For Ourselves

Down through the ages, people have dreamed of a world of freedom and equality, an end to exploitation and misery. The capitalist system is incapable of meeting the needs and aspirations of the people. By its very nature, capitalism generates or intensifies poverty, nationalism, sexism, racism, war and environmental destruction. Only socialism can have the interests of the people as a priority. Only socialism can use the benefits of the scientific and technological revolution for the well-being of all. The basic conflict between capital and labour is inherent to the capitalist system. The capitalists, who control the main means of production, employ wage-workers only so long as their labour produces profits for them. They hold down wages to the lowest possible level so as to squeeze greater profits out of the exploitation of the workers. The workers fight to maintain and increase their wages, improve their living and working conditions, and extend their economic, social and political rights. This is the heart of the class struggle. There are times when social and economic problems become so bad that people are forced to choose between the social system that makes their lives difficult and a new one that will make their lives better. Times like that are called revolutionary times. They don’t come often, but when they do the question of HOW to make the change that’s needed becomes as important as WHAT that change should be. We face that kind of choice today. Capitalism creates countless problems that it cannot solve. It uses technology to throw people out of work and to make those who keep their jobs work harder. It creates hardship and poverty for millions, while the few who own and control the economy grow rich off the labor of those allowed to keep their jobs. It destroys the cities that we built up. It is destroying the natural environment that is the source of the food we eat and the air we breathe. Every effort made to prevent these problems, or to keep them from growing even worse, has failed. Is this what we want? Is this what we have worked so hard to build? Should we keep a social system that is destroying the lives, the liberties and the chance for happiness that our work and productivity make possible? Is it really worth the price to keep a small and despotic class of capitalists living in obscene wealth?

If you agree with us that the time for such a change has come, then there are certain things we must understand. The first is that workers can expect no help from those who benefit from capitalism. Individual capitalists may see the handwriting on the wall and join with the workers but as a class, however, the capitalists, just like the slave-owning and feudal classes before them, will try to keep their strife-ridden and poverty-breeding system going. The workers can only rely upon themselves to build a better world and free themselves through their own class-conscious efforts. The second thing to understand is this: Workers make up the vast majority of the population. By workers we mean the working class. We mean all whose intellectual and physical labour contributes to the development, manufacture and distribution of the goods, services and information that our complex society needs. We mean all those who must sell their physical and mental talents and skills on the labour market, and who depend on the wages and salaries they receive in exchange. We mean white-collar and blue-collar, production and office workers, those who research and develop as well as those who build, distribute and serve. We mean the whole working class, including the unemployed and those forced to settle for part-time or temporary work.  The working class makes everything and it makes everything work. Collectively, it has tremendous potential power.

For social change toward a better world, socialists believe the most important and indeed decisive social force is the struggle of the working class. Why the working class? Taken as individuals, there is no reason to argue whether workers are "better" human beings than others because they are workers and are no better or worse than you or I or any other Tom, Dick and Harry.

Rather, workers are taught organisation not by their superior intelligence or by outside agitators, but by the capitalists themselves. Workers are organised on the assembly lines, in the factory gangs, in shifts, in work teams, in the division of labor of capitalism itself. Capitalism cannot live and cannot grow without "organising" its workers and teaching them the virtues of a form of "solidarity", of working together. It hammers home every day the advantages of pooled effort, and the subordination of the interests of an individual to the needs of the group. The collective interests of workers lead them to struggle. There always arises the pressure of demands for higher wages and better working conditions which cannot be wished away. Steadily the labour movement's demand all comes in conflict with the capitalist insistence on the rights of employers and private property, to challenge the power of capital. The roots of worker self-activity and self-organisation in opposition to the employer lie, in the first place, in the reality of exploitation; i.e., the wage relationship—the very heart of capitalist accumulation, expansion, and growth. The conditions and interests of working class pushes it towards organised struggle against capitalism. It is the experience of exploitation and its intensification that lies behind the great labour upheavals. Working class life embodies experiences that contradict many of the old ideas and assumptions.  These contradictions tend to be sharper and more frequent at the point of production (but they can and do break out in other realms of life as well.)  The experience of exploitation and the intensification and reorganization of work and/or falling real incomes that inevitably accompanies it push workers into collective conflict with their employers.  People will put up with a lot when they feel they have to, but sooner or later some people begin to fight back, then more join in. 

 The key question facing the working class is that to change society it must understand it and itself. Class consciousness is a slippery item to investigate. Gains in consciousness can be gradual or rapid, partial or more or less total depending on the magnitude of the experience that shakes up the old ideas and the alternative ideas available. But consciousness can slip back into old habits as well. While we will talk about different levels of consciousness, we do not mean to imply some stage theory of consciousness. The means by which thoughts and perceptions of the world change within an individual are clearly complex and possesses a "psychological" side. Marx made the distinction between the consciousness of being a class "in itself" and "for itself."  The first is the simple recognition that the working class is a distinct class with interests opposed to the capitalist class. It involves an awareness of class conflict and the need for organization, but a more or less unquestioned assumption that "the system" is here to stay and all that is to be done is to make it better for the workers.  The consciousness of being a class "for itself" is the awareness that capitalism can be replaced and that it is the task of the working class to emancipate itself by doing just that.  A class is only really a class, a class ‘for itself’ when it is also a social movement, when it has a consciousness of its mission and the organisation to express that and bring it about. This is socialist consciousness.

Marx didn't look to the working class because of some supposed moral superiority, the clarity of their ideas at any particular moment, or the infinite effectiveness of their trade unions.  Marx looked to this class because in capitalist society they were the only other class, besides the bourgeoisie, who had the potential power to change things.  Their power flowed from their position in the economy and from their numbers.  "Ye are many, they are few," as the poet Shelley put it.  More than that, this class has the power to create society's wealth and, acting as a class, to bring society and its production to a halt.  "Without our brain and muscle not a single wheel would turn," the Wobblies sang.  We might now add: "Not an inch of fiber optic cable laid, no just-in-time delivery made.” The problem has always been organising that power and giving it conscious expression for a common purpose. While socialists can and do play an important role in building and providing direction for such movement, they don't have to invent them. While we don't claim to have the road map, we do claim to have a compass.  It points to the working class being the agent of change. We in the Socialist Party cannot make workers act but we can explain why they should and must take action.