Workers’ Knowledge

 Capitalism has always been sold as the best way for the greatest number of people to improve themselves through their own efforts. Many however have neither the means nor the opportunity to move up the ladder. While there exists a great potential for moving down the rungs, in all reality there is very little possibility for the vast majority to climb up. The notion that anyone can reach whatever level of success they desire, while it does happen for some, is far from being true and is absolutely one of the biggest myths ever propagated.

Almost all of us are slaves to the system. Many think it’s all too complex to change the system. If so then we can all just throw up our hands and surrender to a life of servitude for ourselves and those we leave behind.  But the truth is change can be made with an informed people working to effect political change.

World capitalism is in a profound crisis. The ruling class is seeking to claw its way out of disaster by chipping away at all the hard-won gains of working people. In the face of this assault the workers are tragically misled and therefore disunited. The bulk of our class feels itself to be powerless, lacking any credible alternative to the politicians who betray them at every turn. Many workers resign themselves to clinging on, hoping that the present shallow economic upswing will bring relief. Others are fighting, attempting to put an end to the prevailing desperation. The only real deterrent to the attack on  workers by capitalism, is the socialist revolution because capitalism will yield its minimal sops and reforms only out of fear of mass unrest that they cannot control.

There is no short cut to the social revolution. Reformism is a programme of relying on gradual change and making things a little bit better, slowly. Reforms are regarded by the revisionists as a partial realisation of socialism. We  oppose the mechanical theory that every crisis inevitably carries the working class towards socialism. Marxists do not believe in the automatic theory that capitalism must collapse and that socialism must emerge from the ruin. Such is a fool’s conception of history, not the materialist conception of history. Capitalist society is complex, there are many ways it can drag out a slow and painful existence. History does not solve problems and contradictions. It is human will and initiative that comes forward as vital factors in social development. Marxists recognise the reaction of the human factor upon history, and it is this that compels us to pay so much attention to political strategy. There is no socialism without the class struggle. The class struggle, is a struggle for power. The class struggle itself is a form of war, social war, and class power decides the issue. The capture of the state machine is the first step in the social revolution, but the seizure of factories by the workers is also an act of the greatest importance in relation to such conquest.

For genuine socialists building class consciousness is fundamental. Once workers understand their material interests, not just as good ideas or moral imperatives but as inescapable necessities, they will embrace revolution. Workers recognising their self-interest will see the absolute need for the unity of their class in order to overthrow the capitalist class. This revolutionary consciousness is not a matter of education in any narrow sense but comes from  the struggle between the classes, struggle in acts as well as ideas which are in turn derived from action, past and present, the living class struggle. The working class continually generates and regenerates its consciousness.

The vanguard intellectuals grow cynical about the potential of the workers for revolution.  Confident that their superior knowledge and understanding entitles them to lead the downtrodden  they try  to manipulate people to achieve their own goals: the rationalisation of capitalism. They assume themselves to be  general staff of the proletariat, who are to be the cannon fodder to be commanded by The Party “in the name of the working class”. Convinced that the the majority  cannot accomplish its tasks, the the leadership assume their own “socialist” programme are an adequate replacement for the consciousness of the workers and attempts to become the “condescending savior”.

In the words of the Socialist Party of Canada:
" ...in order to fit themselves for this task the workers must acquire the consciousness which alone can enable them to do so. This consciousness must comprise, first of all, a knowledge of their class position. They must realize that, while they produce all wealth, their share of it will not, under the present system, be more than sufficient to enable them to reproduce their efficiency as wealth producers. They must realize that also, under the system they will remain subject to all the misery of unemployment, the anxiety of the threat of unemployment, and the cares of poverty. They must understand next the implications of their position – that the only hope of any real betterment lies in abolishing the social system which reduces them to mere sellers of their labor power, exploited by the capitalists.

“They will see then, since this involves dispossessing the master class of the means through which alone the exploitation of labor power can be achieved, there must necessarily be a struggle between the two classes – the one to maintain the present system of private (or class) ownership of the means of living and the other to wrest such ownership from them and make these things the property of society as a whole. This is the struggle of a dominant class to maintain its position of exploitation, on the one hand, and of an enslaved and exploited class to obtain its emancipation, on the other. It is a class struggle.

“A class which understands all this is class-conscious. It has only to find the means and the method by which to proceed, in order to become the fit instrument of the revolution.”

http://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/ws33.class.struggle.htm

Every sincere socialist thinks and asks: How can the socialist movement be unified and strengthened? The first task for the workers in all countries of the world is to break from the capitalist class and their political parties, and renounce any and all sympathy and support for their parties. The workers must build a party of their own with the aim of taking the power out of the hands of the capitalist class and into their own hands. A major economic crisis arose in the capitalist world and in its desperation to shore up the system the capitalist employing class have been launching attacks against the pay and living standards of the workers. Capitalism promises the people not amelioration of conditions but austerity and oppression. While bailing out the corporations the government declines to open the books of big business so that the truth about prices, wages, cost of production, distribution and profits, executive salaries and bonuses, kickbacks and bribery, so that the waste and inefficiency, so that the source of the crisis of the economy is laid bare. The capitalist system, not workers is responsible for the recession.

Reformists throws all the blame for problems upon the government of the day and contends that they could permanently improve the material comfort of the masses if its proposals were adopted by Parliament. Socialists often hear the comment that "Socialism is a good idea but it’s not practical." But today it’s becoming more apparent than ever that it is the present system — capitalism — that is impractical and unworkable. Despite the campaign of lies and distortions about the socialist viewpoint we are confident that developing realities, together with the conscious participation of all who consider themselves socialists will advance the workers’ movement. Capitalism — the rule of commerce and business — must be abolished.  Working people need to throw the capitalist parties out of office and form their own “government”  that will fundamentally transform society. The entire apparatus of the State, set up to defend the interests of the corporations, must be transformed.