Social Evolution

The ruling class of this country and all the others never stopped preaching that their form of government is “the most democratic on earth.” Like other things these parasites put out, this is reality upside down. The fact is that the people who run this country are a small handful of bankers and businessmen, millionaires and billionaires. In this system which they call “the most democratic on earth,” they own the vast productive forces–the factories, the mines, the mills, the transportation systems, communications, etc – and exploit the working class, the majority of the population, for their own private profit. The State – the police, army, courts, bureaucracy and similar institutions – is set up and controlled by this capitalist class who  are never mobilised against the class of bankers and corporation executives. In short, this state is a class dictatorship of employers and investors. This does not mean there is a dictatorship in this country of one person or a clique. It does mean there is a class dictatorship, where a tiny handful of profit-makers rules society and uses the State as their machine to repress the working people. Most people do not think of their country as a dictatorship because the domination by the capitalist class is usually concealed under the camouflage of democracy for it is extremely difficult for a minority of exploiters to rule by force alone and require to be controlled by consent. The capitalists do not openly admit their rule. Instead they claim that this is a democracy where “everyone shares power and takes part in running the government.” However, the capitalists are no more willing to “share” power with the majority of people than it is to share the ownership of the means of production and the wealth that comes from this. For them to function as a capitalist class, they must exploit the working class; and to exploit the workers, who constantly resist this exploitation and oppression, they must use the state to suppress the workers.

 Nevertheless the ruling class had been forced to grant the workers some democratic rights such as the right to vote, free speech, free media, etc. But these freedoms, like everything else in capitalist society, have their class content: they mean one thing to the ruling class and quite another for the workers. For the capitalists, freedom of free speech, as examples, mean the right to fill the air-waves and press with their propaganda and lies and to use them freely to debate with each other. For the capitalists, elections are a way to settle differences among themselves, while making it look like everybody has equal say. The ruling class decides by compromise within its own ranks, and among its paid politicians, how it will maintain its system of exploitation over the people.

For the working class, democratic rights are the fruits of previous struggles, and we fight to preserve them for they make it easier to organise and mobilise for the day when the capitalists will be overthrown. Often democratic rights are a sham to mask the real dictatorship of the capitalists. This becomes especially clear when democratic rights come into conflict with the most basic “freedom” of bourgeois society–the right of the capitalists to their “private property” and to exploit the labour of the workers.

When the capitalist class talks about freedom, it does not mean that the people have, or should have, rights. It means that the capitalists are free to exploit the people to make profits.  There is one sense in which the capitalists want the workers to be “free.” We must be “free” of ownership of the means of production, we must have no other way to make our living except to go to work to enrich the capitalists. It becomes clearer and clearer that capitalist society means democracy and freedom for the capitalist minority and oppression and exploitation for the great majority of the people. This can only be reversed by socialist revolution to overthrow capitalist rule and all the political structures, the courts and bureaucracies, all its rules and regulations aimed at enslaving the people are abolished.

In the process of socialist revolution the working class take control of the state machine and once in power the working class moves to socialise the ownership of the means of production-making them the common property of society–to resolve the basic contradiction of capitalism, to break down the obstacles capitalism puts in the way of progress, and makes possible the rapid development of society. Socialism is a higher form of society than capitalism, and is bound to replace it all over the world, just as capitalism replaced the feudal system of landlords and serfs. No longer do a handful of parasites run society for their own private profit and the working class sets out to transform all of society, stripping from the master class their ownership of the means of production which becomes the common property of the working people. 

 Socialism replaces capitalism, a form of society, where there will no longer be any classes, and, therefore, there will no longer be any need for the State, when everyone in society can share equally in producing goods and services and managing the affairs of society; putting the common good above narrow, individual interests, when goods and services can be produced so abundantly that money is no longer needed to exchange them and they can be distributed to people solely according to their needs. Classes will have been completely eliminated, and the state as such will be replaced by the common administration of society by all its members. As this happens, throughout the world, mankind will look upon a whole new horizon.