The Solution is Socialism

There will always be some new source of socialist revolt that will spring up, arousing a new generation the anger of people. In this period of recession the gulf between the capitalist class and the working-class grows ever greater. Capitalism maintains its profits on the basis of lowering and worsening the standards of the workers. Since the recession, the fortunes and incomes of the capitalist class have actually risen and the wages of the workers have fallen.The battle between the workers’ needs and capitalism grows ever fiercer yet the old trade union methods of bargaining are no longer effective.  The attacks of capitalism, to maintain its profits, grow ever more sweeping and ferocious, ranging over every field, against both employed and unemployed workers, against wages and social services. Do not imagine that the crisis is only a crisis of British industry, to be solved by some form of reorganisation which would restore British competitive efficiency. Business-leaders and politicians appeal to the workers to make sacrifices. They imagine that if only British capitalist organisations and technology could be modernised and improved, all would be well. But all the so-called remedies not only fail to touch the root or the evil — the burdens of capitalist disorder and parasitism. The capitalists can only look for the solution in fiercer competition, in cheapening their own costs of production, in cutting wages against their competitors, in increasing their own competitive power, in fighting to enlarge their own share of the market.  But these same measures are pursued by the capitalists in every country. Although one set or another set may gain a temporary advantage for a short time, the net effect can only be to deepen the crisis. Every advance of technique, of every wage-cut, of every cheapening of costs and intensification of production, intensifies the world crisis. The crisis is not a crisis of natural scarcity or shortage. Harvests are abundant. Stocks of goods of all kinds are piled up, unsold. Millions of workers are willing and able to work; but existing society has no use for their labour. The crisis is a crisis of capitalism alone. The power of producing wealth is greater than ever. It has grown far more rapidly than population, thus disproving all the lies of those who talk of “over-population” as the cause of the crisis.

Only a socialist revolution can put an end to all forms of oppression. Socialism will be won and built by the millions of oppressed people. Socialist revolution is the most radical break with oppression and exploitation in history. Socialist society no longer proceeds in chaos, but according to the planned fulfillment of genuine human needs. The establishment of a socialist, planned economy, based on the needs of the people, will mean the end to the chaos of capitalist production with its lack of planning, repeated crises and criminal waste. As socialist production is built and the material reality of society changes, so will the ideological outlook of the masses of people. The  aim of the international workers’ movement is to replace the world capitalist system with world socialism, which will mark the end of classes and private property. Commodity production, that is, production for sale or exchange on the market, will not exist. The system of wage labor will be abolished and the guiding principle of labor will be “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The means of production will be held communally. With the abolition of classes, all social and political inequality arising from them will disappear. As classes will not exist, the state will not be necessary as an instrument of class rule and will wither away. Although capitalism does not use more than a portion of modern productive power, although it wastes most and deliberately cuts down and restricts production in order to increase profits, actual production has grown much faster than population.

More foodstuffs. More raw materials. More manufactures. More power. All increasing beyond the rate of increase of population. And the outcome? It would seem natural that the outcome should be greater abundance for all. But what is the result to-day under capitalism? The result is world crisis, stagnation and closing down of production, mass unemployment, mass impoverishment, lowering of standards. Why? Because capitalism cannot organise production for use; because the growing discord between ever-greater capitalist accumulation of wealth on one side and growing mass impoverishment on the other, makes impossible the use of more than a diminishing proportion of the rising productive power. Every advance of production only intensifies the crisis, intensifies the ferocity of capitalist competition for the market. Alongside the growth of productive power the impoverishment of the masses has grown throughout the world.

To make revolution and put an end to capitalism, workers must be clear on what the nature of the struggle is, who are its main enemies, and who are its friends.

 Many workers placed their hopes in the Labour Party to bring the solution. They have seen the need of basic social change; the Labour Party spoke of basic social change, of socialism. Since then, after each Labour government has been installed, swift disillusionment has followed. The condition of the workers has grown worse; there is no sign of the advance to socialism; the Labour Government has acted as a representative of capitalism against the workers. Workers who voted for the Labour Party have abstained and discontent is widespread. The whole system of reformist politics of the supposed “alternative” to revolution  stands exposed in the record of successive Labour governments.

The Labour Party could not act and cannot act otherwise than it has acted, does act and will continue to act, as the representative of capitalism — because its basis is capitalism. How so? Do they not profess the aim of socialism? Yes, they profess the aim of socialism as an ideal for the future.They profess to hope to reach their aim on a basis of co-operation with capitalism, on a basis of winning for the workers gradual gains within capitalism. Therefore their practice is based on capitalism, on acceptance of the capitalist State, on administering capitalism and helping to build up capitalism. This they term the “practical” policy for the workers.  reformism was able to win small gains for the workers, and on this basis to hold them from the socialist revolution, to hold the workers to capitalism. But this basis is ended. Capitalism to-day is no longer willing to grant concessions to the workers, on the contrary finds itself compelled to withdraw existing concessions, to make new attacks, to worsen conditions. And therefore the role of reformism, which is the servant of capitalism in the working-class, changes. The role of reformism inevitably becomes to assist capitalism to attack the workers, to enforce wage-cuts, to repress the workers’ revolt, to worsen conditions — all in the name of “practical” policy. Millions of workers are turning from the Labour Party and seeking a new direction. Where shall they turn?

The so-called “lefts” in the Labour Party hasten to proclaim their “opposition” to the Labour Party policy, to prepare even possibly their formal “separation” from the Labour Party, and to advocate so-called “socialist” alternatives. But on examination their policy will be found to be only the old policy of the Labour Party dressed up in new clothes. Although they speak roundly of “socialism” against “capitalism,” they do not propose the overthrow of capitalism, the working-class conquest of power, the expropriation of the capitalists; their basis is still the same basis of capitalism, of capitalist democracy, of the capitalist State, as with the Labour Party; and therefore the outcome can only be the same. Their only proposals are for the reorganisation of capitalism and the promise of a minimum wage.

 Many would-be left-wing reformers of capitalism urge that if only the capitalists would pay higher wages to the workers, enabling them to buy more of what they produce, there would be no crisis. This is utopian nonsense, which ignores the inevitable laws of capitalism — the drive for profits, and the drive of competition. The drive of capitalism is always to increase its profits by every possible means, to increase its surplus, not to decrease it. Individual capitalists may talk of the “gospel of high wages” in the hope of securing a larger market for their goods. But the actual drive of capitalism as a whole is the opposite. The force of competition compels every capitalist to cheapen costs of production, to extract more output per worker for less return, to cut wages. Conditions of labour are intensified. Heavier output is demanded from every worker for less return. Speeding up and rationalisation are the order of the day, leading directly to increased unemployment, to weakened health and physique, to an ever-rising rate of industrial accidents and occupational diseases. But the offensive sweeps wider than wages, hours and conditions. It extends to the unemployed, no less than the employed workers; it extends equally to all the social services.  All the social services — the bare and starveling expenditure on health, education, etc., grudgingly admitted by capitalism for the maintenance of its labour force — are now attacked by capitalism in its present reckless stage as an “extravagance” to be cut down.

Social commentators are at sixes and sevens about this “strange” paradox that increased production of every form of material wealth should lead to universal crisis, poverty and unemployment and call it “The curse of plenty”, the “resource curse”. Voices are now crying out to know how a cworld can produce so much food that people starve, and so many manufactured goods that people go without.  And capitalism cannot answer it. Capitalism has no solution. The most the capitalists can do is to wait amid the general misery until “demand” rises gain , beginning the new trade cycle, and leading to a new and probably greater crisis. But of any attempt to organise the growing productive power to meet human needs — the question does not even enter into their heads; it cannot arise within the conditions of capitalism. Capitalism has no policy to solve the crisis.  Within the conditions of capitalist anarchy there is no harmonious solution possible. Capitalism can only seek to prolong its life by throwing the burdens of the crisis on to the workers, by ever renewed attacks upon the workers’ standards. Only socialism can bring the solution.

Only Socialism can cut through the bonds of capitalist property rights and organise production to meet human needs. Once capitalism is overthrown, then and only then can production be organised in common for all, and every increase in production bring increasing abundance and leisure for all. This is the aim of the working-class revolution. Only the organised working-class can fight and destroy the power of the capitalist class, care drive the capitalists from possession, can organise social production. In the capitalist world the standards of the workers go steadily down. Real wages fall. Social services tare cut. Hours and conditions of labour are worsened. In socialism we shall have abolished the rule of class distinctions and privilege, and enjoy the first real democracy and freedom for all, the free and equal society.  It will end the present reign of inequality — inequality in respect of every elementary human need of food, clothing, shelter, conditions of labour health, education, etc., and bring the material conditions of real freedom and development to all. We are not speaking of some utopia, but only of what is immediately and practically realisable so soon as the workers are united to overthrow capitalism and enforce their will.

What are the alternatives before the workers. Economic and ecological collapse of the whole existing edifice, leading to conditions of famine and slow extinction for masses of the population — or the socialist revolution, leading to new life for all.  Workers can by the method of social revolution, and by the method of social revolution alone, can rapidly reconstruct and extend production  and win prosperity for all. The continuance of capitalism means hunger for many. Capitalism already grudges the bare subsistence. Under the conditions of capitalism, the spectre of mass-starvation draws ever closer.

Forward to the Social Revolution! There is little time to reverse global warning and climate change. The spirit of fight is rising in the working-class.  We are advancing to larger struggles, towards a new revolutionary stage. The issue of class-power, and the issue of capitalism or socialism draws close. We need to prepare the new forms of struggle. We need to build up a strong and co-ordinated army of the working-class. The fight to-day against the capitalist attacks is only a beginning. Let us go forward in the present struggles, to awaken and draw into the fight ever wider masses of workers, to build a mass party of socialists, determined to overthrow capitalism and realise the Socialist Revolution.