Changing the World

Who said that capitalism was fit for sane human beings to live under? We should all be as active as possible in trade union work which is in working class interests. And we should all realise that trade unions should be the enemy of the capitalist class, instead of the docile puppy-dogs.

When the Socialist Party speak of the employing or the capitalist class they refer to that small class in current society which, enabled to employ and to exploit the workers by its ownership of the land, factories, mines, transport, etc., is, if necessary, able to live without working upon the proceeds. This, then, is the capitalist class: the class of employers, of masters.  

Simple as it may seem to expect the right to good housing, good healthcare, good food, and good education, for men and women, this simple demand cannot be met without the complete overthrow of our present competitive society, and the elimination of the profit-mongering class.

The problem that concerns capitalists in general is freedom to accumulate profits without economic or political hindrance either from economic conditions or from dissatisfied workers and impecunious sections of their own class. In each country each section of the capitalist class seeks to gain the lion’s share of the wealth plundered from the workers. The International interests of groups (large trusts for. instance) again cut across these other interests and produce further complications. On the main issue there is unity, but on sectional issues there is conflict.

The Socialist Party does not distinguish between “offensive” and “defensive” wars. In truth, no real distinction is possible. If defence and offense appeared to be separable a century or two ago, the changing technique of war has made it difficult to-day. Any Government can put up a plausible case to show that its military offensive is needed to defend “vital national interests.” “Aggression” is also merely the name applied to the actions of the late-comers to economic expansion by those who were first to collar the loot. The Socialist Party declines to  to distinguish between the relative merits of the conduct of capitalist governments at war with each other. We recognise as a fact that they are all of them defending by armed force the private ownership of the world’s means of production and distribution, i.e., forcibly excluding the mass of the population from entering into possession. Should the slaves take sides when the slave-owners fall out? Obviously, no. We repudiate this argument that certain wars should be supported by the workers because of their supposed revolutionary effects. First of all, there is the suffering for the workers which war brings in its train – both to combatants and civilians. Then there is the war fever and political repression which make socialist propaganda more difficult. 

The supposed progressive effect of war and defeat has been misunderstood. War may speed up the development of industry and may produce disturbed conditions leading to the overthrow of governments. In countries where democratic methods of electing and changing the Government have not yet developed, this possible result of defeat may appear to possess considerable importance. But the defeats in various wars which hastened political changes did not lead to Socialism. What was overlooked by those who put forward the argument was that the overthrow of a throne or an autocratic government cannot possibly lead to socialism where the working class are not fit to take on that task. Experience has taught us something it had not at that time taught our critics that they (and this includes Marx and Engels in their earlier years) had underestimated the extent of the knowledge and experience required to build up a solid and reliable socialist political organisation out of the unorganised workers. To them, the overthrow of an autocracy was but a step removed from the conquest of power by the working-class. The lessons of the past 100 years have shown how over-sanguine they were. Wars, revolutions, and ordinary economic and political evolution have destroyed numerous monarchies and autocracies, but because an organised socialist working class nowhere exists, every attempt to gain power for socialism has failed – including, of course, the Russian attempt. The Socialist Party opposes working class participation in war for reasons based directly on working class interests and the interests of the World Socialist Movement. In all countries the workers are exploited by the owners of the means of production and distribution. There are no differences between the conditions under which exploitation is carried on in the different countries sufficient to make it worth the workers’ while supporting war in order to defend their subjection to one national group of capitalists rather than to another. 

Many people, nevertheless argue in favour of supporting wars for national defence and to secure national independence on the ground that only in this way can the national question be thrust on one side. They argue that socialists ought to help others to secure national independence as a means of clearing nationalistic prejudices out of the way. This is an illusion. Every support of nationalism feeds it and encourages it. Nationalism breeds conditions in which socialist propaganda and organisation are made more difficult. For socialist propaganda to make headway, nationalistic prejudices have got to be struck it the roots, and that from the very beginning.

As a practical policy this means that socialists must carry on their struggle against the capitalist parties in their own country and must on no account allow it to appear, through political alliances or collaboration in capitalist Governments, that they associate themselves with their own capitalists against the rest of the world. It is only natural that the Labour Parties, believing as they do in associating with capitalist parties, should find themselves during war forming nationalist united fronts against the “enemy” country. There can be no sound socialist attitude towards war except where there is a sound socialist attitude towards capitalism at home.

 Socialism is a society of common ownership and production for use: or an end to the exchange economy (buying and selling), classes and the state.