Work in Socialism

Work in socialism will be on the basis of voluntary co-operation and the democratic administration of society. The production and distribution of wealth will be controlled by the whole of society. 

Socialism will also involve the rational use of resources and areas, using those resources and areas for the activities to which they are best suited. In socialism there will be various sorts of worldwide administration systems which will assess people’s needs and organise production accordingly to maintain adequate supplies to all areas. The production and distribution of wealth will be controlled by the whole of society. The social organisation of socialism will be under the complete control of society’s members. There will probably be delegate assemblies. However the exact form which democracy in socialism will take, cannot be presently determined other than in general terms because , the very form must itself be the result of a great and serious democratic debate. Also we are in an information revolution where the development of new technology which could aid democracy keeps advancing. One thing is certain, however, socialism will be the most democratic form of society possible, and, as the means of living will be owned in common, no minority will be able to enforce its will upon the majority by threatening to withhold their livelihood. Because no one will be in a position to coerce others, all work in socialism will be voluntary. 

Work will not take place under coercive or exploitative conditions. Instead, each person will contribute to society as much of their talents and abilities as they are willing to give. Due to the fact that the producers will no longer be exploited (robbed of the full fruits of their labour) in the course of production; nor forced to work in conditions which are sometimes detrimental to their health; nor deprived of creativeness in work; nor forced to compete with one another for pay and promotion; nor forced to labour in circumstances which they don’t fully control; nor forced to divide their activity between employment and “leisure” (neither of which are fully satisfying)—work in socialism will be more pleasant with increased work satisfaction, a definite end and need in itself. 

Mankind will, for the first time, be in complete control of its circumstances, it will create and recreate its circumstances, it will venture to the very limits of its potentiality, it will continually extend itself to an extent that could never be achieved under the present social organisation. 

Mankind, in socialism, will be revealed as the supreme creative artist, we shall constantly beautify and redesign our world, we shall continuously acquire more knowledge, liberating itself from the restrictions. Socialism requires human action for its achievement. What is needed, is for all those desire a new society must unite with like-minded people to change society.

Capital and labour can be described as interdependent only in the sense that they are opposite sides of the class struggle of capitalism. This does not imply a unity of interest; the two classes have interests in opposition, over the division of wealth in capitalist society and finally over the transformation of society from capitalism to socialism.

Capitalism came into existence after a bitter, and often bloody, struggle in which one side was protecting its privileges and property rights while the other was seeking to assume the position of social domination. Perhaps both sides can be described as “greedy” but this judgment does not fill the bill historically; it ignores the reality of social change and revolution, which is a process of social adaptation to developments in the mode of production. “Motivation”, in terms of human desires, is secondary to that.

Class society is then part and parcel of social evolution; capitalism, which is the final form of class society, has as one of its essential features the drive to accumulate capital, to amass and invest wealth with the object of producing more wealth for sale at a profit. The privileges which go with being a member of the dominant class in society, and the accumulation of capital, are not examples of “greed”—they are unavoidable features of a necessary phase in the development towards a class-free society.

“Greed ' is in any case a factor relating to its conditions; it can exist only in times of shortage and restrictions and becomes more evident as scarcity develops. When wealth is freely available, as it will be in socialism, greed will not exist—it will be an attitude so archaic that it will be almost beyond understanding. This illustrates the fact that “ethics” are not eternal and unchanging; each social system has its own, in a sort of superstructure of ideas and responses which rest on its economic base. Capitalism’s ethics are those of division, of panic, of destruction and competition. Socialism’s will be those of co-operation, abundance and efficiency.

Capitalism has brought about a tremendous increase in the “material powers of production”, to the point where society is now technically capable of producing an abundance of goods and services. But this abundance is not produced under capitalism, because its highest priority, profit, acts as a fetter on the productive forces. The socialist revolution will usher in new relations of production — common ownership and production for use—which will enable this potential for abundance to be realized and will no longer hold back the development of the forces of production. Common ownership will be linked with democratic control of the means of production to resolve another of the contradictions of capitalism, that between social production and class monopoly of the means of production.

The establishment of socialism requires a revolution carried out by a working class who have come to understand the nature of capitalism and the desirability of socialism, and who are willing to run a socialist system and make it work. The material conditions for socialism already exist. The Socialist Party exists to spread the idea of socialism and to act as the political tool of the socialist working class who will carry out this revolution.