How Socialism Works

 

The Socialist Party is opposed to the policy of putting forward a programme of reforms in addition to the objective of socialism. It has sometimes been argued that a socialist party can usefully have a programme of reforms or immediate demands, consisting of measures to improve the workers’ conditions under capitalism. The objections to this are many. One is that such a programme inevitably attracts the support of people interested in the reforms but not interested in socialism. This leads, as experience has shown in the past, to the socialist objective being pushed into the background, and to the socialist membership being swamped by the reformist element. A second objection is that the party which adopts such a policy finds itself advocating reforms which are part of the programme of openly capitalist parties—which causes confusion in the minds of the workers and leads to a demand by the reformist element of the would-be socialist party that it should co-operate with capitalist parties in order to put the reforms into operation.

A further objection is that no matter what reforms are introduced capitalism will still remain. It will frequently nullify the temporary improvement brought about by each reform and at the same time produce other evils which in turn demand still more reforms. The only solution to the workers’ problem is the introduction of socialism, and this can be brought about only when a majority have been won over to an understanding of socialism and has organised to achieve it. All the time and effort spent on reforms is time and effort lost to the propagation of socialism.

It won’t be the Socialist Party as an organisation separate from the working class that would have a parliamentary majority, but the socialist-minded working class. It is they who will have won political control and the socialist MPs will be their delegates. This presupposes, as you say, a socialist majority outside parliament, one which will have organised itself not just into a socialist political party, but also in places of work ready to keep useful production going. Also, there would be similar movements in control of political power or about to be in other advanced capitalist countries.

So what would the majority of socialist delegates do? The main reason for going into parliament, as an elected central law-making body, is to be in a position to control the machinery of government; not for the purpose of forming a government as under capitalism but, as a minimum, to prevent the powers of the state being used against the movement for socialism. But, as the state is not just the public power of coercion but also the centre of social administration, to use this aspect to co-ordinate the social revolution from capitalism to socialism as well as to keep essential administrative services going.

There is no need to create from scratch a central co-ordinating body – as the syndicalists and others have proposed, whether based on industrial unions or some central workers’ council – when one that can be adapted and used already exists. In our view, winning control of the existing political structure is the most direct route to socialism. Trying to smash it would be suicidal; trying to ignore it risks violence and unnecessary disruption. Why try to set up alternative central departments to deal with such matters as agriculture, education, energy, health and transport? The same at the local level: why can’t existing elected councils continue to administer local services?

So a socialist majority in parliament would have to decide to adapt the existing central administrative structure to make it fully democratic. The main measure, though, would be to withdraw the state’s sanction and backing for the capitalist class ownership of the means of production. Because most productive resources are vested in limited liability companies this will be relatively straightforward. Companies are legal institutions created by the state which gives them an artificial legal personality that can own property. All that would be required would be to declare that all companies are dissolved and that henceforth their physical assets are the common property of all the people. The capitalist class will have been dispossessed and all their legal titles, their stocks and shares will have become useless, unenforceable pieces of paper. As an immediate measure, those working in places producing something useful or providing a useful service would continue running them, producing for direct use and no longer for profit.

 

Assuming that there is no attempt by some minority to try to thwart by force of arms the democratically expressed will of the people for socialism, the working class’s use of the state would then be over. The state would in fact cease to exist as such and its administrative side would become an unarmed, democratic administrative centre. Socialism will have been established. 

As regards the question of voting for individual measures in Parliament it is not denied that certain measures may, at least temporarily, alleviate the hardship of some groups of workers. In such a case, if the effect of the proposal was clearly beneficial, Socialist Party M.P.s would be instructed by the Party to vote for it while pointing out its limitations. They would, of course, in no case invite support or elections on such grounds.

It should, however, be observed that most of the proposals put forward are not beneficial at all. It can be said, for example, that the past Acts of Parliament extending the franchise were useful to the socialist movement, as also Acts providing and extending education. These cases are fairly clear but a proposal to introduce family allowances would in effect merely have the result of redistributing wages between workers with young children and workers without.