Socialist Work

HOW IT IS AND HOW IT COULD BE

The basis of all societies is the production of goods necessary to life. In the present time, production is dominated by the capitalist, possessor of money, owner the factory and the machines, buyer of the raw materials, the hirer of the workers who  produce the goods which then can be sold and provide the capitalist with profit and privilege. Labour relations under capitalism is a system of squeezing, workers must be driven to the utmost exertion of their powers, either by punitive powers or by the more gentler arts of persuasion. So long as we have wage slavery it matters not in the least how debasing and degrading a task may be, it is easy to find people to perform it. Under capitalism the majority of human beings are not human beings at all, but simply machines of flesh for the creating of wealth for others.

Private property is the enemy of human happiness, for it creates inequality and established authority serves no other purpose than the sanctioning of property property. Socialists want to replace private property with common ownership. We stand for equality. When we say equality we don’t claim that all men will have the same brain, the same physical attributes: we know that there will always be diversity in intellectual and physical aptitudes.

There will be engineers and labourers: this is obvious but neither will be considered superior to the other, since the work of the engineer is useless without the collaboration of the labourer, and vice versa.

A question often asked is: “What about  the lazy? Those who do not want to work”

Today, the average person works a 8 hour day, 5 day week. Many workers are in jobs that are absolutely useless to society, in particular those in the armed forces and armament factories. Add to this a considerable number who produce nothing and are only necessary in capitalism: cashiers, bank and insurance staff, paper-pushers in the civil service, etc.

Much  useless work can be done by machines, used not as now to cut costs and grind out profit, but to save labour in unnecessary routine work to release people from the monotonous tasks.

We can thus say, without being accused of exaggeration, that when this pool of available workers is re-deployed and redirected away from  socially wasteful labour, the work-day and working week would decrease.  A society where all would work together would have to ask of each of its able-bodied members an effort of only two or three hours a day, a few days a week, perhaps less. Variety of life is as much an aim of socialism as equality of condition, and that nothing but an union of these two will bring about real freedom.
 As Marx wrote as early as 1845 “In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”


Who would then refuse to give such a small quantity of labour in return for consuming according to his needs, which is to say, as he wishes? Who would want to live with the shame of being held in contempt by all and being considered a parasite? Our system of artificial shortage has engendered a fear of an abundance, filling our minds  with the customs and norms of commercial and competitive society.

Work in itself is not unpleasant. Many will toil in their garden or allotments for leisure. Many will engage in all manner of DIY and handicrafts as a hobby. Many will volunteer their help to charities. Some will offer to risk their lives to serve on a lifeboat or in a mountain rescue team. So even in our sham society most men are not disinclined to work, so long as their work is not that which they are compelled to do. But work under capitalism is inhuman for the workers and is compelled by the threat of deprivation, and the labour is without genuine interest, in  monotonous, repetitive jobs, where men and women are often driven to the point of exhaustion that the body can barely sustain. Therefore it is not unnatural that we witness an aversion amongst workers for their work, and how experts conclude that productive work, by its very nature, is repulsive to people , and must be imposed upon the unwilling by threat and bribery, the stick and the carrot. Yet, saying all this about compulsory labour, the work-place can also become a centre of community and fellowship. Some socialist suggest that the ideal of the future does not point to the lessening of men's energy by the reduction of labour to a minimum, but rather to the reduction of pain in labour to a minimum, so small that it will cease to be a pain.

Socialists assert that the community should hold all wealth in common and that everyone should have free access but their needs are not necessarily determined by the kind or amount of work which each person does. The fact that they are human beings with a capacity for work is enough. It is to be understood that each member of a socialist society is absolutely free to use their share of the communal wealth as they please, without any interference. This will minimise the possibility  of the community falling into bureaucracy, with the multiplication of committees, and all the paraphernalia of official authority, which is a socially wasteful  burden, even when it is exercised by the delegation of the whole people and in accordance with their wishes.

The question then now arises how is it to be done? A political party of the working class is the how. The Socialist Party declares that political power should be in the hands of those who intend to employ it for the overthrow of the present system, understanding by political power not merely the power of voting, but the possession of the whole administrative state system – the complete control of all executive functions. This, then, is the immediate object to be striven for; not mere reforms. Workers shall come together in those countries where elections are permitted and vote the capitalists out and vote ourselves in and with that political power we will take the means of production away from the capitalists control. It may not be all that simple and straight forward a task in all circumstance and thre may indeed be defeats and set-backs but there exists no other  alternatives despite claims to the contrary.

“The Socialist movement is not the coinage of one man, of one body of men, or of one nation; it is the expression at once of a necessary phase of economic evolution, and of a yearning which fills the hearts of the people of all countries and nations throughout the civilised world to-day – a yearning which individuals may formulate, but which no individual can create.” - William Morris