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Thursday, January 21, 2016

The Battle of Ideas


“Let those desert us who will because we refuse to shut the international door in the faces of their own brethren; we will be none the weaker but all the stronger for their going, for they evidently have no clear conception of the international solidarity, are wholly lacking in the revolutionary spirit, and have no proper place in the Socialist movement while they entertain such aristocratic notions of their own assumed superiority.” - Eugene Debs

Capitalism draws invisible lines across the planet and say that any human on one side of the line can have dreams, but any human on the other side of the line, can only live in a nightmare, people will think about crossing that imaginary line. All workers are our fellow-workers, fully deserving our sympathy, support, and solidarity.

We don't need leaders. That is capitalist ideology speaking. In capitalism human welfare does not only come second place to profits, but it sometimes has to be sacrificed to it. Politicians (regardless of how well-meaning or sincere sounding), whether Left, Right, Green or Tartan can only manage this state of affairs. It is only a politically aware working class itself, self-organised for the ending of capitalism, can change this. It is not possible to lead workers to the Promised Land. A socialist society will only come into being from the actions of the immense majority. Protest demonstrations and rallies may make us feel like we are 'doing something', but it’s an illusion. The real battle is over ideas: the ideas in the heads of those who do all the work but get little reward. That's why the rich and powerful spend so much time trying to suppress and ridicule any idea of an alternative. The world is rich enough. We can have a world where free access to wealth replaces the market where useful work is to be enjoyed rather than endured, and where no individual can monopolise access to wealth. Armed with knowledge, humanity can finally start to demand the possible. Socialism will see we all have democratic control over 'things' such as resources, where we will delegate, with instant recall where necessary, rather than have elected representatives ruling over us.

Reforms gained in ‘good’ times will be snatched away in the ‘bad’ times, as capitalism cannot function without workers desperate for a job, so they are always to be kept in managed penury actual and relative. The job of capitalist politicians is to gain your assent to be governed and managed over. You cannot have humane capitalism, no matter who are the leaders of the parties are. It is way past time that workers stopped selling their votes to political parties to govern 'over' them on the promise of reform and opted to make the post-capitalist, commonly owned, free access society where they run things for and by themselves, in political and economic equality without classes or political overlords. Government is only necessary to protect privileged class ownership, be it private, corporate or state. They manage 'us' after gaining consent to do so, by promises and trickery at general elections. Governments and their politicians are the buffer between the capitalist parasite class and the productive wealth-producing working class. Reforms of capitalism and nominal redistribution, can only occur when we are in boom times and they will be clawed back when the inevitable slump occurs. Capitalism cannot be reformed. Its cycles of boom and bust are integral features of it. Reformist solutions are akin to putting sticking plaster on a cancerous growth. In any subsequent downturn, such as presently, the capitalist class will reduce wages to a level where it becomes once again profitable to risk their capital (stolen surplus value from previous exploitation of workers) in the further exploitation of workers. Until the markets pick up the capitalist class will sit on their loot if they can't see exploitative opportunities elsewhere, as capitalism is global. No amount of tinkering with capitalism, be it the pretence of free market libertarianism, (still retains the state and its repressive and ideological apparatus of governments over the workers) and wage war to protect, gain or plunder, resources, raw materials and markets (the two world wars last century were not about goodies versus baddies), or Keynesian pretence that capitalism has manageability with more or less equitable outcomes, can change or reform capitalism.

Capitalism has to be replaced by a new society. We can make a democratic revolution – but only based on real understanding of how capitalism works against our interests, and how reforms of capitalism will always be offered in order to distract us. You just cannot challenge capitalism and reform it at the same time. Abolish the wages system. Time to get off your knees. A social revolution is required for a true post-capitalism. There is no need of a ‘minimum programme’ of palliatives in order to con workers into supporting a Left party. Power won't be captured and handed back to the people. The state will be taken by the people using its democracy in order that its guns are not turned against them. It will be shorn of its oppressive apparatus, not to be reconstituted once more, but to be eliminated, this will be the legitimization of what will already be taking place in the wider community. The Left do not represent the working class except as a vehicle to be used for gaining power. They can objectively represent business interests once elected, and attempt to gain workers acquiescence in their own exploitation. The Left while ostensibly claiming to act in the interests of workers, really are a part of capitalism, albeit in the most extreme versions, i.e. pro-nationalisation statist capitalist version of the same disguised exploitation. Workers have to deny and despise these attempts to control them. The socialist revolution will be fundamentally different from all previous revolutions. What was at stake before was the freedom of one class to exploit the rest of society. Today, working class emancipation from the bonds of capital will mean the emancipation of all mankind. The production of wealth is the cooperative effort of untold millions and the potential capacity of that production is unprecedented. The production of wealth is the cooperative effort of untold millions and the potential capacity of that production is unprecedented. No person need go short of anything. Under capitalism, productivity has increased dramatically but the fruits for the producers have only been slow and grudging: for this is a capitalist world and the ruling class can only be expected to look after their own interests. We must look after ours, by working for socialism.

"...the more the proletariat matures towards its self-emancipation, the more does it constitute itself as a separate class and elect its own representatives in place of the capitalists. Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It can and never will be that in the modern State. But that is sufficient. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage reaches its boiling point among the labourers, they as well as the capitalists will know what to do.” - Engels

“I believe that the Socialists will certainly send members to Parliament when they are strong enough to do so; in itself I see no harm in that, so long as it is understood that they go there as rebels, and not as members of the governing body prepared to pass palliative measures to keep Society alive.” - William Morris

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