Bound Together to Break the Chains

Society stands at the crossroads of socialism or chaos. If the working class does not succeed in overthrowing capitalism, then this chilling prediction will seem in retrospect to have been too mild. The current economic crisis brings back on to the agenda the prospect of revolution but also the possibility of counter-revolution. There will be ebbs and flows, setbacks and outright defeats in the class struggles ahead. The workers do not immediate seek revolution. There will be illusions in reformism, religious demagogy, populism, nationalism and – most dangerous of all – racism and xenophobia. All contributing to despair and confusion. However, there will also be a resurgence of socialist ideas, which will grip the minds of the working class. It will go against all Marxist thought if socialist ideas do not find an audience. There is speculation about a rise of a popular right wing such as UKIP. But it will be even more surprising if a new left does not sooner or later present a challenge. The crisis brings the classes into direct confrontation. The failure to overthrow the rule of capital and introduce a rationally planned socialist system has brought a return of scenes hardly witnessed since the19th century: hunger, homelessness, hysteria, the destruction of the environment plus wars and civil wars. The only way out of the nightmare, resulting quite possibly this time in the terminal destruction of human society itself, is to reorganize society on the basis of a rational administration of resources and a harnessing of humankind’s productive potential. The end of the Soviet state, the eclipse of Stalinist parties along with the rejection of Trotskyist opportunism and adventurism plus the exposure of the treachery and betrayal of the reformists of the social democratic labour parties offers a clean slate to socialists to win over fresh layers. However, old traditions die hard. The paralysis of the working class in moving to change society today comes not so much from the old illusions in reformist or national programmes, but in the perceived helplessness of the mass of ordinary people.

The initial response to the crisis is usually one of stunned shock. As workplaces close, as workers lose their jobs and have their homes foreclosed it is true that there will be a weakening in the cohesion, solidarity and initiative of the working class. However, in the process of the descent into the abyss, there will inevitably be inspiring struggles. The period of the Great Depression in the 30s also witnessed the great waves of sit-in strikes in the USA and France. In some countries there have already been explosive reactions. These are clearly only the tentative beginning of a massive worldwide movement of protest.  It is remarkable that there is a general understanding throughout society today of the causes and nature of the current crisis. The attempts to blame asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, benefit scroungers, single mothers, Polish plumbers, or even Islamic terrorists for the crisis has all been tried but overall without too much success. Bankers and financiers are held in universal contempt as are their political servants and media mouthpieces. Few needed to be told that the Iraq war was over oil. The revolution could be within reach If only there were a political party strong enough to channel that mass class hatred into building a new socialist world. A socialist political party is needed to generalise this discontent, to plan for democratically elected committees to liaise and co-ordinate, and above all to imbue the people with confidence in the historic meaning of the change, give their actions an international horizon, and make explicit and conscious what would already be taking place on the ground in an instinctive and pragmatic form.

Many new factors have strengthened the workers’ movement. The squeeze of the so-called middle class, their proletarianisation as some would term it, has strengthened the working class. We are far better educated and informed than previously via the communications revolution. Despite of the nationalist threat, the internet has drawn the world together and an international consciousness has arisen that would have been inconceivable before. They have created a cultural climate which drastically tilts the relative balance of forces in society. Democratic social movements have arisen above all the women, who have risen to their feet and forever shaken off their historically subservient role, but also mobilised and in the forefront of working-class struggles are the ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples.  It is a new cultural awareness – a mood to which capitalists themselves have had to pay lip-service and homage to in pledges of social equality, fair trade, ethical banking, sustainable development– that has become an unquantifiable factor standing in the way of the capitalists’ resolve to drive down living standards. This new awareness was manifested in an unprecedented international movement of anti-capitalist protest, with thousands of activists crossing national frontiers in solidarity campaigns in spontaneous eruption of protest enough to alarm the ruling class, as in the Zapatistas, Occupy Movement, the Arab Spring or the Indignados. The outsourcing and relocation of industrial capital has led to the new theatres of class war, in China and Bangladesh and other regions of the world. In 2005 there were 90,000 officially designated “public order disturbances” in China i.e. strikes and protests

Capitalism has long outlived its usefulness. The global banks and corporations which rule the world have been revealed to be totally parasitic. Non-socialists keep asking themselves if a solution be found within capitalism itself? Yet this ongoing destruction of the world has made many once more question the assumption that the idea of a socialist society is a utopian mirage. The material basis for socialism is plenty. The irony is that it is this very plenty which is posing apparently insuperable problems for capitalists. Their problem is how to dispose of the goods, but they present us with a picture of scarcity and hopelessness. Capitalism has now reached the point where, at least in some areas of the economy, productivity is so advanced that its products are effectively available free of charge.  Music is available online at no cost. Within the computer industry, much of the software products are now given away free, partly a reflection of fierce competition but also an indication of technological progress. It is an anomaly that it is the very productivity on which the chances for socialism and for human survival depend which is too much for the capitalist market to cope with. What is needed is not simply more renewable energy, or this or that technological fix, but a changed attitude to technology and the relationship of man, society and nature.

It is unfortunate that for the majority of in the environmentalist movement, none of their findings questions capitalism. On the contrary, Big Eco-business has sprung up even though the Stern report described climate change as "the greatest market failure the world has ever seen." Some suggested a carbon tax on emissions. Some have drawn up elaborate geo-engineering projects. "We must act quickly" the experts all agree. "Can we afford to do what it takes?" the economists and politicians ask. The people answer "Can we afford not to?” they should ask themselves just who is meant by “we?” and who it is that has to act now. Irrational capitalism is now prevailing and it is urgent that it is understood that the only people who can turn the sustainable ecological vision into something real is the working class. If not the “socialism or barbarism” is closer to hand than ever.

The battle has still yet to be joined together, and we will be surprised by what latent resources the working class can still summon forth when the time comes. The struggle to build a worldwide workers' party goes back almost to the beginnings of capitalism. The working class majority have not yet spoken in one voice. When they do, they will transform the outlook.

“There is no supreme savior,

No God, no Caesar, no Tribune,

Producers, do it yourselves!

Proclaim universal salvation!”

The Internationale