The most obvious fact facing the Socialist Party is that most workers are not socialists. Indeed most workers accept capitalism, believe it can’t be changed, and view socialists who want to change it as idealists or troublemakers. So how can this change? Capitalist ideas seem to make sense because they reflect the world as we experience it. They justify the current class divisions. As Marx put it: ‘the ruling ideas of any age will be the ideas of the ruling class’. To use the language of an earlier time, something ‘ordained by God’. Or as the hymn says:
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them high and lowly,
And ordered their estate.
Capitalist society is founded on the profit motive – and therefore this is thought of as ‘natural’. Enterprises are run for profit. If capitalist ideology didn’t dominate workers’ thinking in this way capitalism couldn’t survive at all. Workers’ ideas clearly cannot simply be changed on a mass scale by socialist propaganda. A socialist journal such as Socialist Standard can’t match the operations of the billionaire press. The spread of socialist ideas on a mass scale must have a material base; just as capitalist ideas dominate workers’ thinking because they reflect their daily experience, so the spread of socialist ideas will reflect changes in that daily experience. The ruling class controls and directs the formation and propagation of ideas. None of this means that the attempt by socialists to spread their ideas through newspapers, pamphlets and books is irrelevant or unnecessary. Workers do not have to be socialists before they engage in battles that challenge the ruling class – but their ability to win those battles is closely linked to their level of political consciousness. Mass strikes, workplace occupations, and demonstrations create conditions in which it is possible for socialist ideas to spread, but it is impossible for workers to improvise, suddenly and in the heat of battle, a fully worked-out socialist understanding of the world. The socialist ideas have to be there, ready to inform those struggles, to articulate and generalise from these new experiences, and ready to prove their practical relevance by pointing to the way forward.
Capital is interested in production for profit, labour in production for use. Capital is based upon a constantly increasing exploitation of labour, in order to maintain its profit; labour constantly resists this exploitation. There is and can be no such thing as a “legitimate profit,” inasmuch as all profit is derived from paying workers less than the value they add to the product. There is and can be no such thing as a “fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” inasmuch as wages are the payment for only one part of the day’s work, the other part of which the worker is compelled to contribute to the employer in the form of surplus-value, or profit. Capital always seeks to intensify the exploitation of labor by reducing wages, increasing the work-day, or speeding-up production, or by all three at once; and labor always seeks to raise its wage and working standards. Capital always seeks to increase its profits, which can be done only by exploiting labour; labour always seeks to resist exploitation, which can be done only at the expense of profits. These are fundamental economic facts. Under capitalism, nothing that all the capitalists or all the workers can do is wipe out these facts. The capitalists, of course, hammer into the heads of the workers, from childhood on, that the laws of God and Man and Nature entitle them to a profit, especially a “legitimate” profit.
The class struggle is a political struggle. It cannot be fought successfully by the workers unless they have a political weapon, which means, their own political party. The workers need a party of their own. The first great step is breaking from the capitalist parties and capitalist politics, and toward independent working-class political action. A political party that does not proclaim its intention of capturing state power, overthrowing capitalism an is establishing a new society, is not worthy of the name, socialist. When the power of the capitalists is left intact and there is no fundamental change, the position of the people is not sufficiently improved or not improved at all, because no bold steps were taken to remove the causes of the social evils produced by capitalism. The hopes of the people are then disappointed. Their enthusiasm declined. Their hopes diminished.
Only in an entirely different society, where the people (the producers) own in common the tools they use in production (the factories, pits, depots and offices) will it be possible to plan democratically the rational use of labour and resources to satisfy the needs of the people. Production for use, not profit would be the basis of such a society, in other words, a socialist society. The Socialist Party came into existence to achieve such a society. Its members are committed to helping transform crisis-ridden capitalism into socialism. To transform capitalism requires the understanding of the nature of the beast, what makes it tick, and how changes are brought about. Because our Party is based on Marxism — the science of social change — we are better able to understand the world we live in and how to change it. It is not an easy task, nor will it be achieved by a handful of dedicated socialists acting on their own. It will require the unity in struggle of the majority of our people in mass organisations of the working class. But to realize this aim of socialism, the Socialist Party must grow in numbers and influence, and the circulation of the Socialist Standard which puts forward the socialist case must be increased.
We ask visitors to this blog who agree with its analysis and conclusions to seriously consider joining the Socialist Party and participate in creating a better world, fit for mankind to inhabit.
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