Social Revolution NOT Social Reforms

In previous revolutions, the cry was “the king is dead, long live the king” when the lawyers and lackeys, the profiteers and opportunists, on the look out for personal advancement and positions of authority took political power and assumed political influence. Once in power, they feathered their own beds and offered their services to the industrial barons and financial lords. Many say times are changing and the old politics are being transformed or breaking up with new ones are taking their place. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Reformism regards socialism as a remote goal and nothing more, and actually repudiates the socialist revolution and advocates not class struggle, but class collaboration. Reformism is a policy of relying on gradual change and making things a little bit better, slowly. It develops out of faith in the fair-mindedness of the ruling class. Reforms are regarded as a partial realisation of socialism. Reformism is a belief in the possibility of major improvement in conditions under capitalism, and a rejection of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.

Have the reforms the State was forced to make in the fields of union organisation, occupational health and safety, day care, abortion, etc., enabled the “vast majority of workers to participate directing in the exercise of power”? What has happened to the various experiences of self-management in the work-places? We would not try to imply that the accumulation of these reforms gave the working class more power, that it brought the working class closer to socialism. We do not think we will capture the state machinery by nibbling away at it gradually, bit by bit. Reformism is the illusion that a gradual dismantling of the power of Capital is possible. First of all, you nationalise 20 percent, then 30 percent, then 50 percent, then 60 percent of the capitalist property. In this way, the economic power of Capital is dissolved little by little. Reformism is therefore essentially gradualist. Eduard Bernstein defined it with his celebrated formula: “the movement is everything, the end is nothing”. In contrast, Daniel De Leon called the reformists the “labour lieutenants of Capital”. They seldom emerged from the ruling class but come from the working class organisations of the workers’ movement. Being powerless to change by themselves the course of evolution, people placed their hope again in these representatives who institutionalised class collaboration to increase their slice of the cake. This increase implies some sacrifices from the capitalists who appreciate the fact that the reformist leaders provide relative stability. But, always as good businessmen, the ruling class want to know what extent is the price that has to be paid to justify surrendering some of their profits and the ruling class is always divided on this subject. Reforms like the welfare state were the price to pay to avoid possible revolution. Now, many capitalists have decided that under changed circumstances it is the price they no longer wish to pay and believe that there are other ways to manage the system. The less of a threat to their existence then the less need to buy off the working class. The employers’ policy of austerity to restore profitability did not result in a return of militancy. No compromise, no concession, required, except perhaps on minimum or living wages.

Many times in history people lived in 'objectively' poor economic conditions, suffered hunger, disease, slavery, all kinds of indignity, but this did not lead to social mobilization of the kind that we have witnessed. This is because most of the time we accept our conditions of social existence or perhaps even see them as inevitable. We are not aware that our consent is necessary for the status quo to continue even when not in our interests. In other words, objective circumstances, however unjust, on their own cannot trigger collective social action. We don't think crises are necessarily an opportunity because things can go from bad to worse. For change to happen there needs to be an understanding our conditions as no longer tenable. Socialism is essentially about democratising power over decision making within society, both through the principle of common ownership and the principle of self-management. Socialism embodies participatory principles.

Every struggle of the working class, however, limited it may be, by increasing its self-confidence and education, undermines reformism. Capitalism can no longer afford reforms that improve the life of the mass of people, reformism as a powerful ideology within the workers’ movement is disappearing, although not as quickly as we would wish to see its demise. It is not an era of social reforms that we hope for, it is the great epoch of social revolution that we aspire towards!

Eugene V; Debs proclaimed:

“It’s better to vote for what you want, knowing that you have little chance of getting it than to vote for what you don’t want, knowing that you are sure to get it.”