Understanding Capitalism

When looking at all of our social problems, from miserable working conditions to poverty to environmental destruction to crime to discrimination to democracy -- when looking at all of this, we struggle with a reason why it must happen. And then it occurs, almost as clear as daylight that this happens because we are not in control of our own world. The farms and the factories, the police departments and the parliaments, the army and the navy, all of it is for the glory, the power, and the benefit of a very few. The only thing that guarantees this is possession of society's productive forces. It is because the wealthy own all of the land and all of the productive instruments that they may cause these problems. It is because the capitalist is given a choice that discrimination occurs; it is because the capitalist is given a profit incentive that environmental destruction occurs; it is because the capitalist cannot profit by well-satisfied working class that unemployment occurs. Our goal is to make revolution, overthrow the capitalist system and build socialism. Reformists projects the idea that the capitalist state can be a shield for the rights of the people against the reality itself which proves that the capitalist state is a class state, serving the employing and promotes attacks upon the working class. Reformists provide an alibi to capitalism that fosters illusions and serve its perpetuation with the claim that the capitalist system can be tamed and could be a benefit to working people. A humanised capitalism is impossible to exist. If our definition of capitalism/socialism is just private/public ownership then we're overlooking so many necessary factors in the economy, namely and most importantly the mode of production.

"But, the transformation — either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership — does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious. And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine — the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is, rather, brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution."

Does commodity production, wage labour, the law of value, commodity production for profit, etc, cease to exist freely once that state takes ownership of the means of production? Of course not. Marx and Engels for many people are simply old fashioned and out of date, full of complicated, boring theory with long words which in practice is waste of time and we need something new. How wrong they are. Marx’s ideas can be understood by anyone who takes the trouble to study them. They are not mechanical or needlessly abstract, but contain important truths about history and human society. They are not old fashioned because they explain the world today. They are not boring because they are about revolution. The conclusion Marx and Engels drew was that practice and real action – not just ideas – were the key to the future.

Few people own anything at all, except clothes, furniture and possibly a house. What can you expect from a human being who is starving or freezing to death? In a single word, you can expect desperation. For the capitalist, this is good. It makes the worker accept lower and lower wages -- it makes the individual obedient while watching their children suffer undernourishment.

If the economy of a society is corrupted, then no institution can escape this taint. The oligarchs and the plutocrats determine the hours of work, the rates of wages, the prices of products, whether a factory shall function or stand idle, whether a field shall be harvest or its crops left to rot.  Every politician has been bought and paid for by campaign donations in order to gain votes in an electoral system, must spread their master’s message on the media. Political leaders may be voted upon by the masses, but they are presented to the public by the powerful wealthy interests, and the owners of media. They have a system of checks and balances to ensure the right type of politician is elected.

We are alienated from society. We do not control the elected officials. We do not have the right to dictate the terms of our working conditions. We do not have the right to make or pass laws or to veto or reject those passed against us. It is because we have no control over the economy that we need to live that we become so powerless in the face of such great poverty. And we are alienated, not just from society's productive instruments, but from the very act of genuine life in society itself! Anything wedo, from the organization of our workplace to interacting with others once weleave work, is done in an artificial consumerist society -- we are responsible for producing everything that we experience, but none of it is done by our own will or direction. We are the puppets in the dream of a capitalist, but for us it is a nightmare. If we don't overthrow capitalism, we don't have a chance of saving the world ecologically. All over the world, the struggle of the working class goes on. Socialist ideas hold out the hope of a totally different, exciting future and explain how to make it a reality.