Crapitalism or socialism?

You are working for a boss. You are his “hands.” He uses you to make profit. How is this profit possible at all? Because he makes you work more than is necessary to defray your wages. In other words, when you work you are not only reproducing the value of your own up-keep but you are also producing surplus value which goes to the owner. The quicker the pace of your work, the more surplus value you produce within a given time. The capitalist will sell the produced commodity in the market. He will sell it at the price fixed, not by himself individually, but by the market of which he is a part. If he can produce more cheaply than his competitor, his profits will be greater. This is why he drives you on to work faster and faster. This is why he introduces labour-saving new technology which results in increased unemployment or under-employment. This is why he uses efficiency experts of every kind. He calls it industrial progress, but he doesn’t think of progress at all. He thinks of profits. Every other manufacturer thinks of profits. Every other manufacturer speeds his workers ever faster and introduces newer and better machines. The result is that ever greater numbers of workers are being displaced, while the production capacity of the plants is enormously increased. The numbers of actually employed workers grow smaller. The production capacity of the factories and plants grows bigger. It is the madness called capitalism. It is the outcome of an insane system where wealth is owned, not by those who produce it, but by those who do not produce anything, who have amassed it out of the work of others under the protection of the law; a system where production is directed, not towards satisfying human wants, but towards making profits for the owners of wealth. This is capitalism in its modern form. This is capitalism. Progress running amuck, built on crushed human bones and on oceans of blood, sweat, and tears of the many, devouring itself and devouring untold human lives. Expansion made possible by killing and maiming huge masses of innocent people. Scientific advances are made to serve the purpose of destruction. Security for the non-producers; starvation for the producers. The elite parasites held in great esteem and respected; the workers downtrodden and despised.

You have had a job for a number of years. Your pay was not high, but you managed to get along. You were a faithful worker. You never shirked. Perhaps you saved up a few dollar to buy a house, get married and raise a family. You were decent, law-abiding. One fine morning you are told your services are no longer needed. In plain words: you are fired. You are thrown out. There is a recession, they say. Your employer has no more need for you. He is cutting back on production, or he is shutting his plant altogether so to open another factory where operating costs are lower. While he leaves you without a livelihood, he continues to have a good time in plenty of luxury. No cut-backs in his opulent life-style. He no longer cares what will happen to you. A company has no obligations towards its ex-employees.

But think on. You were not a stranger to his factory or mill or shop. You and the likes of you built its success. You and the likes of you have created all the machinery, all the raw material and all the fuel which is necessary to run an industry. You and the likes of you are the real power that puts life into the dead matter of every industrial undertaking. It was your blood, your sweat, your muscle and your brain that produced everything that came out of that factory. You staked much into his establishment — your whole life. It is yours, more than any owner's or investor’s. It was part of your very being.

The solution to capitalism's many problems is socialism, a democratic system of society where the wealth is owned and controlled by the people who produce it. In a cooperative society we can pool our abilities and resources to create more for everyone, and to share it out fairly. Capitalism is the control of the means of production by a small minority who organise the wealth they control to their own advantage, and to the disadvantage of the people who work for them. Capitalism, the rule of the rich minority, is the enemy. The State is an instrument of power in the hands of the big industrialists, bankers and landlords, who by this token are the ruling class. The State is there to effect the exploitation and oppression of the workers and the poor.

The State is the executive committee and the strong arm of entrenched wealthy. There is war. It is class war. It is waged by the representatives of one class, the oppressors, against the mass of another class, the oppressed.  In this war, the State is always and invariably on the side of the oppressors. Some of its representatives may try to achieve the ends of capital by cajoling and wheedling. But they always keep the big stick ready. The State — that is the tool of the owners of wealth, the weapon of the big corporations. Everyone who tries to persuade you that the State is your friend, your defender, that the State is impartial and only “regulatory,” is lying to you. Under capitalism, you cannot protect both “industry” (meaning the capitalists) and labour (meaning the workers)! When you protect “industry” you give it freedom to exploit “labour”. The State may change its appearance. The form changes and the phraseology differs according to time and place but the essence remains. The essence of the capitalist State is service in the employ of capitalism for the preservation of capitalism. It may use the parliamentary system, with a limited freedom of speech to opponents — as long as this opposition is not too dangerous. It tightens the screw and tries to silence the opposition when the situation becomes too threatening to the capitalists.

Reformists are often dissatisfied with the functioning of the State. They sometimes see and point out its “shortcomings.” They do not close their eyes to the fact that there is inequality. But what do they propose to do? They propose a little tinkering here and there. But propose nothing to do with the very nature of the State as a bulwark of private property and capitalist exploitation. The reformist does not touch upon the fundamentals of the capitalist State, namely, it being an instrument of power in the hands of the big owners of wealth. Radical reformists sometimes wax eloquent in denouncing the evils of the capitalist system. But what do they propose? They propose to “improve” the capitalist State. Improve the State to make it more flexible, more adaptable to circumstances and you have made it a better instrument of oppression. The reformists say there is no need of a revolution, no need for the expropriation of the exploiters. Our dispute with the reformists is not a dispute in words and policies. It is a clash in class politics. Do not call us vindictive when we say that the reformist politicians are traitors to the working class. We merely call a spade a spade. We are realists. They spread illusions among the workers to the effect that by using the instrumentality of the capitalist state, they can abolish the evils of capitalist oppression. Their palliatives are not harmless, but a poisonous theory. It is a smoke screen behind which cruel capitalist exploitation is hiding.

The Socialist Party never for a moment loses sight of the goal of the movement — the destruction of the capitalist system. The Socialist Party says the huge waste of human energy and human resources under capitalism, this colossal amount of human suffering, this humiliation of starving in the midst of plenty, this living in the dumping grounds of big cities at a time when humanity knows already how to build palaces, this debacle which is worse than war and pestilence, can be avoided. Life can be made liveable. Life can be made a continuous and uninterrupted stream of cultural growth. This can be achieved only by the working class rising to take over and organise society on a new basis. This basis is socialism.