The alternative is socialism

There is now a tendency for the many varied strands of the workers' movement to begin to challenge the system as a whole. Today, people are coming together to discuss what to do and the potential is there for something much more significant. There is now a serious debate about how to make the world better. Out of this, a new socialist movement may be born. We cannot lead our lives looking backward and we must look forwards into a future where we can believe that we can fashion a better world that will encompass all our dreams and aspirations. We have little choice but to go forward with revolutionary hope and optimism. Capitalism remains a danger to the future of all humanity. Only the struggle for socialism can avert this danger. If humanity is to have a future our choice is to change society. There is a hope. In this world of chaos and destruction, socialism still shines with potential. Not the ceaseless, endless wars, the dictatorial brutality which capitalism promises; but the peace, the freedom, the human brotherhood which socialism alone can bring. That is our road. That is the path on which we travel. Our destination is world socialism, liberty, peace, and plenty. Sanity is possible on this earth - THROUGH SOCIALISM.

Today capitalism is in a mess. You’d expect that the Left would be weaker when capitalism was doing alright, and stronger when capitalism was doing badly and when an alternative, was clearly necessary. But, it’s the other way round. That suggests the Left is not a fundamentally anti-capitalist movement, but a progressive movement within capitalism, able to grow when capitalism is able to accommodate social progress, but with no alternative to offer when capitalism forces a retreat. The Left are even reduced to defending capitalism when trying to persuade others to become active. For example, they want people to take to the streets against the Tory government’s policies. So they say those policies are the cause of all our troubles. The Tory economists explain basic principles of Marxist political economy. They say (not in so many words) that there’s a world capitalist economic crisis and there is nothing their or any other government can do about it. In such a situation people have no choice but to put up with lower real wages and welfare cut-backs. After all, it’s happening everywhere, so it can’t be the fault of the government. Rather than agree that capitalism doesn’t work and suggest that therefore we ought to get rid of it, the Left, instead, insist that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with capitalism and it’s all the Tory’s fault, and argue that if only the government followed different policies, it would be possible to have rising real living standards, improving health, education and welfare, and what have you. They’re lying. We know they’re lying, their opponents know they’re lying and most important, the people they’re asking to take to the streets to protest know they’re lying, so naturally they don’t come.

If slaves go on demanding that their masters improve their rations, they deserve to remain slaves, because they accept having masters and they, therefore, accept slavery. We have to build a movement to overthrow our masters, and run the world ourselves, and solve its problems ourselves, instead of demanding that our masters find some solution for us. We need to present a clear alternative to capitalism, an inspiring alternative that people really want to work for, a practical alternative that can really work. The alternative is socialism.

But if that’s what we’re fighting for, why can’t we spell out (at least in broad outline), just what it means, and how we propose getting there? Why does the Left always avoid the issue and just talk about how bad things are now and propose some half-measures? Are we afraid that socialism isn’t very attractive and appealing enough?  When you look closely at the sort of “alternative” most people on the Left really want, it’s not surprising they don’t want to talk about it much and prefer just denouncing capitalism. Some environmentalists on the Left actually want to regress and go backwards to a life of low technology and “rustic simplicity”. Some others on the Left envisage a kind of authoritarian regime with their Party as the new bosses. Most though just want some of the most glaring injustices of capitalist society to be resolved. They want better jobs, housing, education and so forth, and they want some major upheaval so seek the Scandinavian “solution”.

But a few actually have a vision of a better world, with fundamentally different social relations. Being united against the Tories isn’t a great point of unity. We need something deeper. As a first step, we need to talk seriously to each other and examine and criticize each other’s ideas in a comradely way.