The Socialist View

 

At this time of year, it is customary to cast a critical look over the political scene and take stock of the position in which the working class finds itself. The Socialist Party hold that capitalism cannot be fundamentally improved for the workers. We see no evidence at all to prove the unsoundness of our case. Only common ownership of the means of production can solve the workers' problems.  We resolve to raise aloft the banner of world socialism.

The great majority of the population has no property. They have no means of living except by working for others. They must seek out an employer master willing to hire them. The working class can offer only one thing—their ability to labour. They have nothing to sell except the energy in their bodies, brawn and brain.  Labour power is a commodity, the price of which is determined by its cost of production. All commodities are subject to this law. There may be temporary fluctuations in the price of a commodity due to variations in supply and demand, but these compensate one another in the long run, and a mean level can be traced through the ups and downs which is the actual cost of production. It is true that the workers' standard of living is not unalterably fixed. It is possible, in certain favourable circumstances, for the workers to win for themselves, through organised struggle, a higher standard of living. On the other hand, it is possible for the standard to be beaten down to lower levels.

What is wrong is capitalism: private or class ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution for profit. The workers do not live on profits; why, then, should they produce for profits? They should organise politically for control of the State machinery in order to establish a system of society based on production for use. The wants of the people would determine the nature and extent of all production instead of, as to-day, the profits of a ruling class.

When we talk about socialism we mean a worldwide sustainable society of common ownership, with no leaders, so by our global definition socialism has never existed before. Temporary or small-scale experiments have certainly occurred at different times in history, but we tend to question their usefulness in convincing anyone of the viability of socialism. If anything, the very fact that they didn’t last long can be trumpeted as proof that socialism is not viable. Of course, it’s not proof of any such thing, but neither is it proof that socialism could work long-term. Besides, not everyone finds such obscure historical debates either attractive or relatable. Perhaps what such attempts do show, however, is that the human desire for social equality, real democracy, free access and so on is very real and very strong, and the fact that people have acted on that desire in the past is a very good reason to think they will act on it again in the future, next time we hope with happier results. 

Marx always insisted (as we do) on the need for the working class to win control of state power before attempting to change the basis of society from class ownership to common ownership. He also saw elections as one possible way of doing this. For anarchists, political action in this sense is anathema. The state must not be captured, it must be confronted. Anti-capitalists should not contest elections, they should boycott them. Confronting the state — as some “anti-capitalists” tried — is a senseless policy, especially when it’s a question of a minority confronting a state-supported, even if only passively, by a majority. The state will always win in such confrontations since it has much more force at its disposal.

As to the time when there will be many, many more anti-capitalists (socialists), then boycotting elections — agreed there’s not much point in voting today, where all the candidates stand for the continuance of capitalism in one form or another — would also be senseless since this would be to leave state power in the hands of the pro-capitalists. Much more sensible would be to organise to take this power from them. That’s the difference between Marxian socialists and anarchists, a gap which could only be bridged by anarchists dropping their dogmatic opposition to elections and political action. Hopefully, they will.