A Change of Politics

The members of the Socialist Party are frequently beseeched by the Left to join in some sort of anti-capitalist alliance. They endeavour to convince us with siren-songs that such a coalition against capitalism would bear fruit, either by driving the non-socialists out of the Labour Party like weeds or providing the shoots of a new “socialist” party, glibly offering popular reforms. The life-cycle of such developments can be charted in close connection with the recurring crises within capitalism born and re-born with each succeeding economic crisis. In all their incarnations, they have remained a reformist movement in body and spirit, hoping to politicalise workers and recruit them into their ranks. Even at their most radical, the political platform does not transgress the boundaries of that are built into the capitalist system. Armed with their reform programs, the Leftists vainly storm the citadels of the capitalist class to extract as many concessions and reforms as they can. Occasionally, very occasionally, they even control some local governments. Nevertheless, any reforms they managed to exact do not result in any basic changes in the workers' lives or reverse the processes of capitalist accumulation, centralization, and control.  In some cases, they even produced consequences contrary to those anticipated or promised.  After every losing battle and even ignoble capitulation to the master class, the Left has lost more of their mass support. Without bold revolutionary aims, unable to grasp the dynamics of the principal forces at work in capitalist society, the reformist movement progressively lost whatever trust and confidence it once possessed within the working class. Their “revolutionary”  shrivelled into vacuous phrases to cover their alliances with pro-capitalist parties. This many-faced, myriad-minded social movement of protest against the plutocratic rule of Big Business and High Finance lack the power and the will to revolutionise the political system and the economic structure of capitalism.

 Our aim in the Socialist Party is a cooperative commonwealth without State, without ruling Government, without classes, in which the workers shall administer the means of production and distribution for the common benefit of all. We appeal to fellow-workers to rally to the World Socialist Movement and muster under the banner of socialism. The capitalist class is constantly revealing itself in its true colours with its rising cost of living, growing unemployment, the savage repression of all efforts of the workers to better their condition, the deportation and imprisonment of migrants. The working class must capture the power of the State and reconstruct society in their own interests, to turn it from the government of men into the administration of things. Everywhere the capitalists cry: “More production! More production!'’ In other words, the workers must do more work for less wages, so that their blood and sweat may be turned into gold to pay for the ruination of the capitalist world. To save their system of exploitation the capitalists unite and chain the workers to the machines of industry. So long as the capitalist system exists, a few men will be making their money out of the toil of others. All reforms of the present system of society simply fool the worker into believing that he or she isn't being robbed as much as before. Workers can no longer wait to experiment with reforms. Before it is too late, the class-conscious workers of the world must prepare to attack and destroy capitalism and root it out of the world. The State is used to defend and strengthen the power of the capitalists and to oppress the workers.  Capitalist society presents a solid front against the worker.

The private property of the capitalist class, in order to become the social property of the workers, cannot be turned over to individuals or groups of individuals. It must become the property of all in common. Industry and its factories, too, which supply the needs of all the people, are not the concern only of the worker, in each industry, but of all in common and must be administered for the benefit of all.  The word “politics” is to many like a red flag to a bull. Politics, to people, means simply politicians trying to catch votes to elect them to some comfortable office, where they can comfortably forget all about the voters, until the next election campaign. This is using the word “politics” in a corrupt sense. One of the principles upon which the Socialist Party was founded is expressed in the saying of Karl Marx: “every class struggle is a political struggle”. That is to say, every struggle of the workers against the capitalists is a struggle of the workers for the political power – the State. This is the sense in which we socialists use the word “politics.”

The Left believes that they can gradually gain this political power by using reforms to legislate capitalism peacefully out of existence. This leads them to preach all sorts of reforms of the capitalist system, draws to their political opportunists and adventurers of all kinds, and finally causes them to make concessions and compromises with the capitalist class. The Socialist Party engages in electoral campaigns to give us an opportunity to speak to the working class, pointing out the class character of the State and their class interests as workers. They enable them to show the futility of reforms, to demonstrate the real interests which dominate the capitalist political parties, and to point out why the entire capitalist system must be overthrown. When Socialist Party members are elected to Parliament, their function to make propaganda; to ceaselessly expose the real nature of the capitalist State, to obstruct the operations of capitalist government and show their class character, to explain the futility of all capitalist reform measures, etc. In Parliament, the Socialist Party can show up capitalist brutality and call the workers to revolt. The most common objection to electing candidates to capitalist legislatures is that, no matter how good revolutionists they are, they will invariably be corrupted by their environment and will betray the workers. This belief is born of long experience, chiefly with Labour Party fakirs. But we say that a real revolutionary party such as we have the means to retain the loyalty of our elected delegates. The special function of the Socialist Party is to educate the workers for the capture of political power and the administration of the socialist cooperative commonwealth.