The Chartists taught generations ago that as long as the payment of wages by one class to another class continued, and production for profit under a competitive system consequently remained the dominant form of employment, it was quite impossible for the propertyless majority to emancipate themselves from the control of the rich. They argued  that the community should own and control all the means and instruments of creating wealth, to be used in the interests of the whole people, and that, so far as possible, this end should be striven for by peaceful methods in order to minimise the chances of reaction.  There is no short cut to the social revolution. The revolts of impatience and insufficient organisation only play into the hands of the ruling class, as all experience has shown. Education and understanding among the people, combined with the general social advance to the stage of economic development  are the indispensable conditions that renders socialism attainable.

The Socialist Party argues that if socialists cannot gain the support of a majority of the people in a democracy then will find it even more impossible to obtain such a majority by the use of armed struggle or the general strike. The tactics of force and violence requires even greater sacrifices from workers. Surely it is much easier to persuade a person to vote for socialism than it is to give their life for it. When  force is pitted against force, the power at the disposal of the ruling classes comes much more into play than under democracy.

It would be nonsensical for the Socialist Party to contend that workers are obliged to use democratic methods under all circumstances. Such an obligation we undertake only if our class enemy also  respects the democratic methods. We are not advocates of legality at any price. We know that we cannot always create historical situations to suit our desires, and that our tactics must correspond to different situations. “By peaceful methods if possible, by forcible means if necessary” is the reply of socialists. In circumstances when socialist are compelled to meet violence with violence, we must still seek first and foremast to win the support of the majority. This is the essential prerequisite of victory.

Where democracy does not exist the most urgent task of socialists to establish political freedom. It is not necessary for socialists to foster any illusions about what  democracy has on offer for this purpose. It makes little difference whether or not we choose to regard a representative assembly of the people, elected by universal equal suffrage, and coupled with freedom of the press, speech and organisation, as mere “bourgeois” democracy. The fact is that such institutions is suffice for  the workers to emancipate themselves. The so-called peaceful methods of conducting the class struggle, contesting elections, strikes, demonstrations,and similar methods of bringing pressure to bear stand a better chance of being maintained in any country the more democratic the institutions, and the greater the political and economic insight and the self control of the people.

To be sure, democratic institutions will change their character when society will be organised on a socialist basis. Today they are essential instruments of struggle for the working class. In socialism they will be means of social administration.