Words are our weapon

THE WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

Words don’t have the same meaning everywhere, especially when new labels are applied to old theories. Intellectuals liberally sprinkled their writings with Marxist phrases and references to Marx's views, calculated to give the impression to those who do not know the facts that they have something worthwhile to contribute. Many people particularly the young, are not attracted by the establishment political parties nor can they fail to notice the economists' and politicians' inability to grasp the problems of poverty and to deal with them. The economists are in a complete muddle. They produce their theories and explanations for the bewilderment of students, and the ordinary man in the street, who knows nothing of the finer points of theory, sees only that the economists are hopelessly disagreed among themselves even about the elements of their subject; that their explanations and forecasts time and time again have been shown to be false; and that their attempts to advise and guide the politicians have had no obvious effect on the solution of the world's great problems. Academics sneer at Marx and fail to appreciate the charge he and other socialists made against capitalism that because it produces only for sale at a profit and not for human need it prevents the production of sufficient food, clothing and shelter for the needs of humanity. If all the able-bodied population were working, and if all the wasteful forms of activity that are indispensable to capitalism were cut out (e.g., financial operations, armed forces, munitions, bureaucratic activities, etc.), then the production of useful articles could be increased ten-fold. What Marx’s critics do not realise is that these forms of waste really are indispensable to capitalism and cannot be eliminated under capitalism.

The task of the workers remains that of gaining political control for socialism. Socialist society is not being gradually introduced by Labour government; it will start when, and only when, a socialist working class comes to power. That will be the end of an epoch and the beginning of a new one and people will not be in any doubt of what had happened. Socialism cannot be achieved until there is a majority of socialists and they gain control of the machinery of government for the purpose of abolishing capitalism. Until then, notwithstanding all the efforts of reformers to improve the existing system and administer it differently, the evils of class society, based on the exploitation of the workers, will remain to strangle the progress of the human race.

To Marxists recognition of the class struggle means recognising that the interest of the working class is incompatible with the interest of the class that owns the means of production and distribution and that, the class struggle can be abolished only by dispossessing the capitalist class and introducing a social system based on common ownership and democratic control, involving, of course, the abolition of the system of wage-labour and of the production of goods for sale. Under capitalism there are no "good times" for the working class.

Reformists hoped to serve two masters, what they call the policy of serving the interests of all sections of the community. As time goes on and the working class become restive about the non-appearing fruits of reformist promises, people become more and more divorced from the political process. Far from moving towards the goal of socialism which will emancipate workers from capitalist wage-slavery, the struggle has yet to be waged. The only remedy for the evils of capitalism is socialism, and the time for it is now. Capitalism is the removable evil from which the working class have to rid themselves, Therefore all who defend capitalism are the enemies of the working class.

It is the workers who keep capitalism going, for the benefit of the capitalists. It is time the workers determined, by international socialist action, to refashion human society on a socialist foundation. Neither avowedly capitalist governments nor Labour governments can save the world. It is a supreme task for the world working class and unless it is achieved the whole world faces chaos, misery and destruction. The productive power and the administrative ability are present for the making of a new world. Do not delay the decision to use them. The Socialist Party show the way to working class emancipation and the happiness and well-being of humanity.

Groups such as The Zeitgeist Movement are gaining adherents because it deliberately avoids challenging the political parties. Instead of forming a political party with the definite aim of conquering power for the application of its ideas, TZM relies on some sort of persuasion and peaceful penetration into the existing parties. If the Zeitgeist Movement came out in the open as a political party, it would quickly learn that gaining vague sympathy is a very different thing from winning more votes than the opposing parties. The other parties would very quickly turn their attention to smashing or swallowing the movement, according to whether they judged it to be a good vote-catcher or not. But as soon as one party took it up the other parties would turn on it. Leaving aside the soundness of their vision they seem to believe that a proposal has only to be shown to be practicable for it to be adopted. They ignore all questions of the nature and control of political power. Actually we see political power (which is the dominating factor) in the hands of a section of the propertied class. It is useless for TZM or anyone else to come forward with a scheme unless (a) the scheme is attractive to those who wield power, or (b) that the steps are going to be taken by those to whom the scheme is attractive to obtain the power to put it into operation. It is a movement without an organised political basis. One incidental downside arising out of TZM is that, to the extent that it gains, it makes socialist propaganda more difficult. People who fall a victim to TZM quite naturally disregards Socialist propaganda. TZM promises a new millennium of unlimited wealth by the simple device of letting technology have free rein. In comparison socialism looks dull and slow-moving.

A basic difficulty about establishing socialism is that such a social system, involving as it does the disappearance of buying and selling, wages and prices, and the coercive state, could only be operated if the mass of the population understood and wanted it and were ready to accept all the new responsibilities of voluntary co-operation that would rest on them. If the working class as they are at present, most of them attached to capitalism, preoccupied with wages and prices, wage differentials and trade-union demarcation lines, and dependent on management direction and trade-union leadership, were suddenly faced with socialism there would be chaos and no alternative but to return to capitalism.