The Tories and the Labour Party are two sides of one coin. The only difference between them is that the Tories are in office and Labour are in opposition. If one understands this, then it is not difficult to grasp the meaning and purpose of the two parties. They are both employed by the same master – the City of London corporations. But, of course, these parties do not say the same things or act identically. There is a division of labour between them. The fact that they have special and different duties to perform towards their common master. The Conservative party directs all its statements and actions towards maintaining the status quo (the capitalist system) but also to defend the methods employed during their tenure of office, to perpetuate the system. The task that falls to Labour is to take charge of discontent and to steer it into harmless channels. But both parties make no bones about their job is - to ensure people don’t see things as they actually are. Both will claim it is not the capitalist system that is responsible for the unprecedented and the unparalleled misery. The profit system, they explain, is perfect and eternal. They will, however, concede that some greedy capitalists have misused and abused their “precious” system. And this is the main plank in Labour’s opposition. The crisis is due to the Tories austerity, wage cuts and unemployment policies – Tory maladministration. Vote the Tories out, put us in, and everything will be hunky-dory, Jeremy Corbyn proclaims. Yet he will stand by capitalism to his dying day and pose as a saviour of the workers. He will restore employment, improve present conditions and afford permanent relief to the people. There is nothing in his programme that could accomplish such a miracle. Labour have nothing but fake promises and polished words.
The duties of a socialist are to probe, to criticise, to fight exploitation of man by man, to stand on the side of social justice and the common good. That wealth exists on this planet in abundance is well known. But the distribution of this wealth proceeds according to the social relations of society. These are capitalist relations, resting upon the capitalist ownership and control of the means of production. Jeremy Corbyn proclaims in grandiose style for the redistribution of wealth, but he is equally vociferous in his proclamations for the maintenance of the present social relationship. The Labour Party plan is for these relations to remain, and the wealth would be redistributed by cutting down on the big fortunes and adding to the small ones or giving to those that have none. But this is impossible under capitalism since the ownership and control of the means of production determines the form of distribution of all wealth. So far this has meant and can only mean ever greater riches for the parasites and ever greater impoverishment for those who toil, who have nothing but their labour power to sell – and to sell only when the bosses see fit to buy. What is the cause of this condition; what is the cause of this unequal distribution of wealth? The cause is to be found in the ownership and control of the means of production. This system secures the right to exploit workers by leaving in the hands of the capitalist class also the ownership of the surplus value produced by the employee over and above what he or she receives as wages. This is how profits are acquired. Moreover, under the conditions of mass production, and in order to continue the process of production. In other words, sufficient only for their bare upkeep when they have jobs. Of course, the abundance of wealth available could easily guarantee to each family, as some reformist politicians propose, a guaranteed universal income of whatever. But this is equally impossible under the profit system and decent living standards can be obtained only when the profit system is abolished.
The “progressive”programme assumes the continuation of the right to exploitation, however, with the added hope that an increase of the purchasing power of the consumers returns to investors so unearned incomes may continue; so that dividends on shares may be paid and profits continue to be taken out of the exploitation of labour that now may proceed uninterrupted. There are no other sources for profits to come from. What is this but the stabilisation of the system of exploitation? To stabilise the system of exploitation means to stabilise the economic power of the class that owns and controls the means of production. Furthermore, it is well to remember that political relations are governed by this economic power which is another way of saying that those who own are also those who rule. They use their economic power to build up their political state, to build up their government and to reinforce it by courts, by police and by military forces, always ready to be used against the workers when on strike or in other forms of struggle and on a whole serving for the purpose of keeping the masses in subjection. This government, Corbyn proposes to entrust with the redistribution of wealth. They will not consent to any redistribution of their wealth acquired by exploitation without a fierce struggle. They will not even permit the workers to organise into unions so as to obtain a living wage without the most stubborn resistance. They will not yield their economic power, as represented by their accumulated wealth, or give up their privilege to exploit workers without a life and death struggle. They’ll use their economic and political power to determine who will be elected to the public office. A real redistribution of wealth and a real social security can be carried out in no other way than by the overthrow of the system of capitalism. That is not at all the purpose of the Labour Party and its leftist followers. Only the working class revolution can accomplish that.
No man is good enough to be another man's master
No comments:
Post a Comment