Changing the System

Capitalism is running on overtime to hide the fact that time for humanity is running out. The destruction of the planet is driven by the rampant accumulation of capital which is inherent in the capitalist system thatdoes not simply exploit labour but exploits nature as well. The Socialist Party aims its arguments at the parties of compromise and conciliation with capitalism and it means unmasking the diversions and distortions of many reformists. There is no automatic socialist future, no guaranteed progress and no “final crisis” of capitalism leading by itself to the next step in social evolution. The choice between socialism and barbarism remains wide open, and its outcome depends on each one of us. Why, then, does socialism with its critique and condemnation of the destructive injustices of capitalism seem so irrelevant?

 Moreover, the exploitation of labour is intensifying. Equating environmental degradation with technology lets capitalism off the hook. The solution is not ending growth, but ending capitalism: ending production for profit and eliminating the exploitation of labour. However, most environmentalists have moved a long way from the struggle to end capitalism, and now rather advocate palliative policies for capitalist politicians to adopt. They can no longer think the future of humanity outside of capitalism by accepting and working within the system rather than transforming it. This is one of the more disturbing aspects of the ecology movement, the advocacy of a enlightened benevolence by capitalists and their politicians, preoccupied with a unending tug-of-war for government approval against the corprate lobbyists. The only alternative to capitalism's ceaseless growth for profit is a moralistic change of lifestyle choices and a reduction in consumption. Anything, in fact, except to radically intervene in the structures of exploitation of capitalism. 

For the Socialist Party, the State is no saviour but exercises power on behalf of the ruling class: "The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. " It is only through gaining control of the state that the workers will acquire the resources and apparatuses of power to enable them to control the means of production and end capitalism.

Sweep aside all confusion of the “experts”! What we are talking about is a series of separate crises, but, in fact, the general and world-wide crisis of the entire capitalist system. Socialists are full of hope and confidence. All the paths of the class war will be joined together on a single path: the road to socialism. The task of the Socialist Party is not be to tail-end the various workers' movement or to worship it, but to raise it to a more class-consciousness level.

It is important to realise that capitalists are not always looking for ways to increase the degree of exploitation of workers because they, the capitalists, are inherently greedy but that they do this because of the way in which the capitalist economy operates leaves them with no choice if they are to stay in business. Similarly, if workers are not to be worked to death and totally impoverished then they have no choice except to take a common stand together against capitalist employers so as to resist employers’ attempts to exploit them even more. This is done by forming trade unions to defend wage levels and working conditions. It is obvious that trade unions only have a very limited capacity to defend the living standards and working conditions of the working class. While trade unions are a necessary means of defence of the working class against the capitalist class it is also the case that they pose no fundamental challenge to the whole capitalist system. Trade unions do not challenge the right of capitalists to exploit workers but only the degree to which this takes place. Even the most militant trade union struggles, involving workplace occupations and clashes with the police, pose no fundamental challenge to the dominant position of the capitalist class. 

If the working class does not rise above the level of recognising the necessity to organise industrially, of a trade union consciousness, then it will be doomed to an eternity of struggle with the capitalist class. Capitalist society in its totality is structured so as to preserve the exploitative relationship between the capitalist class and the working class which lies at its heart. Nonetheless this same system contains within itself forces which periodically throw it into crisis and open up the possibility of its final overthrow arid replacement by a society where oppression and exploitation do not exist. Not only does capitalism deprive most people of the means of material wellbeing but it also means that they lose control over the process whereby they produce the means of material life; we are in a state of alienation. We need to abolish capitalism not simply to have a fatter pay packet but so as to gain control together over all aspects of our lives, to liberate the whole of humanity from alienation.

SOCIALIST CONSCIOUSNESS WILL GROW