Since our existence the Socialist Party has fought consistently and steadfastly on the side of the working class against the capitalist class. On this point we have never hedged – we have never posed as “impartial” in this struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor. We do not expect you to accept our ideas on our say-so. We do not believe that just because something appears in print it must be accepted as gospel truth. That is a concept which the capitalist press tries to inculcate in our minds. We invite you join us in the fight for socialism, the hope of humanity. We believe that capitalism threatens any hope for humanity.
We look at the global crises of capitalism with its mass poverty, its hunger, disease, wars and environmental destruction. Capitalism threatens the survival of civilisation on this planet. Nothing short of revolution and socialism can answer this threat. The challenge is ours to apply the lessons that we have learned from the body of Marxist knowledge to build a better socialist movement. We exist to organise for social revolution and the cooperative commonwealth. Capitalism is a system centred on capital accumulation and profit and is inherently a system of inequality, injustice, and war. Capitalism is a system of coercion. We want a social system where social wealth is not in the hands of a few billionaires, but owned and controlled by the people, where human needs replace profit. To combat exploitation, the working class needs to struggle for its own interests. Our enemy is capitalism. Under capitalism, a handful that own the factories, the mines, corporate farms, and the banks control the wealth that the majority produces. We are fighting this system. The capitalist class needs to maintain its grip on the levers of power. The state, the government, and the legal system were set up and developed to serve the interests of capitalism, to uphold the rights of property over the rights of people. Electoral politics are the arena of the working people’s class struggle
The absence of a viable socialist movement today is an indisputable and depressing fact. Some blame sectarianism. Dozens of alternative explanations abound. In the meantime, socialists remain ineffective. Obviously, history has not unfolded as Marx envisioned. What can motivate working people to struggle against injustice, exploitation and oppression? Some on the Left naively view each new economic downturn as evidence of an impending collapse. We do not argue (as do some mechanistic Leftists) that an economic catastrophe will create the necessary “objective conditions” for a revolutionary upheaval. The capitalist system has proved to be extremely resilient to economic crises. An economic crisis is not sufficient to create auspicious conditions for socialists. It could so easily foster a reactionary nationalistic movement in the absence of socialist consciousness. There is no innate leftward direction to human nature.
Politics is perceived as the ritualistic act of voting yet the overwhelming majority of citizens are apathetic and do not want to get involved in politics. The notion of class itself is regularly challenged by the intellectuals. A frightening sort of class amnesia increasingly prevails. And the result is that the worst of bourgeois ideology – consumerism, individualism, xenophobia, racism, sexism, etc. permeates all facets of cultural life. Trump’s victory was not an aberration. He won in 2016 and retained his electoral base in 2020 because a majority of citizens embraced his populaist ideology - “friendly fascism,” authoritarianism at the expense of the poor and the vulnerable, couched in the slogans of anti-Big Government and draining the swamp, leaving the corporate aristocracy to reap the benefits of wanton deregulation and obscene-tax cuts. A toxic patriotism was a particularly pernicious component of the Trump years.
Understandably, the left felt increasingly alienated and disempowered in the face of this stark reality. Unable to chart a path out of their isolation, leftists expend much of their time and energy in various tried and true activities, marches and demonstrations. Unfortunately, this is further evidence of the defensive and impotent state of the Left rather than its vitality. Campaigns became little more than media events. Likewise, there were numerous conferences to discuss and debate the myriad of issues with irate resolutions proclaimed and angry manifestoes published. However, most people were unaware of these. And rather than bringing together the resistance, there was a proliferation of disunity and internecine feuding. loose federations, coalitions, networks, etc.– were without any clear-cut solution to the problem. Clarity and purpose remained elusive.
In spite of all this the situation is not hopeless. There is no reason to throw in the towel. Granted, it is frustrating that there exists no general agreement and understanding about what needs to be done, nor any clear sense of how to go about doing it. The obvious things that need to happen should be uniting the disparate single issue organisations into a unified, multi-faceted political movement; combating racism, sexism, sectarianism; rebuilding the labour movement with all the components of a platform for social transformation. In addition, the creation of a “counter-hegemony” to the capitalist media, educational institutions, social and cultural organisations is necessary to fight for the hearts and minds of the people.
Socialists must look beyond the immediate situation and be willing to outline a vision of a future society. It is increasingly apparent that the issue is how goods are produce and distributed and who owns the means of production and how work is organised and administered. It is not only the fact that the planet cannot possibly sustain capitalism’s wasteful, toxic-ridden economic system on a global scale. Besides being ecologically infeasible, the unrelenting drive for increased growth is threatening to permanently subvert the struggle for human liberation itself. “Freedom” is equated with the right to consume. And, in turn, people themselves have become commodities, reduced to little more than another expendable raw material. A technocratic faith in expanding production has become synonymous with “progress”, the mindless consumerism and the ever-expanding creation of “needs.”
A model of socialism must be envisioned which transcends the capitalism of growth/productionist itself, one that establishes a new ecological relationship between human needs and the environment. In other words, a socialism that is not only democratic, non-exploitative, egalitarian, and internationalist but one that thoroughly replaces capitalism in toto, if humankind is to avoid the path of barbarism or collective self-annihilation.
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| THE SPGB SAYS NO |
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