At the present moment, the difficulties of capitalism are increasing in every country. There is a scramble all over the world for control of oil fields, ore deposits and sources of supply of all kinds. The result of this scramble has been war. In such a situation, the capitalists have only one solution of the difficulty, i.e., the increased exploitation of the working class. There are two ways in which the capitalists can increase this exploitation: (1) to reduce the wages of the working class, and (2) to speed up the working class while continuing to pay them the same wages. These methods are not mutually exclusive. Very often both of them are adopted by the same body of employers, one after the other. Political leaders hold that capitalism, as a result of the 2007/2008 Recession is not in a “normal” condition. If wage reductions and cuts in working conditions will help in getting capitalism back to “normal,” then they hold that these austerity policies ought to be agreed to by the working class. They have pursued this policy, not merely in theory, but in action in the endeavour to induce the workers to help capitalism back to “normal.” This policy to make sacrifices in order to help capitalism back to normal runs through the whole policy of the politicians. The Socialist Party contends that the difficulties of the capitalist system are due to the normal development of the capitalist system itself, and no amount of concessions by the workers can ameliorate the difficulties which the capitalist class face. Sooner or later new crises will arise in the development of the system, and the capitalists will call upon the workers for further sacrifice. The Socialist Party, therefore, call upon the workers to resist all attempts to lower their standard of living, to unite their forces industrially and to make their resistance as widespread and as united as possible, and to then attack the capitalist system itself.
If we look at the production of wealth in present-day society, we find that that production of wealth can only take place through the co-operation of many diverse trades and industries interlocked one with the other. Within a given factory, the whole variety of workers, manual and mental, co-operate together in order to produce a common product. Within society as a whole, all industries co-operate together in order to produce wealth, the raw material of one industry being the finished product of the other. Without this co-operation of all the useful elements of society in production, there can be no society as we understand it to-day. Wealth to-day can only be produced and industry maintained through this co-operation.
The vast industries in which men and women co-operate to produce wealth to-day are not the creation of any particular class, but have only been created and can only be maintained by the co-operative labour of all useful elements in society. The technical knowledge, the science which is utilised by these industries is not the creation of any particular social class but is the shared legacy of all co-operating together in society.
This knowledge and its application to industry, is constantly increasing, and with it, the power to produce wealth quickly and efficiently. Within our lifetimes we have seen tremendous progress in science and technology. The ability to produce wealth grows every year, and with it, in a rational system of society, the welfare of the mass of the people should grow also. Yet in the capitalist society, the opposite process is taking place. Alongside growing power to produce wealth, there is growing poverty. The wealth which is produced by the co-operative labour of all active workers in industry is divided in most hopelessly unequal fashion. In addition, the existing powers of wealth production are not being used to their fullest capacity.
The cause of the flawed distribution of wealth lies in the nature of the capitalist order of society. Whilst wealth is cooperatively produced, while industries can only be maintained by the co-operative labour of millions of workers, these industries are not owned by the workers who operate them, but by a small idle class owning the land, and the means of production. Because this class owns the means of life, it is able to dictate to the producers the terms on which they will work. These terms may vary for different classes of workers, in accordance with their scarcity, skill, or organisation, but they are always of such a character as to allow to the employing class the lion’s share of the wealth which is produced by the labour of others.
In addition to the unequal distribution of wealth, capitalism wastes many of the advantages of science and invention because of the unplanned character of modern industry taken as a whole. In a single enterprise, or even within a single industry, production may be planned according to the most scientific methods, but in capitalist society as a whole, there is no plan regulating the production and distribution of wealth. The whole system is based on the pursuit of profit by the owners of the means of production. The regulator of the whole system determining whether industry shall be expanded or shall go on short time is the rise and fall of prices on the market, reflecting the rise and fall in the possibilities of profit for the capitalists whose industries produce for the market.
The chaos of capitalism taken as a whole renders it incapable of completely utilising the results of modern science and invention or of overcoming the crises in the basic industries in this country. No capitalist will make any effort to reorganise an industry on more efficient lines, however, unless there is the prospects of a vast profit accruing from the expenditure on that reorganisation. Even when capitalism was on the upgrade, however, continually expanding year after year, the workers did not receive the advantages of the mighty technical progress that was being made.
The scramble for profit leads also to the scramble for markets for sources of investment and raw materials on an international scale and leads inevitably to war. In the period of the greatest expansion of capitalism, colossal wealth existed alongside the most heart-rending poverty. The idea promoted is that the more capitalism produces wealth the better off everyone will become. This is not the case. The more wealth capitalism produces the greater its difficulties as a functioning system; the more difficult it is to obtain markets, the more intensive international competition becomes; the greater becomes the danger of the antagonisms created by this competition ripening into war. Thus, on the one hand, capitalism, in its development, widens the gulf between the active workers and the non-producing capitalists, increases the difficulties of capitalism to dispose of its product, and drives the capitalist states irresistibly towards war.
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