Marx and Engels never thought that a socialist society could be built on the foundations of a backward underdeveloped economy. They saw socialism as the next stage of social evolution, a higher stage than capitalism with the developed means of production capable of supplying every human need. The democratic processes necessary to mobilise the vast majority of the population to such a titanic task will separate out the opportunists and frauds. Just one example may suffice. In 1919 the people of Winnipeg, in order to carry forward their general strike, forged a body which sensitively represented every layer of the population — except the employers. While the General Strike Committee co-existed with the City Council, it completely supplanted it. Its representatives, elected largely along occupational lines, subject to immediate recall, serving without pay and in almost constant session, ran the city for 41 days. This committee had the main general characteristics of the workers councils.
Not only will the revolution itself be profoundly democratic, but with its victory will come almost instantaneous benefits for all. Thanks to the tremendous productive capacity we have created across this land, we will be quickly able to satisfy all the basic needs of everyone. There will be no real shortages that would require some kind of policeman to supervise who gets what, and no bureaucrats with the possibility of providing special favours that would allow them to gather up connections that would frustrate the democratic process. One of the first acts of the popular councils would be to place the factories and communities into the hands of the working-people. Local, regional and world-wide planning boards would be set up. The aid of highly skilled technicians would immediately be enlisted. For the first time they would know that their specialized knowledge would be applied entirely for the benefit of mankind. We would see our wealth as part of mankind’s common heritage with its unparalleled natural resources and productivity, would be producing with no other thought than for the well-being of mankind.
The future of the working class in Britain is unavoidably bound up with the development of the world as a whole. Only if we conduct our struggle against capitalism on the basis of being just one contingent of the international working class will we achieve ultimate victory over our oppressors. The working class has no interest in making peace with its own rulers. we have every interest in stepping up and intensifying the class war to overthrow this oppressive and exploitative capitalist system. Taking the road of tightening our belts to help our masters through the crisis of their rotten system simply perpetuates a class-divided and oppressive society. The difference between the value of what workers produce and what they receive in wages constitutes the profits of the capitalist employer. Massive exploitation of the working class is an integral part of the capitalist economic system and will persist for as long as does capitalism. Not only do capitalist exploit workers but the system operates in such a way that capitalists constantly have to try to exploit workers even more. Different capitalists producing the same kind of commodity are competing with one another in the market to sell their products. Failure to sell the commodities produced by his firm means bankruptcy and ruin for a capitalist and the main way of ensuring steady sales is to offer given commodities on the market at a price below that charged by other capitalists. If a capitalist is to reduce his prices without reducing his profits then one way is to increase the hours of work of his employees without paying them any more wages. Where many workers are organised in trade unions, it is not easy for capitalists to force workers to accept such an increase in the degree to which they are exploited. Another ploy is to speed up the rate of work, increase its intensity, and thus reduce the cost per item by forcing the workforce to produce more commodities in the same time as before. When this does happen but in a given type of production there is usually a very definite limit to which the pace of work can be increased and anyway workers are likely to resist such a move. 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. In Britain a greater proportion of workers are in trade unions than in any of the other advanced capitalist countries. Even trade unions 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.
The whole of capitalist society is organised around the capitalist economy. The modern family is structured to produce and discipline the workforce, labour power. The state passes laws and maintains the police and armed forces So as to keep the working class in line. Education and the mass media are powerful means of spreading the ideas and outlook of the capitalist class, bourgeois ideology, among the working class so as to get them to accept the capitalist system. Religions promise the good life in this world for those who knuckle under to oppression and exploitation in this one, and so on. 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.
Capitalists try to gain an advantage over each other is by introducing new and more efficient means of production, technological innovation. The capitalist employer in a given field of production may be able to reduce his costs of production by introducing new production processes which enable output per worker to rise and thus cost per unit to fall. This allows the employer to sell his commodities at a price lower than that of his competitors while at the same time increasing his rate of profit on the capital he has invested. This advantage does not last long because the other employers will also quickly adopt the new production processes so as to be able to compete and stay in business. As the new production processes become introduced throughout an industry the proportion of total capital which is spent on raw materials, machinery, etc. rises while the proportion spent on employing labour power, on paying wages, falls.
The enemy of the working class is the capitalist class. The capitalists dominate the economic, political and cultural life. The capitalists have the interest in perpetuating the rule of capital. Experience has shown that while they find it necessary at times to make certain minor concessions to the working class and are willing to enter into alliances and accommodations with various groups outside their ranks, that even so the capitalists will never tolerate any fundamental challenge to their interests and rule. While there are differences within this class on what is the best way of controlling the working class so as to perpetuate the rule of capital they stand united in their determination to uphold its reign. Any challenge to their rule is met with whatever measures are necessary to defeat it. These people are the real rulers and the working class will never be free until they overthrow the capitalist class.
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