Organise and Mobilise the Working Class

The capitalist system threatens the destruction of civilisation through manifestations like climate change and of course nuclear war remains an ominous scenario. All the interests of the capitalist class are tied up with and based upon preserving their ownership and control of the means of production. Their whole power over society is based upon this ownership. It enables them to exploit and oppress the majority of the population. It results in growing social inequality, economic scarcity and insecurity. The maintenance of capitalist property is the basic principle of every capitalist government.

Capitalism is the social form of the relationship between capitalists and workers. It is the private ownership of the means of production, denied to the vast majority, which enables the capitalist to expropriate a portion of the output which the workers produce In the form of profit. All production comes from the effort of workers. Since profits represent a certain portion of production it follows that all profits come from the efforts of workers. Machines which aid laboUr in producing goods and services are the result of past labour; in reality machines are nothing more than dead labour and it is physically and economically impossible to exploit dead labour. Workers need a certain quantity of what they produce In order to be able to work at all. They must eat, sleep and clothe themselves. They must also have sufficient quantities of goods and services to raise a family so that workers will be provided for the next generation. The amount of labor necessary to produce the goods required to maintain the worker and his family is what Marx called necessary labor. This amount is determined historically by the level of technology and the history of the class struggle in each capitalist country. However, because the means of production–the machines, mines, etc. – are owned by the capitalists and not the workers, the businessmen are in a position to demand a certain portion of the working day to produce goods and services for the capitalist. This portion of the working day represents profits and is what Marx called surplus labour. Profits enable the capitalists to invest and, therefore, control more workers as investment connotes more ownership. Thus, more and more people find themselves as workers under the control of the capital-owning class. This is a fundamental law of capitalist accumulation. It is obvious that the working class does not have the same material interests as do the capitalists. The former wants higher wages, better working and living conditions, etc. The latter want higher profits. But higher wages mean that the worker will spend a greater portion of the working day producing goods for his own use. Everything else equal (the working day remains the same length, speed-up is resisted, etc.), this means that workers will spend less time producing profits for the businessman; surplus labor and profits will fall. Now, how does the worker go about getting a higher wage? Does he ask nicely? Maybe, but this does not work. Because the class interests are contradictory and antagonistic, the workers must organize and fight for a higher standard of living, and in doing so they must fight the whole state apparatus. This fact, historically observed, is a product of capitalism, and it is capitalism that necessitates militant action on the part of the working class. The worker is, by the nature of the capitalist-worker relationship, militant. 

The capitalists do not rule by force alone. It is impossible for a minority to coerce a majority for any length of time by brute strength, for the real strength lies with the majority, the working class. All minority ruling classes depend primarily on fraud–conscious, deliberate lies–to maintain their rule. This fraud, which is basically an illusion, is perpetrated by the government, the education system, the churches, the media – every capitalist institution that exists. All these institutions are under the control of the businessmen, and, as these institutions pervade the entire fabric of society, we find that fraud is all pervasive. This fraud takes many forms, but the function of all fraud is to undercut resistance and militancy to capitalist rule, to reduce the awareness and knowledge of the working class. Generally, we find fraud either building up support for capitalism (“what is good for business is good for the country”, etc.) or slandering socialist ideas (“it's human nature to be greedy and lazy”.) Periodically fraud breaks down. Wars, recessions, environment crises, etc., all serve to show the true features of a capitalist society. Class conflict become clearer.

The decent into the capitalist abyss can be avoided only by replacing capitalism with the planned economy of socialism on a world scale. Capitalist crises have driven one fact home: capitalism is an outworn system that must be replaced with a new social system. To the evils of capitalism, the Socialist Party offers social progress and human welfare and advocates a system of society in the interests of all humanity. The aim of the Socialist Party is to assure society a high, continuous level of production which will permit the advancement of all, free of convulsive economic and financial crises Its goal is to assure abundance to all so that the nightmare of insecurity is dispelled and to provide everyone freedom from physical and intellectual enslavement of any kind. Are not these the things that all the people long for? Capitalist class rule has demonstrated to the hilt that it cannot, by its very nature, achieve this aim. Yet its achievement is not only necessary, but, as will be shown, it is quite possible. Now the question is for our fellow-workers what can and should they do to make this aim a living reality? Too many on the Left rarely utter a word about the necessity of the abolition of the capitalist system, and the establishment of socialism, confusingly presenting nationalisation or cooperatives as a type of “socialism” with the idea of not overthrowing capitalism, but merely the patching up of this system. The Left are complicity silent concerning the burning question of the era: capitalism or socialism. The best description that can be given this self-proclaimed vanguard of the working class is left-liberal reformists as it rests solely upon the struggle for immediate demands, and does not even place before the workers the need of a new society.

The Socialist Party declares itself for an altogether different task, convincing fellow-workers of the necessity of replacing capitalism by socialism, challenging fellow-workers still imbued with faith in capitalism, with the need for a new social system. The Socialist Party's purpose is to promote socialist ideas, i.e., consciousness of the necessity of replacing capitalism by a collectively-owned and operated economy. Only the working class is capable of overthrowing capitalism and establishing a socialist world. There is no other social force but the working class anywhere in the world capable of overthrowing international capitalism and establishing a social order founded on universal co-operation and solidarity. Here we are talking about the working class in the classic definition of the term, all those wage earners economically obliged to sell their labour power in order to obtain their means of consumption, since they lack access to the means of production and do not own capital). There are many that contend that workers are docile to the point of being reactionary; that they are not militant. If this is the case there is no point in building a revolutionary party because the working class is the only class capable of overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism. Confusion arises because the “new” social movements such as the environmental movement which are organisationally and often ideologically, separated from the organised workers' movement. In fact, it is often the labour movements' fault since it is slow or simply unwilling to take up the objectives these movements struggle for. Hence we have fragmented and diverging movements. Single-issue movements often mobilise big numbers. But at the same time they are diverted into reformist dead-ends.