Socialism – Saving the Future

The principles of the Socialist Party are clear and definite. We assert that the wealth of society is created by the workers. We claim that society, through their industrial and community councils, must own and control all the processes of wealth production. We engage in this struggle on to the political field in order to challenge the power which the present ruling class wields through its domination of the State which it wins at the ballot box. By its victory at the ballot box, and its consequent political domination, the capitalists are able to subjugate the workers as wage-slaves by using the ministers of State to impose their domination over our fellow-workers. These unsympathetic bureaucrats are appointed by our masters and being appointed by the ruling class, who control the State, the bureaucrats can only maintain their jobs by serving those who control them. Make no mistake about it, government are out to cut our standard of living. To be sure, they claim this is necessary so that standards can rise in the future. But we need take no notice of this. The promised prosperous futures with steadily rising living standards have never appeared and, of course, they never will. You don’t have to be a socialist to be sceptical on this point. It is surprising that there are still people who think workers generally have something to gain from supporting capitalism.

The Socialist Party is convinced that the present political State, with most of its attendant institutions, must be swept away. The political State is not and cannot be a true democracy. It is not elected to serve the social wants of the community. It is elected because the wealthiest section of society can manipulate all facts through its power over the media. By its money the capitalists can buy up advertising to decide the election issues. The electorate is not asked to vote upon facts but only upon such topics as the media, representing capital, puts before the workers.

The working class cannot leave political control in the hands of the ruling class. We have seen what power the conquest of the State gives to the capitalists in its struggle with workers. It is through its political strength that the capitalists can deprive us of civil liberties. The power to accomplish this flow directly from their control of the State which it secures at the ballot box. The maintenance of our freedoms is part of the political struggle.  In order to achieve a peaceful revolution our class must capture the powers of the State at elections and prevent the capitalist class from using the law against an emerging mass socialist movement. This destructive function is the revolutionary role of political action. But this destructive political function is necessary in order that the industrial constructive element the creation of socialist bodies in the revolution may not be thwarted. The Socialist Party’s task is the preservation of civil liberties and the destruction of the political State. All other questions, such as the United Nations, free trade, or tax reform—these things which are agitating the minds of Tory and Labour parties—are merely traps to catch the unwary workers and to persuade them to vote to preserve capitalism. The working class must end capitalism and construct socialism. The Socialist Party alone puts forward such a position. It urges the workers to use their ballots to capture political power—not to play at politicians or pose as statesmen, but to use their votes to uproot the political State. To think that Parliament can be used as the means of permanently improving the conditions of Labour, by passing a series of acts, is to believe in parliamentarianism. The Socialist Party is not a parliamentary party. It believes in entering Parliament only as a means of sweeping away all antiquated institutions which stand in the way of the working class collectively owning and controlling the means of production.

To simplify Marx’s criticism of capitalism in the mid nineteenth century, he argued that the core problem of capitalism was a class exploitation and struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat where the latter sells labour power which is extracted as surplus value by the former.  The bourgeoisie own the means of production and over time in their race to maintain profits they increasingly replace human labour power with machines, they drive down wages placing more and more individuals into poverty.  This process creates an economic crisis, intensifying class struggle, and eventually creating conditions for a capitalist struggle. It suggested an economic inevitability for the revolution. Starting in the late nineteenth century individuals such as Eduard Bernstein in Evolutionary Socialism argued that the revolutionary tactics and economic inevitability of the revolution were not practical or certain.  He and others agreed with much of the basic criticism of Marx but instead tied the future of a class-free society to gradualism and reforms through parliament. It was supposed to be state capitalism for the benefit for poor, but it was still capitalism.  Yes, the government can act and manipulate the economy for the benefit of the people, but it did so for the benefit of the rich. China has its state-owned enterprises but it is not socialism, it is state capitalism, and mostly to the benefit of a few.  Socialism is not the central state planning of the economy where the government owns all the businesses. Extremely few Chinese have any say over the economic choices being made in that country, one where there is a sharper and sharper class divide.