Why Scientific Socialism?

Socialism is the future system of society. Towards it, the world is moving. Under capitalism today the means of wealth production are privately owned. In socialism tomorrow they will be collectively owned. Socialism is a message of hope. It is addressed to the working class. It will save the working class, or rather, show the working class how to save itself. The world does not need to be cursed by toil and drudgery, by low wages, by starvation, by disease and by worry. Many now know that these conditions may be completely changed. When enough of the workers understand socialism, believe in it, and are firmly resolved to have it, the time will be ripe for the change. That change is coming.

If misrepresentation and misinterpretation could destroy a new thought, an idea, or a movement  then socialism would have been dead long ago. The adherents and advocates of socialist principles would have been buried with the death of the idea. But as it is, socialism is still  a spectre haunting the world. A healthy sign of progress exists everywhere. But there are also many things to dampen the enthusiasm. Socialism is so much discussed, yet so little understood even though the arsenal of facts based on political and  economic developments and conditions, in support of socialism is almost inexhaustible. Socialism is a theory—but not an infallible dogma hatched out in the brains of a few academics but draws its support from facts in life.

 The Law of Evolution - the great immutable "law of change." - may be stated as follows: all things in the universe today are the results of the actions of the forces of the universe upon the matter of the universe applied throughout the eons of time, producing innumerable changes, which have finally developed higher and more permanent forms of life out of those which were lower and less stable. The physical conditions which compelled changes in animated nature, and under which they occurred, are usually denominated "the environment" - the surrounding influences.

Joseph Dietzgen, in his philosophical works, demonstrated the fact that all of man's ideas come from the outside — that no thought ever sprang spontaneous in the human brain. In other words — human thoughts, human ideas, spring from human contacts and experiences with the physical universe about us. Man's ability to think —   consciousness — the thing we call the "Ego" — the mind — is a natural development through the orderly operation of the laws of the Universe, and, as such, it may be studied, analyised and classified. The science of psychology takes its place naturally as part of the larger and more extended sciences of biology and anthropology. Whim and caprice disappear, and the laws of cause and effect are seen operating in an orderly and rational sequence. Individuals takes their place as a resultant of the experiences of their forebears and their own contacts with the world around them. Their environment and the history of the human race have made them what they are. Knowing the intimate history of any person, and with a given human situation, we may confidently predict what his or her actions will be. Similar experiences beget similar ideas. The average of the experiences of a community, or a class, begets the central idea of that community, or class; therefore, in attempting to explain the tendency of any such community,or class to orient about some central idea, or concertedly move towards some definite goal, we must discover those similarities of experience which furnish the common ground for similarity of thought and unity of action. Mankind is a gregarious species. We herd together in social organisations, and our history is not complete without an examination of the relations which people sustain toward each other.

Marx’s researches into history observed certain classes of men always standing together—always appearing upon the same side of the great historical arguments—and, upon a careful analysis, he surmised that the thoughts and actions of men are determined by the manner in which they obtain their living. The same being only another way of stating the evolutionary truths, that man is a product of his environment; and that his thoughts and ideas are generated by his contacts and experiences with the world around him which is translated into Marxist terminology as the  Materialist Conception of History.  All the social phenomena in any historical epoch may be explained upon the basis of the method of wealth production and exchange existing at that time. Immediately history ceases to be a mere record of the achievements of individuals. Instead, it becomes a moving panorama of the struggles for supremacy of the various classes that have successively dominated society. Fundamental causes are seen at work, continuously and methodically shaping the trend of events. All the apparently disjointed and unrelated facts marshal themselves into orderly array, and take their places as sign posts along the  road of history.

The pre-eminent fact of history is the institution of private property with the division of the people into classes in the terms of wealth and power — the separation of society into opposing camps — which carry on a continuous warfare among themselves - the class struggle. And in each civilization we find a dominant class imposing its will upon the balance of society and maintaining the basic method of wealth production and distribution of that time. All the laws, the religion, the educational system or lack of educational system were designed to retain that class in its position of power and privilege. Internal peace depended upon the relative degrees of acquiescence in the general scheme manifested by the secondary and subject classes, and their ability to wrest concessions from the dominant class by a display of their organized strength.

The ancient slave and serf classes were not essentially revolutionary, and if they had been their ignorance and isolation was sufficient to prevent any concerted action. Mere physical revolution against an irksome environment cannot be called a revolutionary spirit, and while the slaves and serfs indulged in rebellions, they were usually planless and contained no germ of a constructive nature. At the most, some measure of participation in the benefits of the existing system was all they sought. There was no idea of the establishment of a new order of society, which should promote a greater diffusion of culture, and thereby create a better and nobler race. Success upon their part would have meant only social chaos and a recession in the scale of civilisation. Any force in society that lacks a constructive programme is useless — a futile force. If it merely defends a set position and does not keep pace with the progress of the age by means of a positive policy of its own,

Class conscious workers denies the right of the owner of the machines to hold them in subjection. They seek a way to seize the means whereby they lives and turn it to their own use and purposes. They think in the terms of a class, for they now realise their class position and knows that only as such can they hope to survive. They find that they must attack the structure of a society based on private property and their point of attack is at the point of production, the point where they daily meets his enemy. Their whole attitude is one of opposition—opposition to the property of the master class—an attitude utterly subversive of all modern ethics, morals, religions and laws, a revolutionary attitude.  Workers makes no appeal to any but other members of  the wage working class. The future society comes only at the desire and with the consent of the proletariat, for it is evidently the only class able to safeguard humanity by means of a new society. The needs and aspirations of working people are the justification of the social revolution. Marxism declares that the historic mission of the working class is to overthrow capitalism and establish a new order of society; therefore, the method of its organisation is of the first importance.

Worldwide in the scope of its activities, socialism points to a new civilization where the forces of production and distribution will be  co-ordinated—where those who labour will enjoy their work—where childhood will be free to learn and experiment—where life will be secure—where there shall be in harmony with the world. The tide is turning. Workers, in defiance of time-honoured customs have begun to think, to meditate and to act. In ever-increasing numbers,  stirred by a deeper knowledge of the principles underlying socialism, they have begun to move of their own accord and to take matters into their own hands. Revolts of workers may be acts of instinct only, not governed by deeper thought and consciousness, but they are significant. They express a desire for a change, these revolts shatter old traditions and pave the way for a propaganda on correct lines. They reflect some changes in the mental makeup of the workers. The agitation must start on this point else there is danger of relaxation, and deeper discouragement and indifference than in the past.

Socialism will need no armies police, and prisons.  Judges today are almost wholly concerned with two kinds of work.  One is to try cases at law which grow out of private property relations. When two property holders quarrel about a piece of property they go to court in order to have the fight settled as cheaply as possible. Another function of the courts is to sit in judgment upon and determine the punishment of such of the poor as may have been "guilty" of disrespect for private property. Of course everybody now knows that rich offenders purchase this "justice," while poor offenders get it presented to them. Do the starving poor take food? They are sent to jail. Do they strike for more wages? They are clubbed, shot or imprisoned. Such is the nature and purpose of the political government today. With  socialism there will be no lawless rich to keep their place by crushing the poor. There will be no enslaved poor to be kept down. There will be no great private fortunes to fight about in the courts. Hence government will concern itself only with the management of industry, with the promotion of public education and with other public activities which are of benefit to the workers

From time immemorial the struggle for existence, for bread, comfort, and better things in life was making for progress and the elevation of the human race from the lowest to ever higher stations of civilisation. Social, political, and other relations of mankind conformed themselves to these constant changes in the methods of getting ever more and readier access to the gifts and resources of nature, and of using instruments invented, made more and more perfect to transform these gifts of nature into useful things for the living. The relatively lower or higher stage of civilization or progress that the world had acquired were reflected by the relatively cruder or higher developed mode of production by which natural resources were utilised and matter transformed into useful things.

As time passed necessity forced constant improvements in the tools and the operations to produce necessities of life, and to harness the forces of nature, compelling them to yield their producing energies to the ingenious designs and useful exploitation by mankind. The means of production underwent constant changes. but with the perfection more accomplished, the original purpose of production, that is to satisfy the wants of all mankind, changed also.

First it was a combat to subdue nature's forces and energies. The stimulus in this conquest was the prospect of getting readier access to more of the good things that were stored up for conversion into useful things. But the achievements and yields of this combat constantly urged improved methods, but the results were not applied to the corresponding improvement of the life conditions of all the human race. From the physically strong, who in the first stages of human endeavors acquired larger control over the life affairs of others, grew out in the long course of centuries the economic master who with strong hand absorbs all the results of the struggle for larger returns from the improved methods of production, and allows the great mass which is used as a human attachment to these progressive methods enough to live, to exist and to propagate an offspring which again may be used in the same station of the producing process.

Human intellect and energy has developed the system of production to a very high point of perfection. But the great majority realises more and more that they are denied a just share in the enjoyment of the yields and returns from this age-old contest. They begin to think that the results of thousands of years of progress and efforts should be enjoyed by all alike.