The Democracy We Want is Social Democracy

WORLD SOCIALISM NOT GLOBAL CAPITALISM

In Britain we can say what they want and do what they want within very broad limits, and our children can study hard in school and college so they can graduate and join the well-off professional class as doctors, lawyers or engineers, but when it comes to social power most of us have very little if we are not a part of the privileged elite. Who has predominant power in the UK? The short answer is those who have the money - or more specifically, who own income-producing land and businesses - have the power i.e., corporations and banks and they have plenty of help from the managers and experts they hire. How do they rule? Again, the short answer is through open and direct involvement in policy planning, through participation in political campaigns and elections, and through appointments to key decision-making positions in government. Certainly, "democracy" as it currently stands has become an ideology used to give capitalist rule a spurious legitimacy. But it is still sufficient to allow the working class to organise politically and economically and we would argue, to allow a future socialist majority to gain control of political power.

 Domination by the few does not mean complete control. Workers, when we are organised, sometimes have been able to gain concessions on wages, hours, and working conditions. While voting does not necessarily make government responsive to the will of the majority, under certain circumstances the electorate has been able to place restraints on the actions of the wealthy elites or to decide which elites will have the greatest influence on policy.   This is especially a possibility when there are disagreements and disputes within the higher circles of wealth and influence, as there clearly is with Brexit.

How is it possible that the working class could be relatively powerless in a country that prides itself on its long-standing history of voting and elections?  Many people would argue that Britain is a democracy and that we all benefit from living in a democratic society. By this they mean the regular elections to parliament and local councils, the freedom to organise political parties, a press which is not beholden to the government, and the rule of law. If people object to the policies of the government or a particular MP, they can vote them out of office.  Do the trappings of democracy really guarantee a truly democratic way of life? Do they ensure rule by the people? It is true that the vote, together with other hard-won rights such as the rights of assembly, political organisation and free expression, are most important. But can the act of electing a government result in a democratic society?  Under a capitalist system there is a built-in lack of democracy, which cannot be overturned or compensated for by holding elections or permitting protest groups. Our objections are far more basic than any potential constitutional changes to the electoral system. There are at least three reasons, then, why capitalist democracy does not mean that workers are in charge of their own lives. They are too poor to be able to do what they want to do, being limited by the size of their wage packets. They are at the beck and call of their employers in particular and of the capitalist class in general. And they are at the mercy of an economic system that goes its own sweet way without being subject to the control of those who suffer under it.

Our masters were compelled to give us universal suffrage. With the knowledge of our wage-slave position and the courage to organise, these votes can be used as the means to our emancipation. The capitalist class cannot repudiate what they have established. The vote was given to secure their own domination; if they discard it they lose legitimacy and have no sanction to govern.  The vote, thus, proved a gain, a potential "instrument of emancipation" as Marx put it.  The democratic state has been forced, against its will, to bring into being methods, institutions, and procedure which have left open the road to power for workers to travel upon when they know what to do and how to do it. To merely send working-class nominees to Parliament to control it is not sufficient. The purpose must be to accomplish a revolutionary reorganisation of society, a revolution which will put everybody on an equal footing as participants in the production, distribution, and consumption. So that all may participate equally, democracy is an essential condition.

The Socialist Party seeks a revolution involving much more than a change of political control. We want a social revolution, a revolution in the basis of society. The key task of the working class is to win the battle of democracy, to capture control of the political machinery of society for the majority so that production could be socialised  then the coercive powers of the state could be dismantled as a consequence of the abolition of class division. The vote is revolutionary when on the basis of class it organises labour against capital. Parliamentary action is revolutionary when on the floor of parliament it raises the call of the discontented; and when it reveals the capitalist system's impotence and powerlessness to satisfy people's needs and wants. The duty of the Socialist Party is to use parliament in order to complete the proletarian education and organisation, and to bring to a conclusion the revolution.  Parliament is to be valued not for the petty reforms obtainable through it, but because through the control of the machinery of government will the socialist majority be in a position to establish socialism.

Socialists recognise parliament as an institution geared to the needs of capitalism, and therefore inappropriate as the vehicle for a fundamental transformation, but yet to regard its connected electoral practices as coinciding, to some extent, with the principles governing that transformation, and to that extent adding the possibility of a peaceful transition. There need be no straight-forward, exclusive and exhaustive choice between constitutionalism and violent seizure of power. Certain elements within existing institutions may be valued, and action taken in conformity with them, while others may not. It does limit violence to the role of counter-violence in the event of resistance when a clear majority for revolutionary change is apparent, rather than seeing the use of violence as itself a primary means of change. Rights to organise politically, express dissension and combine in trade unions, for example, are valuable not only as a defence against capitalism but from a socialist viewpoint are a platform from which socialist understanding can spread, while the right to vote the means by which socialism will be achieved.

At the same time, we must recognise that genuine democracy is more than these freedoms and the right to vote and is meaningless unless it is used to effect change. But today exercising our democratic right to vote for a conventional capitalist political party does not effect this much-needed change. The Socialist Party are not under any illusion about the nature of democracy under capitalism, yet, we challenge the notion that revolution cannot at the same time be democratic and planned, cannot be participative and structured. Where it is available, we take the view that capitalist democracy can and should be used. But not in order to chase the ever diminishing returns of reforming capitalism but as an important instrument available to class-conscious workers for making a genuine and democratic revolution. And in the process of making a revolution the really interesting work can start of course: that of reinventing a democracy fit for society on a human scale. A democracy that is free from the patronage, the power and personality politics and, of course, the profit motive that currently, from London to Washington, Moscow to Beijing, abuses it.