Socialism Is The Issue 1/4

A four- part article based on the writings of Eugene Debs, member of the generally reformist Socialist Party of America and their candidate for the the US Presidency.

PART ONE

A Labor Day is coming when our starry flag shall wave,
Above a land where famine no longer digs a grave,
Where money is not master, nor the workingman a slave

We live in the capitalist system, so-called because it is dominated by the capitalist class. In this system the capitalists are the rulers and the workers the subjects.  Socialists counts among the world’s workers all those who labour with hand or brain in the production of life’s necessities and luxuries. For much of its history human society has consisted of masters and slaves and the tens of millions of wage-workers in the world are the twenty-first century slaves. In the struggle of the working class to free itself from wage slavery it cannot be repeated too often that everything depends upon the working class itself. The simple question is, can the workers equip themselves, by education, organisation, co-operation and self-discipline, to take control of the productive forces and manage industry in the interest of the people and for the benefit of society? The workers must organise their own emancipation to achieve it and to control its unlimited opportunities and possibilities. That is all there is to it.

The fifth clause of our Declaration of Principles explains “That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.”, echoing the call of Marx and the First International.  What
can workers do for themselves? The answer is whatever is required. The working class can organise, combine, unify, cooperate and act in concert. Members of the working class are in the majority and have the vote. Where free elections are possible, peaceful revolutions can be achieved.

Working men and women can educate themselves. They can read, study, discuss and debate.  Ignorance is slavery. Intelligence is freedom. Workers should be ashamed to follow leaders who may betray them. The task of the Socialist Party isto persuade fellow workers to first question and challenge the present system of society and then to organise to change it. Without organisation workers are forever at the mercy of their enemies. Why does the labour movement  not assert its mighty power and conquer capitalism? Because it will not unify, because it chooses division rather than unity, strength and victory.

There were two different systems of economics in the world. The exponents of one system claim they have the right to live off the toil of others, while the others believe that the Earth  belongs to all the people. Capitalism is not “the survival of the fittest,” but “the survival of the most unscrupulous.” Socialism is no utopian dream, not the product of imagination, not a mirage to beckon and then to vanish, but a theory of life. The working class must get rid of the whole brood of masters and exploiters, and put themselves in possession and control of the means of production.  It is therefore a question not of reform, the mask of fraud, but of revolution. The capitalist system must be overthrown, class-rule abolished and wage-slavery supplanted by the cooperative industry.

Between the mainstream parties socialists have no preference. They are one and the same in their opposition to socialism and the emancipation of the working class from wage-slavery. Every worker who has intelligence enough to understand the interest of his or her class and the nature of the struggle in which it is involved, will once and for all time sever affiliation with them all. They should acknowledge the class-struggle which is being waged between the producing workers and non-producing capitalists and cast their votes for a genuine class-conscious socialist party, which is pledged to abolish the capitalist system its class-rule and the wage-system - a socialist party which does not compromise, but, preserving inviolate its socialist principles and determination to advance the goal of economic freedom. The old parties are held together only by the cohesive power of spoils, and in spite of this they are steadily disintegrating. Again and again they have been tried to reform capitalism but always with the same results, and people are wakening up to their duplicity, deserting them in droves. It is now a question of capitalism or socialism, of despotism or democracy, and they who are not with us are against us. If only the working class could and would use their eyes to see; their ears to hear; their brains to think, how soon this Earth could be transformed. No person of reason can condone the present system but must condemn the cut-throat system that drives people to insanity and makes the psychiatric hospital an indispensable part of every community.

The Socialist Party is the only party that promotes the interests of the working class, the only class essential to society and the class that is destined ultimately to succeed to political power, “not for the purpose of governing men,” in the words of Engels, but “to administer things.” The present form of government based solely upon private property in the means of production is wholly coercive; in socialism it will be purely administrative. The ultimate function of government is to keep the exploited class in subjection by their exploiters. The owning class is necessarily the ruling class. This class struggle will not, cannot cease. The Socialist Party is necessarily a revolutionary party and its basic demand is the collective ownership of the means of production and distribution and the operation of all industry in the interest of all the people.

The prevailing economic system can only be abolished in two ways; namely, by securing control of government or by violent revolution. No rational person prefers violent to peaceful measures, and hence socialists rely upon the power of the class-conscious vote to accomplish their end. Where all men and all women have the ballot, political organisation is a necessity, and hence the organisation of the Socialist Party to represent the interests of the working class. Centuries of struggle and sacrifice were required to wrest the vote from the clutches of rulers and place it in the hands of workers. It is the abuse and not the use of it which is responsible for its evils.

We do not seek to convert trade unions into a political organisation, but hope they become class-conscious industrial unions, its members recognising the socialist ballot as the weapon of their class and using it accordingly. The attitude of the Socialist Party toward the trades-union movement is broadly endorsing but stopping there, and allowing it to manage its own internal affairs, a role of solidarity but also of non-interference.

Economic freedom can result only from common ownership, and upon this principle the Socialist Party differs diametrically from every other party. Between private ownership and common ownership there can be no compromise. One produces for profit, the other for use. One produces millionaire palaces and pauper hovels, the other abolishes class rule and wipes out class distinction. Cast your votes for the Socialist Party and throw your lot in with the World Socialist Movement, with its mission to uproot and overthrow the whole system of capitalist exploitation, and put an end to the poverty and misery it entails. The workers of the world, mainly through organised effort, are becoming conscious of their interests as a class, totally regardless of colour, creed, or gender and in time they will unite and act together upon a common basis of equality. In the class struggle the economic equality of all workers is a foregone conclusion, and he or she who does not recognise and subscribe to it as one of the basic principles of the socialist outlook is not a socialist.

The average person imagines that there must be a leader to look up to and to follow. We has been taught that we are dependent creatures and without someone to lead we would be lost. But we have relied too much on leaders and not enough on ourselves.  As long as you can be led you will be betrayed. That does not mean that all leaders are dishonest or corrupt, some may well be honest and as often as the  case it is a matter of genuine but blind leaders leading blind followers. An honest but incompetent  leader is just as fatal to our interests as the one who deliberately sells us out.

Our business is to put’the exploiters of labour out of business. We don’t need a capitalist; and if you think you do,  it is because you don’t understand your own best interest. You don’t need him. You imagine that he gives you a job; but he does nothing of the kind. You give him a job. You employ him to take from you what you produce. The capitalist could not exist a second without you. Can you imagine a capitalist without his work-force? What has the stock-exchange investor and share-holder who legally own a work-place know of  its operation? Absolutely nothing.

Capitalism is based upon the exploitation of the working class and when the working class ceases to be exploited, there will no longer be any capitalists. They are parasites. They are worse than useless. They simply take what we make, leaving us in poverty.

The exploiting capitalist is the economic master and the political ruler in capitalist society, and as such holds the exploited wage worker in utter contempt. No master ever had any respect for his slave, and no slave ever had, or ever could have, any real love for his master. It is no part of the purpose of the Socialist Party to compromise with the capitalist class. We are organised to fight that class, and we want all our fellow workers to clearly understand it.

In capitalist society we are not people but simply merchandise to be  bought and sold on the labour market.  Language betrays the fact foer aren’t we called “hands” and dealt with by “human resource” departments. In this competitive capitalist system  the workers are fighting each other to sell themselves into slavery.

The Socialist Party has declared war upon the capitalist class, and upon the capitalist system. It has no reason in concealing any part of its mission, and  its  object is to entirely abolish the capitalist system. We are of the working class and we say: Arise and unite, fellow workers of the world!  It is in our power to put an end to this system. Wipe out the wage system, so that you can walk this Earth as free men and women! Make ourselves the masters of technology instead of being slaves to the machine. No matter who or what a worker may be, if he or she works for wages, he or she is in precisely the same economic position that you are. They are of your own class and are your brother and sister, comrades. There is no escape for you from wage-slavery by yourself as an individual, but while you cannot alone break your fetters, if you will unite with all other workers who are in the same position that you are, if you will join the organisation that represents your whole class, you can develop the power that will achieve your freedom and the equal freedom of all.

When the workers are united in one economic organisation and one political organisation; when they strike together and vote together, they can put their class in power in every legislative body and parliament. They can abolish the capitalist system. When you unite and act together, the world is yours. You cannot be satisfied to live and die as beasts of burden; to toil unceasingly to enrich masters who hold you in contempt; to be dependent upon these leeches for your jobs and crawl like sycophants at their feet. You are a human, not an animal. You have your freedom to achieve, and you have an intellect to develop.

The primary need of the working class is education. By education we mean revolutionary education; the kind that enables men and women to acknowledge themselves as wage-slaves ; that the economic interests of these many millions of human beings who do all the useful work and produce all the wealth are absolutely identical; that they must unite ; that they must act together; that they must assert their collective power. When they reach this point they will cease to be slaves. They can do this, and only they can do it. No-body can do it for them.

The capitalist class gouge out profits from your daily drudgery and from what is left, you get your wages. They perform no useful work; yet you harm your bodies with the toil. They are millionaires; yet you are paupers. They have everything; yet you do everything. They live in country estates; yet you in housing estates. They have leisure and money; yet you have neither. They are few and yet you are many! To sum up they are the masters; and you their slaves. There can be no identity of interests between exploiters and exploited and there can be no peace until the working class is triumphant and the wage system is forever ended. It is not to reform the evils of the day but to abolish the social system that produces them that the Socialist Party is organised. It is the party not of reform but of revolution, knowing that the capitalist system has had its day and that a new social order, based upon a new system of production and distribution, must soon supplant the one we now have.