The goal of liberation: capitalism or socialism?

The overthrow of the capitalist system can free the tremendous potential energy of the people. The resurgence of the anti-capitalist movement has provoked important debates. Power resides in the ownership of capital where the capitalist elite controls the mass media, the educational system, and all the means of indoctrination in capitalist ideology. This ruling class exercises power through the state machine which they control — the army, the police, the courts, the upper echelons of the civil service, all tied to the corporate bosses by a thousand strings.

People are frequently fact-resistant and don't want to acknowledge reality. We face geo-political uncertainties, such as access to food, water security, and energy supplies. There are a whole series of other problems like the demographics of ageing. Those with power tend to defer problems, pushing them into the future. For example, climate change summits would rather postpone decisions than implement solutions to it. We're experiencing extreme weather conditions which impact on food production, and many other things. All we're doing is piling these problems up. And as we do this, the problems get bigger.

Today’s politicians such as Corbyn and Sanders attempt at “refashioning” socialism into “practical applicable” programmes to meet the needs of the times but it has resulted in the disappearance of basic principles by which the socialist movement was originally inspired. The Welfare State has nothing whatever to do with socialism and constitutes no revolution. It did not originate with the Labour Party and was not opposed by any party. It is not a party issue. That the Tories voted against the Welfare State is not true. Social reform in history has always been a process of tidying up when the cruder forms of exploitation have ceased to pay dividends. There is no exception to this. “The State is the people" is a popular misconception that lives on. It is still widely held that the State embodies the whole community. The illusion is fostered that it is “our” country, “our” government. In fact, the country is owned by a privileged minority. Nationally the State protects the interests of capitalism, and in doing so frequently has to over-ride sectional capitalist interests. To establish socialism, the working class must organise to win control of the state and turn it from the instrument of oppression which it is today into the agent of their emancipation. This principle asserts the conscious, majority, political nature of the socialist revolution. There are things that Parliament and political power can do and there are things they cannot do. Parliament does control the State; it does not control the economic forces that are capitalism. The working class doesn’t need political power to form a government and try to run capitalism but to force the capitalist class to surrender their privileges. The experience of the non-socialist, reformist, using political action is no argument against the conscious, majority applying political action for socialism.

The Socialist Party has no specific objection to particular reforms. We live in a capitalist world that must be allowed to work or we starve. But we do object to the substitution of reforms for what we are supposed to stand for and the consequent neglect of more fundamental things. Especially do we object to calling the social benefits system socialism. The fact is that the Welfare State implies the continued existence of the inherited and the disinherited—Disraeli’s “Two Nations.” It is made a substitute for socialism on the ground that it involves a redistribution of national income. But socialism is not the redistribution of money income. It is production for use and the distribution of that. Socialism cannot be properly garbed as capitalism.

At every election, the illusion is served up that here is a fresh opportunity at last to solve the problems which have been a burden for so long with a series of reform measures, legislation regulating capitalist practices. In spite of the enduring failure of all varieties of political parties to overcome such problems as war, poverty and the general chaos that is a constant feature of capitalism, the Labour and Tory, Democratic and Republican parties will go blindly and blandly into elections as if the experiences of the past had never occurred. Once again, there will be the cheap trade in promises. Once again, there will be the contrived differences between parties who are united in their defence of capitalism. Once again, there will be the complete failure to face up to the realities of life. Once again, the politics of personalities, gimmickry and opportunism will take precedence over a serious understanding of the difficulties besetting society. Their records make a mockery of their claims to be the way towards of social improvement. Their past policies are an indictment which no amount of hollow phrase-mongering can overcome. For all their talk of progress and modernisation, their ideas and actions are imprisoned by the limitations of the status quo—that is—capitalist society.

Although the life of the whole community depends on the way in which the means of production are utilised, all reformist politicians agree that they should be geared to the profit motive. They agree that the working class should continue to live only by selling their labour-power to the owners of industry. They are agreed on protecting the root cause of the problems facing mankind. So far as preserving the fundamental features of capitalist society are concerned, the Labour, Tory, Republican and Democratic parties are of one accord. There will be promises to solve the problems of housing, urban chaos, poverty and international conflict by those who have failed in the past and who cannot but fail in the future. At stake is whether or not the majority of the population will continue to acquiesce in a society of which they are victims. By voting for any of them, the working class will endorse their own exploited economic position. This is the basic conditioning factor of modern life. The trivial controversy between the large parties will avoid this fundamental issue.

The working class hold political power through the vote, they have yet to use it in their own interests. It is a power that can only be fully realised when the working class have the knowledge and determination to end capitalist society. The Socialist Party does not play at politics. It does not pander to prejudice; it does not flatter ignorance; it does not dilute its case in the pursuit of cheap popularity. The Socialist Party does not offer the corrupt relationship of the leader and the led; it offers an understanding of society and the fraternal association of men and women who are equipped with knowledge, and who know what they want and how to get it. We know that compromise will defeat the sane and rational ends to which we are committed. The message of the Socialist Party is a positive one. In addressing ourselves to working men and women, we embrace all those who make a contribution to the wealth and well-being of society, be they factory workers, doctors, technicians or labourers. Only they can rebuild the world to make it a fit place to live in, but not by electing a government to administer capitalism. For too long have their skills and talents been used by a privileged minority to create profit and private luxury. For too long has humanity been subject to the crippling limitations of production for sale. It is not enough to struggle to defend living standards under capitalism. These workers must join the World Socialist Movement to capture political power so to take over industry itself and convert all the means that society has developed for producing wealth to the property of the whole community. Thus commonly owned and democratically controlled, the means of production can serve the needs of the whole community. This action must presuppose any attempt to deal in a practical way with the problems of our time.