“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” can be achieved
in today’s world only by a socialist revolution. The Socialist Party is a
Marxist party in that we understand that the interests of the capitalist class
and the working class are opposed and cannot be reconciled; that capitalism can
and must be ended and replaced; that the working people must capture the State then
build a socialist society. Reformism - the acceptance of the framework of the
capitalist economy and state - and seeking to "manage" capitalism has
always ended by leading the attacks on the working class. The attempt to travel
the road to socialism in small steps, to start it off through changes or
reforms which are possible under capitalism, leads inevitably to forgetting the
final aim and making the means an end in themselves. Reformist tactics have up
to now led to the the carrying out of reforms being by the leadership of
working class organisations, the politicians of the parliamentary parties thus
every successful reform strengthens the faith of the workers in ‘those in
power’, who can ‘get it done’, and to weaken the independence and consciousness
of the working class. Socialists call upon the consciousness, self-activity and
self-reliance of the workers and thus strengthening them in the class struggle.
Socialism will not be won by moving speeches and convincing
writings, nor will it come if we were to elevate the day-to-day struggles to
the exclusion of the fight to win the minds of the working class. We do suggest
that the outlook which sees these struggles as ends in themselves, will also
prove lacking. Our approach must be a synthesis of ideas and action. A socialist
party is needed to give the working people an understanding of the nature of
the capitalist system in which they live. Socialist understanding does not
arise by itself from the immediate struggles, however hard or
successful they may be. The working class does not develop a political,
socialist consciousness spontaneously, out of separate or even out of a series
of struggles or campaigns. The impact of a recession upon workers does not
immediately and automatically turn into class-consciousness, but only through
long drawn out theoretical education, propaganda and agitation. Without these,
sections of the working class can very easily develop a fascist consciousness
instead of a socialist one in a crisis. Everyone who has participated in a
strike knows that the strikers, however militant, do not automatically become socialists
as a result of their struggles. Socialist theory enables the Socialist Party to
present the interests of the whole of the working class and not of any one
section of it at the expense of others. This means that the Socialist Party
helps the working class to fight against narrow sectional advantage and to
fight for the unity of the working class.
We have no ready-made solutions to this problem which events have forced
upon us. We claim only that the problem must be faced: and there must be
discussion. The result of this discussion, we hope, will be to liberate great
political energies based on socialist principles. As in the case of the New
Model Army during the English Civil War against the monarchists, those soldiers,
“know what they fight for, and love what they know.”
The State is an instrument of power in the hands of the big
industrialists, bankers and landlords, who by this token are the ruling class.
The State is there to effect the exploitation and oppression of the workers. There
is war. It is class war. It is waged by the representatives of one class, the
oppressors, against the mass of another class, the oppressed. In this war, the
State is always and invariably on the side of the oppressors. Some of its
representatives may try to achieve the ends of capital by cajoling and
wheedling. But they always keep the big stick ready. The State — that is the
big stick of the owners of wealth, the big stick of the big corporations. This
is the only realistic view of the State. Everyone who tries to persuade you
that the State is your friend, your defender, that the State is impartial and
only “regulatory,” is misleading.
The winning of a majority in Parliament, supreme organ of state
power, is one of the essential steps. A primary task of the socialist
government would be to deprive capitalists of economic and political power. When
a socialist majority in Parliament is won it will need the support of the mass
movement outside Parliament to uphold the decisions. The working class and
popular movement will need to be ready to use its organised strength to prevent
or defeat attempts at violence against it.
Suppose you reject the case for socialism and decline to
organise for its establishment. Will the world stay just the same, will it move
forward, or will it go backwards? It is most important to understand what will
happen to capitalist society if it is not replaced by socialism. In every country, the crises of capitalism
makes life harder for people to endure. Silent obedience is made a “patriotic”
duty. Today under the austerity policies being imposed, the unemployed,
“maintained” by the government and are at the government’s mercy. They are
ordered to take any job, regardless of wages of working conditions, which it
instructs them to take. Although this may make the chains of wage-slavery
heavier and harder to bear, it does not lead to our extinction as a species.
Capitalism’s effects on the environment, however, does that very thing.
Socialism will also conserve the natural resources of the country which are now
being ruthlessly wasted in the mad capitalist race for profits.
We live in a world of enormous economic and social
contrasts. Although the potential exists to create wealth unimagined by
previous generations and distribute them around the world billions in the
developing countries have no safe water supply, lack sanitation and millions
suffer from chronic malnutrition. Capitalism is unable to tackle the problems
of the world because it is a system based on private ownership and individual
greed. Socialism remains the only alternative and this conclusion is not a case
of wishful thinking.
The capitalist class own most of industry, land, commerce,
the banks and the mass media. The overwhelming majority of people can live only
by selling their labour power to a capitalist employer, or to the state. Under
capitalism, the price of commodities that workers produce reflects the average
labour time taken to produce them, including their inputs (raw materials,
power, wear and tear of machinery etc.) But the revenue that capitalists
receive from the sale of those commodities is more than enough to pay the wages
bill, other production costs, taxes and renewed investment. The
balance—capitalist profit—goes mostly in dividends to shareholder capitalists,
in rent to landowning capitalists and in interest payments to money-lending
capitalists. Where does this capitalist profit come from? It is the value
created by the company workforce, over and above the value of their wages.
Workers, for example, create almost twice the value of their wages. The portion
they do not receive back in wages or social benefits is the ‘surplus value’
kept by their employers. Here is the source of capitalist profit, and in this
way workers are exploited under capitalism.
As employers seek to minimise costs and to squeeze more
surplus value out of their workforce, they will try to hold down wages while
also investing in machinery and equipment that saves labour costs and enables
them to produce commodities more cheaply than their competitors. As the price
of a commodity is determined largely by the average labour time taken to
produce it, companies producing it at below average cost and value will make
extra profits at the expense of the high-cost ones. In the state sector,
workers in local government and the civil and public services are also engaged
in a struggle with employers. Lower costs and higher productivity of labour
will keep public expenditure down—which means lower taxes, less pressure to
increase wages and therefore bigger net profits in the private sector. Whether
in the private or public sector, it is in the interests of the capitalist class
to reduce labour costs by employing workers who can be discriminated against on
the basis of their race, gender, or age. Divisions within the working class on
these and other grounds assist the capitalists to force down the general level
of wages and other labour-related costs. That is why it is in the interests of
all workers to unite against discrimination and inequality.
In a world-wide rush for profit capitalism has ravaged the
resources and environment of the earth for more than a century. Widespread
pollution of the air, soil, rivers, lakes and seas is but one of the
consequences. Global warming and its ‘greenhouse effect’ threaten a greater
incidence of climatic instability, crop failure and flooding. Destruction of
the rain-forests is driving plant and animal species to extinction. We must move
towards an overall system of production in which waste is either eliminated or
reduced to an absolute minimum. The atmosphere, the oceans and the land can no
longer be treated as a dustbin. Waste must either be recycled or used as a
starting point for other processes. Where this is not possible in a particular
process of production, that process may have to be abandoned or replaced by an
alternative one. At all times, the effects of human activity on the environment
will have to be carefully monitored, and research carried out to deal with
problems as they arise. This applies to agriculture as much as to industry. The
change to a closed system of waste-free production is incompatible with the existence
of an unplanned capitalist economy dominated by the monopolies. Their drive for
maximum and short-term profit takes precedence over the long-term consequences
for the environment. The drive for private capitalist profit is an in-built
obstacle to greater environmental protection. It regards ‘green’ policies as a
drain on potential profits and dividends. It leads to the wasteful levels of
consumption of raw materials seen today in the highly industrialised world.
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