To
make revolution and put an end to capitalism, the working class must
have a plan. Standing in the way of socialism is the capitalist
class. The capitalists are our enemy. It is the ruling class. It
holds state power and is responsible for the hardships facing working
people. Against this minority stands the vast majority of the rest of
the population. The conditions of life for 98% of the people cannot
fundamentally improve without the overthrow of the ruling class of
capitalists. The working class is daily thrown into conflict with
the capitalist class. The capitalists are a powerful enemy and it will
require protracted efforts to overthrow them. Only by winning over
all those who are oppressed by capital to the banner of socialism can
the working class succeed in overthrowing capitalism. Despite its
huge numerical advantage, the powerful potential of the working class
has been frustrated by divisions and lack of class consciousness. The
majority of workers at this time do not understand the need for
fundamental change to society. They have difficult lives but do not
see how their problems can be resolved. They want an improvement in
their lives and often struggle against their employers, but do not
yet see the need for revolutionary change. Many are generally
content with their situation or feel that, even though things could
improve, monopoly capitalism is the best system. They do not favour
change and many are affected by racism and chauvinism. It is a major
obstacle to the struggle for socialism. Through well-organised
struggle and education, workers will realise that their interests lie
in the overthrow of capitalist private property and the establishment
of socialism.
The
state dampens down class struggle by promoting class collaboration.
Although the capitalists rule, they do not do so through open
violence and coercion. Working people enjoy a wide range of freedoms
- we can vote in regular elections, we can organise in trade unions
and political parties, we can set up pressure groups, publish
newspapers and leaflets, go on strike, hold public meetings and
protest march on demonstrations, and travel freely around the
country. If we get arrested for anything, we are not held in
detention without trial and we have the right to legal defence.These
rights are vital for the working class to defence and promote its
interests. Without the civil liberties and human rights we would be
at the absolute mercy of every whim of the employers.
But
these rights have not always existed. Nor were they generously
granted by the employing class. They have been fought for with great
effort and sacrifice by many generations of working people in a
struggle that goes back to Chartism. Neither are these rights in any
sense eternally guaranteed under capitalism. Whenever a crisis
develops in capitalism the employers attack democracy in order to
limit the ability of the workers to resist. Despite the importance of
the democratic rights that we have won over the years, the working
class can never achieve complete political freedom under capitalism.
In this society only the capitalists have the wealth and influence to
use capitalist democracy to the full. Formal equality that exists
for all citizens is undermined and restricted by the power of
capital. Until the working class gains control of the means of
production, democracy can never be more than a partial achievement.
Capitalism
is based on the exploitation of working people. No attempts to reform
the system can do away with this exploitation. The only way workers
can come to control society and create a society based on freedom and
a decent life for all is through revolution.
The
Socialist Party is internationalist. We are carrying out the
socialist revolution in the UK to make our contribution to the
struggle world socialism. Socialism
must be worldwide system. Capitalism is global and it will do
everything in its power to defeat a working class revolution. The
only insurance of the victory of socialism is international
solidarity of workers.
The
vast industries in which men and women co-operate to produce wealth
to-day can only be maintained by the co-operative labour. The
technical knowledge, the science which is utilised by these
industries is the common product of men and women co-operating
together in society. This technical knowledge, this application of
science to industry, is constantly increasing, and with it, the power
to produce wealth quickly and efficiently. Within the lifetime of
comparatively young men and women, we have seen tremendous progress
in the application of new technology to industry. 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. In
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. The cause of
the unjust 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, the
banks 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, capitalism wastes many of the advantages of science and
technology because of the unplanned character of modern commerce
taken as a whole. In a single workshop, 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 unplanned nature of capitalism taken renders it
incapable of completely utilising the results of modern 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.
Unprofitable industry is left to drift to ruin, while the capitalist
class divert investments into the new areas of industry or export
their capital abroad where the promise of greater profits lie. 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 military conflicts.
Our
media often concentrates our attention on economic growth and a rise
in GDP. The idea behinds this is that the more capitalism produces
wealth the better off everyone will become. This is not the case. A
look at history and we see in the periods of the greatest expansion
of capitalism, colossal wealth existed alongside the most
heartrending poverty. 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. A scramble all over the world is
taking place for control of oil fields, mineral deposits and sources
of supply of all kinds. The result of this scramble is inevitably
military confrontation, sometimes directly but most often by proxy in
various civil wars.
The
capitalists have only one solution for economic recession, the
increased exploitation of the working class. There are two ways in
which the capitalists can increase this exploitation: (1) to reduce
wages , and (2) to speed up the working class while continuing to pay
them the same wages by intensifying working conditions to increase
productivity. These methods are not mutually exclusive. Very often
both of them are adopted by the same body of employers, one after the
other. When workers agree to facilitate production by abandoning
their safeguards, there is no guarantee that they would get a share
of the increased production. The division of the increased product
would be settled like always, by the relative economic muscle of the
workers on the one hand and the strength of employers on the other.
Offering the capitalists the certainty of increased profits, hold out
no hopes to the workers at all. The idea that collaboration with the
capitalist class, can overcome a recession is absurd. Britain is not
the only country in crisis. All capitalist countries are engaged in
the same policies. Thus those leaders who believe that a far-reaching
improvement in the workers’ wages and conditions of life can be got
not by overthrowing capitalism, but by co-operating with the
capitalists to make their system more efficient, are simply
surrendering to the capitalist class, misleading the workers, and
creating conditions which will inevitably make the rich richer and
the workers poorer.
The
more the workers unite their forces and commence to struggle against
the capitalist offensive, the more the struggle becomes a political
struggle, not just between the workers and any group of capitalists,
but between the workers and the capitalist state representing the
capitalist class as a whole. The Socialist Party, therefore, believes
in the necessity for capturing political power. The question of
whether the workers should attempt to seize power before or after
obtaining a Parliamentary majority is entirely a question of time,
place, and circumstance. The workers are engaged in a struggle with
the capitalist class and cannot determine their policy without
reference to the policy of their capitalist adversaries. The
capitalist class grew up within the framework of pre-capitalist
society and became an economically powerful class without any
revolution. Their revolution was designed to secure for them such
political control as would enable them to break down all restrictions
and secure the fullest possible development for their industry and
trade which they already controlled. With them economic power
preceded political power. The workers, on the other hand, cannot get
economic power without first, by a political revolution, breaking
down the capitalist state machine, building up their political power
and on that basis proceeding to secure control of the economic forces
of society.
If
the working-class desire to beat off the capitalist attacks on their
present standards, avoid the danger of war and carry out a resolute
struggle to achieve their emancipation through the overflow of
capitalism, they must fight more and more within the workers'
movement against the reformist policy of co-operating with
capitalism. The Socialist Party exposes to the working class the
futility of reformism and urges them to go forward to the complete
overthrow of the capitalist class.
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