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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