Capitalism is the Disease, Revolution is the Cure

Do you want to abolish crime, disease and despair from the world? Then abolish poverty which is the cause. Would you like to abolish poverty? Then assist us in abolishing the wages system, the cause of poverty. A society that cannot hush the crying of hungry children or the weeping of women made widows by war isn't worth a damn. For every crime against the mother and the child, capitalism is to blame. It is the ulcer of privation. So long as society maintains the present system of wage slavery, there can be no relief. To rid the world of poverty, capitalism has to be abolished. The only one escape is through the united effort of the whole working class.

The whole working class has been under attack and resistance have been infrequent and limited. Like it or not, so far, the class struggle has been pretty much contained. But even if workers don’t recognize it working-class fight-backs are not only possible -- they are inevitable. Class conflict between the capitalists and the workers is at the very heart of the capitalist system. The capitalist class makes profits at the expense of the working class’s wages and living standards, so the two sides are inevitably driven to class war. When a capitalist pays a worker a wage, they are not paying for the value of a certain amount of completed labour, but for labour-power. The soaring inequality in contemporary society illustrates this--over the past decades, the wealth that workers create has increased, but this has not been reflected in wages, which remain stagnant. Instead, an increasing proportion of the wealth produced by workers swelled the pockets of the super-rich, who did not compensate the workers for their increased production on the job. It appears that the capitalist pays the worker for the value produced by their labour because workers only receive a paycheck after they have worked for a given amount of time. In reality, this amounts to an interest-free loan of labour-power by the worker to the capitalist. As Marx wrote, "In all cases, therefore, the worker advances the use-value of his labour-power to the capitalist. He lets the buyer consume it before he receives payment of the price. Everywhere, the worker allows credit to the capitalist." Socialists conclude that the only way for workers to control the wealth they create and use it to meet their needs was under a different system altogether. As he wrote in Value, Price and Profit, "Instead of the conservative motto 'A fair day's wages for a fair day's work!' they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: 'Abolition of the wages system!”

To re-iterate capitalism can be best defined as generalised commodity production where labour power itself has become a commodity. The workers—those who operate the means of production—are separated from them, or using legal language, don’t own them. Instead, a separate class of people—the capitalists—own the means of production. The capitalists purchase labour power from people who belong to the proletariat—people who own neither land nor capital. The proletarians sell their ability to work, or labour power, to the capitalists and get in return a definite sum of money—called a wage. Wages are therefore nothing but the price of labour power. In a socialist society there would be no wage system. In a socialist society we would have full and free access to the collective wealth of society.

Marx described the often mis-defined  first phase of communism thus.

“Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production,” Marx wrote, “the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labour employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labour no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labour.”

Remember, this is Marx describing the lower not the higher stage of communism. While under capitalism only the labour that is used to produce the money commodity is directly social, under communism, including its first stage, the labor that goes into the production of all products is directly social. Marx explained that the lower phase of communism is a co-operative society. It is a gigantic producers’ cooperative that embraces the entire economy. Its central feature is the common ownership of the means of production. Notice, not some means of production but all means of production of any significance. There is not only no private ownership of the means of production. There is also no group ownership of the means of production such as existed with the Russian state-capitalism. Therefore, there are no classes at all. We are already dealing with a classless society. As far as their relationship to the means of production—ownership in legal language—all people are equal.

Second, “the producers do not exchange their products.” This is not only true of the producers of the means of production but also is true of the producers of the means of consumption. Many so-called Marxists over the decades such as the well-known economist Ernest Mandel, imagined that this was true only of the higher stage of communism. But this was not Marx’s view. Even in its initial stage, according to Marx, commodity production has already completely disappeared. “Just as little,” Marx wrote, “does the labour employed on the products appear here as the value of these products—since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labour no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labuor.”

Is there money during the lower phase of communist society? There is only one possible answer to this question. The answer is no. Without commodity production, there cannot be money relations. Therefore, money will not exist, if we follow Marx, in the lower phase of communism. If commodity production and money still exist, it is not or not yet the lower stage of communism but at best the transitional phase that lies between capitalism and the lower stage of communism. Marx wrote: “For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.”

Notice here Marx does not say the workers receive a certain sum of money for the labor they perform for society but rather certificates that they have furnished a certain amount of labor to society. Marx specifically avoids using the term money here. So there is no wage labor in the sense of a price of labor power in the first phase of communist society as foreseen by Marx. According to Marx’s definition of the first stage of communism as expressed in his “Critique of the Gotha Program,” all people able to work are required to do so. All the means of production are held in common by society. Therefore, there are no classes, and since there are no classes there is no class struggle. To talk about the class struggle under the lower phase of communism is therefore nonsense.

People could have everything they need to live well. But it’s impossible to achieve under the capitalist system, which is driven to pursue profits rather than human needs. Therefore, only a socialist revolution can bring about a society of abundance for all. Socialism envisions a society of abundance for all. In a socialist society every member of society is a co-owner of the means of production and collectively administer the means of production and control the distribution of their collective product. When the workers no longer have the vast majority of the value of their product stolen from them by a class of idle parasitical owners but enjoy the full fruit of their labour then the material incentive to be industrious will be far greater than it is today. So too will be the incentive to improve productivity through better machines and methods. In socialist society, when productivity is improved, no one loses the opportunity to work. Rather, each improvement in productivity lessens the amount of socially necessary labour time needed to acquire goods and services; the result is hours kicked out of the work-week, not workers being kicked out of jobs. In socialist society, with the workers in democratic control of the production process itself, ample labour and resources could be devoted to make workplaces safe and pleasant. With the emphasis placed on improving the machinery and methods of production, the pace of production itself could be regulated at a constructive, but not oppressive or unsafe, level. Jobs could be rotated or redefined to make them less repetitive or tedious. Of course, with exploitation eliminated, and, consequently, workers able to live well on something on the order of a 15-hour work-week, tedium would be less of a problem. Moreover, with education and job training freely accessible to all, people would be able to experience different occupations far more readily than is the case today. Furthermore, the opportunities for applying oneself creatively, both on the job and in one's expanded leisure time, would be greatly increased.

When all these things are considered, it is evident that the natural desire to contribute to society would be enhanced, for in contributing to society, the worker under socialism benefits himself or herself at the same time. Under capitalism, the worker is constantly tempted to think, "Why work hard? I get paid the same lousy wage anyway." In socialism, the worker realises, "If I work conscientiously, society benefits and I benefit."

With the capitalist no longer controlling the distribution of workers' product, and with the flourishing of a cooperative spirit emanating from cooperative production, workers would take unhindered pride and pleasure in their ability to fulfill the needs of others. As Marx put it: "In your joy or in your use of my product, I would have the direct joy from my good conscience of having, by my work, satisfied a human need ...”