The basic cause of capitalist ills is the right to private property, the right to exploit, the right to rob, the right of a few to own and control the means by which all must live, the right of the owners of the means of production to use it to exploit the rest of the community in the interest of their personal profit, the right to determine what shall be produced and how, regardless of the suffering and deprivation of those who produce it. Today we see a world in which huge numbers of people cannot get enough to eat and are literally perishing in the streets for lack of food. Millions are steeped in the misery and wretched living standards. The vast majority of the working class live in constant fear of the effects of a new global economic crisis. The Socialist Party answer to all this is the case for socialism. The Socialist Party is not out to create a bloody revolution but work for the fundamental improvement of the conditions of the people, understanding that that improvement can only be attained by changing basic social relations, by a shift in ownership and control from the few to the many – an all-embracing socialisation when the whole of society is changed by the elimination of the private ownership of the entire means of production, socialism. Capitalism produces its own grave-diggers, the masses of the wage workers and they reach a point where it is no longer possible to live, they see the limitations of the trade union struggle in the persistence of insecurity. Private ownership must go, common ownership must take its place, socialism.
The ABC of socialism teaches that the socialist system is not some sort of poetic ideal society, thought out in advance, which may be reached by various paths in various more or less imaginative ways. Rather, socialism is simply the historical tendency of the class struggle of the workers in the capitalist society against the class rule of the employers and investors. Outside of this struggle between two completely discrete social classes, socialism cannot be realised neither through the propaganda of the most ingenious creator of a socialist utopia nor through peasant insurrection or revolutionary conspiracies.
All employers, “good” and “bad,” share one all-important thing in common: they are owners of the means of production or exchange, and derive their income from this ownership. By virtue of this ownership, they are in a position to dictate to the employee the conditions of his existence. They therefore have in common a basic class interest. It is to maintain capitalist private property, and the social system built upon it by which the relationship between capitalists and workers is preserved. “Good” and “bad” capitalist, “friendly” and “unfriendly” capitalist – all are united in the effort to maintain the private ownership of the means of production and exchange and the power that is derived from it.
This ownership keeps the workers at the mercy of the capitalist class. It makes them dependent upon the capitalist class for their livelihood and therefore for life itself. Without this ownership, the capitalists would not have the power, the wealth, the privileges and the ruling position they now enjoy. Without it, there would still be personal distinctions among people, but there would no longer be a basis for social or class differences, for class rule and class conflict. This fundamental division of capitalist society into economic classes is often obscured by other divisions which cut across it, or seem to do so. The worker sees members of his class antagonistic to each other and sometimes even tom by violent conflict. He sees the same thing in the ranks of the capitalist class. He sees employers who favour workers of the same religion, or nationality, or sex, or colour, or age, and who discriminate against all other workers. He even sees workers of the same color joining hands with their employers against workers of another colour, or another religion, or another nationality. These are all facts. Naturally, the capitalists, who are a small minority ruling over the big majority, do not want the workers to grasp the truth about the real class division in society. That would not be in their interest. If the workers understood that they are part of one class, with common basic social interests, then the days of the rule of the capitalist minority would be numbered. The capitalists therefore create, stimulate and exploit every possible difference, every prejudice, in the ranks of the working class.
If the native-born worker can be led to believe that the basic antagonism in society is between those born in this country and those born abroad, that will make it easier for the capitalist to rule undisturbed by a united working class. The same is true if the capitalist can make the worker believe that the basic antagonism in society is between white and black, or Catholic and Protestant, or Gentile and Jew. If the working class is fighting among itself along such lines, capital, whose only real religion is capital itself, and which has neither colour, nationality, age or sex, can continue to rule society and to keep labour at its mercy. The worker who understands his class position in society has already freed himself from the most oppressive and misleading idea that capitalists seek to pump into his head from childhood on. With this understanding comes the first big step toward freedom. Only if you know what society is based on, what position you occupy in it, what your relations are to other classes, can you begin to transform society into what it can and should be. Above you, ruling society and ruling you, is the capitalist class.
No comments:
Post a Comment