Against Radical Reformism

The commodity is a product of human labour not intended for the direct consumption of the producers but for exchange. Production of commodities, in the history of human society, is counterposed to the production of use-values. The former is produced for the market, the latter for the direct use of the producers.

The assumption that capitalism can be planned in the interests of society, that reforms in terms of improved living standards etc. can be guaranteed is false. In fact, the capitalist system cannot operate rationally and democratically, leaving society’s resources to be wasted by its subjection to the anarchy of the market. The wastes of capitalism are so pervasive but for example, we have the cost of commercial competition (duplication of brands between rival companies, built-in obsolescence, advertising etc.) Costs of the capitalist financial system (the stock exchange, the banking system, all the financial speculative activity.) Similarly the costs of many of the repressive functions of the state (the military, the police, courts, and prisons.) It is not possible to calculate all resources that would potentially be released by the ending of capitalism. Some benefits would come rapidly others may take longer. Of course another big saving would be the end of the production of luxury goods for the consumption of the capitalist class. The final most glaring cost of capitalism is the waste of the skills. The experience and the talents of all those condemned to unemployment. Fully applying all of society’s resources would allow a massive increase in production even before the long-term advantages of a rational deployment of resources materialised. Before you can get the production for need and not for competitive accumulation, you first have to have a social revolution but this system cannot be stopped by force. It is violent and ruthless beyond the capacity of any people’s resistance movement.  What we want is not workers’ participation in their own exploitation, but society’s control over production, so that they can impose our own priorities, the priorities of production for need. 

 Socialism will be the replacement of a society based on accumulation for profit with one based on production for need. But that will not come about if we wait for it, no matter how long or patiently. There is only one way and that is to put an end to the capitalist system. The abolition of the capitalist mode of production requires the appropriation of the means of production by society.  In socialism, the products cease to be commodities and will be distribution in accordance with the needs of consumers. We in the Socialist Party analysed the absurdity of unemployment when there were want and the cruelty of the suffering in the midst of plenty. But ideas alone do not make a socialist movement. We must take our ideas and put them into life. The political weapon is necessary for the capture of the power of the State, of the legislative and administrative machine and the forces of law and order. It must be used to effect a transfer of the ownership of industry from the capitalist to the community and the co-operative commonwealth. The workers must also be economically organised as to be ready to take over the control and management of industry from the capitalist. The aim of the socialists is to place society in control instead of the capitalist, to organise production for use instead of for profit, and to replace capitalist autocracy by industrial democracy. Instead of the worker being “a hand” depending for his or her livelihood on the willingness of someone to employ him or her, without status and subject to the command of a master, we will be free men and women controlling industry in association with our fellow-workers in the interests of all. The task of eliminating capitalist ownership and control belongs to political democracy; the task of organising the new industrial order belongs to economic democracy. The present social system must pass away, but only when a new society is ready to take its place. That new social system is now in the making. A socialist revolution does not ‘happen’: it must be made by people’s actions and choices, decided the extent of the maturity and activity of the people. We should no longer think of disaster and a cataclysm as the catalyst for revolution. In William Morris’ words, it means the “making of socialists”. 

The aim of the Socialist Party in simple terms is to guide our fellow-workers workers in their struggle for their interests, to teach them what is important and necessary in the political struggle against the capitalist class. To aid in the political development of the working class, to help break away from capitalist politics and capitalist politicians. The Socialist Party is blazing a trail toward the socialist future. We are prepared for it by the conviction that there is no hope for a new and better world except through the achievement of the new social order of socialism, a world of peace, freedom and plenty for all.