It is Not Enough to Be Anti-Capitalist

 The anti-capitalist movement has produced some tremendous figures, Susan George and Naomi Klein to name only two, yet the ideas of the leading writers and thinkers of this movement has still failed to present a convincing alternative which challenges capitalism and lays the basis for a new world, a socialist one. They and ourselves in the World Socialist Movement may share a similar aspiration which involves humankind sharing the resources of this planet, but it is only possible by production for use on a world scale, not be re-formulations of tax-laws. If there is no alternative to capitalism, why fight it?  The Socialist Party is entitled to ask the question “anti-capitalist but pro-what?”

Capitalism has stopped “delivering the goods” for quite a while now. Malcolm X once said “Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it’s more like a vulture and can only suck the blood of the helpless”. Capitalism is marked by wage labour. If the means of production are managed by some group other than the direct producers then we have capitalism, regardless of who owns them. Unless the relations of production are revolutionised, the means of production can change hands (passing, for example, from private to state hands) without fundamentally changing the nature of society. Whatever the formal status of property, capitalism will still exist if workers are separated from the means of production and do not own them in common and manage them directly. Our aim is to replace capitalism altogether by a free cooperative commonwealth and we further argue that the social revolution finds its agency in the self-organisation and the self-education of the working class.

Why isn't socialism dead? Many anti-socialists say it is. As proof, they point to the failure of the Soviet Union, an undemocratic government controlling the means of production with bureaucratic planning of production and distribution. But our own view of undeveloped countries like tsarist Russia with a minority working class was they were in no position to make  a global change from an interdependent world market to socialism "as the act of the dominant peoples 'all at once' and simultaneously."  If anything the USSR's failure proved us right! Marx envisioned not government control of the means of production but control by the working class, joined to democratic planning not by bureaucrats but "by the associated producers." So Marx's own vision of socialism was not proved a failure by the demise of the USSR because it was not tested.

Granted none of us will live to see Socialism, and like millions before us we will probably die without seeing that really better world we long and struggle for. No genuine working class fighter fought only because he or she believed in “Socialism in our time” but simply to bring it that bit closer. We can understand why workers join and build union, collective self-interest. We recognize socialist solidarity was built upon the vision of something better, not just to get ourselves a wage rise. The hope of a socialist utopia was around long before Marx and continues to this day, although today it exists only by a thread. At a certain point, a new principle comes on to the scene, it gets a name which is spoken publicly and understood, everything else begins to redefine itself in the light of the new principle and a process of concretisation begins which is the real business of overthrowing existing social conditions. We are not there yet, so far as the socialist ideal is concerned. We are living through that period when many different principles exist side-by-side in mutual contradiction. To abandon the search for such an ideal however would be just as foolhardy yet interestingly, it is those on the Left who today are the first to explain to you why genuine socialism is a fantasy. Hardly surprising since their own activity and relations are so remote from socialist principles. The majority of young anti-capitalist activists are blissfully ignorant of the socialist ideal in fact. The Trotskyist transitional demand programme is the height of deception: politically conscious workers, including the socialists themselves, understand that the demand cannot be met other through the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism — otherwise it wouldn’t be a transitional demand at all — and yet, what is desired is that the mass of workers shall embrace the demand as if it can be achieved without a revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the state, something for which the workers are not yet prepared — otherwise you wouldn’t need a transitional demand! How do socialists come by their ideas? By hearing about them from someone. Isn’t it an insult to think that others in the mass movements are too dumb to get these lofty ideas, and have to be somehow tricked into becoming radical?

Capitalism stinks. It doesn’t work for the overwhelming majority of the globe’s people. The profit system has proved itself unworthy to exist. And now, with global warming and other environmental crises, it threatens the very existence of the planet. As for the likelihood of reform, capitalism has been around since the 16th century. If it were capable of transforming into a humane and sustainable system, that would have happened by now! So being anti-capitalist is logical. But to become a socialist means believing that a collectively owned, planned economy is a workable and desirable alternative. One basic difference between socialism and capitalism is that nobody really controls capitalism — even the capitalists! That is why it regularly runs amok from boom to bust.  Socialism short-circuits this insanity with a planned economy, in which we only produce what we need, without the waste caused by market competition. Supermarket shelves will no longer brim over with 20 brands of identical toothpaste; buildings lacking occupants won’t go up. Technology won’t be cornered to drive up prices, or buried when advances might injure profits.

The organised use of resources and the end of war will make the Earth a far richer place in a hurry. We will be able to turn to solving the problems of climate change and toxic waste, stopping the destruction of cultures and species, developing renewable energy and aiding the world as a whole to develop in a rational, sustainable, and humanitarian manner. Imagine the freedom of never knowing the struggle for survival that occupies so much of our lives today! Contrary to myth, it is not “human nature” for people to be at each other’s throats. Rather, dog-eat-dog attitudes are learned behavior, taught by a ruling class based on theft, competition and greed.

In becoming whole people, and a whole society, we will naturally get rid of all the hateful divisions that mark society today. There are those who argue that the bigotries of racism, sexism, homophobia, and national and religious antagonisms are so deep-seated that it is naive to think socialism can get rid of them easily. But all of these things are driven by poverty and under-privilege. Humans are a social species. We succeeded in evolution because we worked together cooperatively for survival or all would be chaos. Socialism will be far ahead of what we can even imagine today!

The Socialist Party spreads the word that socialism is not only a workable alternative, but the only alternative — that capitalism has proved itself incapable of permanent, significant reform and that reformism is the real utopian delusion. We spread the word that socialism is the next step of human evolution, in which we as a species can fulfill everyone’s needs, and then proceed to find out what humanity is really capable of achieving.