“We can reclaim Labour” is the message being put out by the left-wing supporters of Jeremy Corbyn but what can be expected from a new Labour government? Not socialism, that’s for sure. The Corbyn programme is left reformist in its aims and methods: it does not involve the expropriation of the capitalist class. The Labour Party has always served the needs of the capitalist system. The rhetoric would be different from the Tories; the substance would be the same. Common sense confirms this. The evidence is plain to see, not just in Labour’s past record but in the actions taken by left-wing governments elsewhere in the past few years. It is clear from the record that the election of a Labour government in no way guarantees benefits for the working class, let alone advance towards socialism. Labourites could be described as believers in utopian capitalism, a profit system without inherent contradictions. It never has existed – it never will. The working class may have won benefits such as the NHS set up in the years after 1945 But Labour has been just as willing to cut back that welfare provision, when the needs of British capitalism demands it. A Labour government is dependent on the willingness, or unwillingness, of the capitalist class to make concessions. Capitalism is no mutual benefit society, however, and the record shows that concessions have to be fought for and they are conceded when the employers fear the strength and militancy of the working class. The key to working-class progress lies in the power and activity of the working class itself. The only real solution for the working class is the socialist revolution.
The only kind of politics that is going to work is a do-it-yourself politics aimed at abolishing the profit-system. Democracy means participating in the running of affairs, not following leaders. Real democracy is not possible under capitalism where a minority own and control the means of production and are therefore more equal than the rest of us and where the mechanisms of the profit system work to frustrate what people vote for from being carried out. The only way everybody can participate and have a genuinely equal say in how things are run is in a classless society based on common ownership. This is still our position and the message we would put over.
We look forward to a society where buying and selling have no place, to a truly social world where each contributes such work as they are able and all may take freely from the store of wealth created. Socialist society is not a dream, but something for which the development of capitalism has prepared production. Remove the vast unproductive apparatus and you can see what a flood of labour power and resources would be available for useful production in a socialist society. Socialist freedom means the ability to accommodate all the many and varied styles of living, different production systems, plus the many special and overall concerns that grab people in their interactions with the social and physical environment.
In the social and economic crises that engulf the planet, there is only one solution. That solution is the mass struggle of the World’s workers. The direction of that struggle to establish the rule of the working class, that is of the vast majority. In socialism, all means of production will be common property. There will be no classes and no class struggle. The consequences of class-divided society – racism, nationalism male chauvinism, will all have disappeared. There will be no wars, no armies, and no need for weapons of war, which will become historical curiosities. There will be no distinction between mental and manual work. Socialism will be a life of material and cultural abundance. Contradictions between people will remain, but these will not be antagonistic and will be resolved by mutual cooperation.
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