Changing the economics

The absence of a vigourous socialist movement today is an indisputable and depressing fact. It has been noted so many times by so many. Dozens of explanations abound. In the meantime, socialists remain ineffective. It is impossible to explain the marginal status of socialists apart from the social reality in which we are situated. A sober analysis of our reality reveals a society that is, by and large, de-fanged and depoliticised. The majority are absorbed in their own job, family, friends and are incredibly unaware, misinformed, or downright uninterested in many aspects of social life.  Every year new coalitions form to plan “mass” demonstrations and rallies. While such activities have some worth, they usually attract only the “faithful” and have become little more than media events. Moreover, such “demonstrations,” have become an almost institutionalized form of protest. Subsequently, with mounting boldness, the world's ruling class is staging a major attack on the workers' movement. Employers are imposing stringent labour “discipline,” defeating trade unions driving tough negotiations. But some of the most dramatic blows of all are being inflicted as a result of investment and disinvestment decisions made by the corporations over which the unions have no control with pro-business legislation being passed by the state such as tax relief that favours business, which cut budgets for public and social services, defeats that result in widespread public disillusionment with the union movement. While workers try to defend themselves with strikes and sacrifice in a thousand ways to defend their standard of living yet we run up against the same situation: the working class has little economic or political clout, and so must constantly retreat or forfeit the fruits of its occasional successful struggles.

The social revolution can only be accomplished by men and women with a clear understanding of the economics of capitalism.  The social revolution depends in the last analysis upon the growth of class-consciousness amongst the working class, that therefore the chief task of a socialist political party is to educate that class consciousness along correct lines. A socialist party must look beyond the immediate situation and be willing to outline a vision of a future society.  The issue is how goods are produced and distributed, who owns the means of production or how work is organised and administered. It questions the very way we spend our lives.  Overcoming scarcity, i.e., meeting people’s elementary material needs for food, clothing, shelter, etc., is obviously necessary but must transcend the growth/profit model of capitalism itself.  The ideas of progress and human freedom must be envisioned as democratic, non-exploitative and egalitarian.

“Human Nature" is the oldest and stubbornest cry against socialism. It is stubborn because the arguer believes he knows things about human beings that make a harmonious society of equals impossible: either too many are perverse, or the whole lot of us have greed and aggression built in. The “human nature” argument is that it would ruin socialism if it were tried. What is being described is human behaviour, which (with estimates of particular kinds of it as “good” or reprehensible) continually changes. Man is a social being whose strongest tendency is to co-operation and order, or we should not be here today. Against examples of the “bad” can be set countless opposite ones. Yet everyday anti-social expressions are a fact in present-day society, and their causes are other social facts. Violent personal behaviour is not “human nature”. It is a reaction forced out by social conditions, and its manner is on the lines of accepted social formulae.

Socialism would make it possible to increase the production of useful articles in two main ways; by utilising the large numbers of able-bodied people not working at all, and by transferring to useful production all those workers now engaged on operations necessary only to capitalism — war and armament production, the armed services, financial, insurance and similar occupations. Overall it would be possible by these means to increase useful production to something like double the present level simply by revolutionizing the basis of the social system. When the Socialist Party was formed to achieve this social revolution it was opposed by various reformist organizations which offered as an alternative the gradualist doctrine of relying on legislation and trade-union action to make continuing progress towards the abolition of poverty and inequality. As regards the concentration of ownership of accumulated wealth in the hands of the small capitalist minority, all their efforts have achieved practically nothing. They cannot claim that any of the social problems they promised to deal with — housing, unemployment, low wages — has in fact been remedied. At most, it can be said that some of the worst aspects of poverty have been lessened.

Our present society is founded on the exploitation of the propertyless classes by the propertied. This exploitation is such that the propertied (capitalists) buy the labour-power of the propertyless, for the price of the mere costs of existence (wages), and take for themselves, i.e. steal the amount of new values (products) which exceeds this price, whereby wages are made to represent the necessities instead of the earnings of the wage-labourer. If now and then one of the propertyless class become rich, it is not by their own labour, but from opportunities which they have to speculate upon, and absorb the labour-product of others. With the accumulation of individual wealth, the greed and power of the propertied grow. They use all the means for competing among themselves for the robbery of the people. This system is unjust, insane, and murderous. It is, therefore, necessary to totally end it. We must keep the socialist ideal alive and struggle to make it a reality if humankind is to avoid the path to barbarism or collective self-annihilation.