The Law of Capitalism

There is anger stirring among the population, particularly as their living standards implode. Yet at the same time, there is widespread despair. The media spreads the notion that capitalism is the only alternative.

Reformists have prevailed over the decades and across the world but what do the people have to show for it?  In some cases social welfare programs yet these are now in jeopardy. Has exploitation been ended, the enrichment of a few on the labor of the many?  Poverty? Inequality? Is the economy planned to benefit the people? Have the creative powers of the ordinary person been unleashed?  Reformists are content with class divisions, the dominance of the capitalists, and they do not challenge the existing structures

The worker need not hope for a reasonable wage. The capitalist has but to dismiss some of his hands, or fill their places with labor-saving machinery which other laborers have invented and constructed, and those thrown out of employment will immediately underbid those employed in order to be reinstated. If the latter do not accede to a reduction of wage, he will be dismissed to make room for the one who offers his services cheaper. If the workers form a union, and strike for higher wages, they cannot hold out as long as the capitalists to whom they have given up nearly the whole of their product, but surrender as soon as their idleness reduces them to poverty. Under the present system, where the wage-receiver works for a profit-taker, he can never retain his independence, or retain the fruits of his labor.  It is useless to preach thrift to those who have nothing to save, or to hope for universal prosperity when the enrichment of the few is caused by the plunder of the many. Speculations in investments in stocks,and shares are all speculations on the possible future of losses of labor. Dividends do not create themselves – they are all filched from labor. If the laborers ceased to be plundered, there will be no dividends. The more they can cripple the bargaining power of the workers, the longer they can hold down wages the more profits are made from which to pay those dividends.

How can we get from the present unjust, destructive system, into one in which justice and happiness shall be the distinguishing characteristics? How shall we fight out of the present blood-thirsty system without the shedding of blood and without the disastrous reaction which has marked the bloody rebellions of the past? How shall we change bondage into liberty? We, slaves as we are, have to emancipate ourselves. It can be done. It must be done. It shall be done.

The basic problem of capitalist production has nothing to do with whether this capitalist is “good” and “generous,” and that capitalist “bad” and “miserly.” It is not at all the personal character of the capitalist that is involved – his character usually merely reflects his social position. It is not at all the individual capitalist who must be “changed” in order to change conditions. It is rather the mode of production that is involved. That is what must be studied, and that is what must be changed.

Let us take for our first example a modest and pious capitalist. He owes nothing, he argues, to the labor of others. All he has he acquired by his own labor or wit or good luck. By working like a slave for years, by stinting himself, by saving every penny; or by a legacy from a wealthy uncle; or by stumbling over a valuable gold nugget – he has managed to get hold of, say, $100,000. He got that wealth without employing labor, therefore, without exploiting anyone. So far, it seems, argument is on his side. It is not even necessary to challenge his argument, for thus far he is not yet a capitalist.

Suppose, however, that this man of wealth launches an enterprise in which he invests his hard-earned, self-earned, or luckily-found $100,000. We will even overlook how he got it in the first place. He has it, and he invests it in production.

On this sum of money, he makes a profit of ten per cent per year, or $10,000. We keep in mind here our theory of surplus-value, and we assume that the rate of surplus-value in this case is 100 per cent. That is, if the workers in his plant worked an average of four hours per day to produce the equivalent of their wages, they worked an additional four hours to produce the surplus-value. At the end of the year, the total capital would amount, thereafter, to $10,000 more than was originally invested, or to $110,000. The additional $10,000 is his profit.

The capitalist, however, is not too ambitious. He is not interested in accumulation, that is, in expanding production. All he wants is his modest profit of $10,000, and all he wants to do is spend every penny of it on food, clothing, a home, an automobile, a little life insurance, and some other necessities of life and a few small comforts for himself and his family. In other words, he consumes his profit personally and does not re-invest it. He is content in the feeling that he deserves this income because of his enterprising nature, the risk he took in launching the business, the talent he displayed in organizing production and selling his commodities on the market at a reasonable profit. His piety is satisfied by the feeling that he exploited nobody, but instead gave a number of workers a good job and good wages in return for a fair year’s work.

If this is the basis on which he operates, he will naturally start the second year as he did the first, with a capital of $100,000, having himself consumed, as an income he considers his rightful own, the $10,000 profit he made.

But let us stop a moment. The $100,000 with which he starts the second year is not the same $100,000 with which he started the first year. Of the original $100,000, he used $90,000 for machinery, raw materials, etc., and $10,000 for wages. When he received $110,000 on the market for the goods produced by the end of the year, it divided up this way: $90,000 represented the value of the machinery, raw materials, etc., incorporated into the finished products; $10,000 represented the value contributed by the workers to make up for the wages he gave them; and another $10,000 represented the surplus-value contributed by the workers in the second part of their working day.

After taking as his income $10,000, the capitalist still has left what he started with – $100,000. But only $90,000 of that came from his original capital; the remaining $10,000 came from the workers whom he exploited.

Now, if this same process is repeated during ten years, it should be clear that he will start the third year with only $80,000 of his original capital and $20,000 of surplus-value; the fourth year with only $70,000 of his original capital and $30,000 of surplus-value; and that he will enter his eleventh year in business without a penny of his original capital. He will once again invest a full $100,000, but every cent of it will have been the product of the exploitation of labor!

From this example it may be seen that no matter how noble and spotless the methods by which a man may have gathered together a large sum of money in the first place, the moment it is converted into capital, it cannot be increased, and it cannot even be maintained at its original size, without the exploitation of labor.  What this or that capitalist desires to do is not decisive. The mode of production is what decides. The capitalist who does not accumulate, expand, is doomed. He must expand or be crushed. This lies not in his nature, but in the nature of capital itself.

Rough Sleeping In A Rough Society

Nothing illustrates the madness of capitalism better than the news that many millionaire's homes in London stand empty while the following scandal occurs. 'Last week the government published its rough sleeping statistics for 2013, showing that the number of people sleeping on the streets on any one night in England has risen a further 5% to 2,414.' (Guardian, 4 March) Inside a socialist society houses will be built for people to live in not to increase some rich person's portfolio. RD

The need for a socialist party

What does the word “politics” mean to the average worker? It brings to mind bribery and corruption.  If he sees a public figure (or sometimes a figure in the trade union movement) doing something under-handed in order to line his pockets or to climb up the ladder of careerism, he or she says, “That is politics.” This is based upon the realities of capitalist politics, which is always accompanied by corruption, office-seeking. Politics as conducted by the capitalist politicians is usually dirty and sordid.

 Even the left-wing politics leaves much to be desired. Left organisations who call themselves "the vanguard" are, in the whole, adherents of Leninism. In their view, Marx’s concept of a workers’ party has been reduced to the idea that all that is needed is a “correct programme” and a democratic-centralist organisation. The title of “the Marxist-Leninist party” is synonymous with their having that “correct programme”. A trademark of the “revolutionary party” is also their manner of “intervention”. Some members of a group will be assigned to intervene among formations attempting to reach people on one issue or another. The real goal of these interventions is the cannibalise movements and organisations in order to gain more members. If it is so decided that the issue or protest group is no longer conducive to party-building, its members will disappear as suddenly as they appeared.

  A political struggle cannot be fought successfully by the workers unless they have a political weapon, which means, their own political party. The capitalist class has its own political organizations. It sees to it that they remain committed to its basic interests, the maintenance of the capitalist system. It sees to it that they remain under its control. It provides them with a press. It provides them with funds, running into millions of dollars each year. In some places, the capitalists are in direct control of these parties, in others, its agents and sworn friends are in direct control. Even if, under certain conditions, a “progressive” breaks through to a nomination and gets elected, the capitalist class still maintains control of the political machinery and is able to realize its aims in the end. The workers need a party of their own.  It is the first big step in breaking from the capitalist parties and capitalist politics, and toward independent working-class political action.

We’re all part of the same struggle for liberation. But what is this ”liberation” we’re working for? To build  that socialist society we have to recognize who the enemy is. Our enemy is capitalism –the bosses, the big corporations  and the politicians who work for them. The capitalists always try to tell us you’re wrong to fight us because if our profits go down you’re going to go down the drain. When the bosses  speak of sacrifice, what they mean is that the workers should sacrifice. But the only choice is to fight harder.

The actual work of the unions is based upon an acceptance of capitalism. They are not organised for the purpose of liberating the working class from the condition of exploitation and oppression to which it is doomed under capitalism. Instead, they confine themselves to the attempt to raise the wages of the workers and obtain favorable social legislation while keeping the capitalist profit system. The longer capitalism is allowed to exist, the more acute become its problems. The more acute its problems, the stronger and more urgent its drive against the workers' living standard. The most that the unions can do – given the way they are now constituted and led – is to resist this drive, try to slow it down. If they remain committed to the capitalist system, the unions, and the workers in general, are limited to defensive actions and, in the long run, to defeat. The class struggle is a political struggle, but the unions, by themselves, are not equipped to conduct it successfully. The problems of the workers cannot be solved in the form of a “better contract” between one local union and one employer, or even between one industrial union and a large capitalist combine.

If we think only in the most narrow “wage” terms, the most modest victory of the workers in one plant or industry depends upon the organized strength of the workers all over the country, in all the important plants and industries. In other words, the progress of any group of workers depends upon the strength and organization of their class, upon its ability to contend with the capitalists as a class.

But the struggle between the two is not confined to the economic field. The state, the government, is an instrument of the capitalist class in this struggle. It intervenes in the struggle more and more directly. The closer capitalism comes to collapse, the more frequently it breaks down – the more active and direct is the intervention of the government to “organise” it, to maintain it. Capitalism is intertwined with the machinery of the government. It is not an accident, and not a whim of some group of politicians, that the government and its agents are increasingly present and dominant in the economic life of the country. It is the inevitable result of a capitalist process.

Consequently, the attempt to solve the labour movement’s problems on the purely economic field, yields fewer and fewer results. To solve their economic problems, the workers find themselves forced to go deeper into the political field, to engage in political action. Even such matters as wages, work-day and working conditions are no longer simply settled between one union and one employer. They must be taken up with the government, or one of its bureaus or boards, which have acquired the power to settle them. This serves to bring about a clearer understanding of the fact that the class struggle is a political struggle. The trouble is that the unions are not equipped for effective working-class political action.

Our need is revolution

We call our society “civilised,” and compare it with those previous primitive systems that we said were at a “savage” or “barbarian” stage. We point at our great works of art, the wonders of our science, our technological marvels in  appliances and machinery of all kinds. Yet we fail to secure for each and all enough to live a life of comfort. That the present social system has failed must be apparent to all who have studied it. It has rendered the many subservient to the few; it has checked the best human endeavours, and facilitated every method of exploitation; it disinherits the many, and foreordains their lifelong misery before they are even born; it makes one dependent upon another’s caprice. It is an incentive to plunder and to idleness.  Plutocracy rules the world.

 Capitalists always seek to convey the idea that the profit system, class society and exploitation will continue to exist forever. In other words, that is natural and eternal, and there is no use anyone thinking of making fundamental changes in it or replacing it with any other social system.

Our good, kind, benevolent employers, to whom the expropriated and exploited  goes hat in hand, cringing for the privilege of being permitted to work extort  huge slices out of the worker, by buying his or her services as much beneath their true value as he can possibly procure them, and selling them as much above their worth as the circumstances will permit him to extort. The bigger his business, the greater his power over his employees. Under capitalism, workers have no control over what is produced and how. All that is decided by how much profit some capitalist will gain. But socialism enables the community to decide how to organise itself and the resources of society to meet the needs of the people. As John Adams said, when drawing up the Constitution of the United States of America, “What matter whether you give the food and clothes to the slave direct, or whether you just give him enough in wages to purchase the same?”

It is an unfortunate fact that the workers have not yet learned that socialism offers the only solution to their plight They express their discontent with a series of reforms they seek but  almost every demand that is arising today from the angry and bitter working class, and which aims at the very simple goal of a decent living for everyone is “utopian”, in the sense that they are unworkable within the present system, for such are demands for security and well-being only socialism can provide.

These aren’t the best of times. More and more families are forced to go on welfare benefits, as jobs are wiped out and are harder and harder to get. Welfare is not something that takes from the hard working people as the government tries to re-portion the blame. It is often the last resort, when employers won’t let people work, or when they cannot keep up with the cost of living.

 Rebellion grows against the handful of big bankers and corporate CEOs who run this system of capitalism and benefit from it, while millions of people are standing in line for a charity hand-out or going without food. We especially have to keep in mind that by far the great majority of people who are poor are not on welfare, but are the working poor,  employed in miserable underpaid jobs. And workers who are organised into unions and get better wages are always just one step away from the poor house, even in the best of times.

The few “concessions” to the people we were able to extract from the ruling class in the past social security, unemployment payments, were just enough to give most working people a small sense of security and the hope that their children would have a better life  but also, to keep the workers and their children alive, because the employers need the workers, generation after generation, to make their products, and their profits. They were willing to pay welfare to women with children, even though the women themselves didn’t work directly for the bosses, because the children could be raised as future workers. But they have no more small crumbs to toss to us. They are snatching back the few crumbs they have already thrown. They cannot afford to think of future workers. They have to squeeze as much out of the workers today as they can.

In socialism, we will use all our industry and farmlands together. We will build new factories, machines, transportation systems, parks, theatres, schools, hospitals, and the other things we need to provide for ourselves and future working people who will inherit together what we produce together. Automation will be used to give us more leisure in common, not to lay us off and increase the competition among us for the jobs that are left. And there will be plenty enough for everyone to live comfortably. This is not a dream, but a reality.  We can make it happen here–by uniting in struggle and smashing every link in the capitalists’ chain of slavery. We’ll sweep away their system and we’ll build our own, our new, brighter future. A future where we workers will run the factories, produce for our needs and not for the profits of the capitalist bosses. Only by completely getting rid of this system of wage slavery and its law of profits and the system in which the capitalists own and control everything, including us and our labor, can we advance to socialism. We can’t move forward step by step, winning some concessions here and there.  Didn’t we fight for the eight hour day, for the right to strike, for worker laws and isn’t it true that we’re fighting for these things all over again? There’s no way step by step we can win, it’s only by getting rid of the whole source of these problems, the system of capitalism, that we can build a new society run by and for the people.

A Run on a Food bank

The largest food bank in Scotland, which exists to help feed the poverty stricken, has run out of food. The food bank in Glasgow has been cleaned out because the number of families asking for help has reached record levels.

The number of people requesting help via the Citizens Advice Bureau for food in January was more than half the number turning up to food banks throughout the whole of 2013. The food banks are mostly run by the Trussell Trust, which runs 42 food banks in Scotland alone.

The alarming scale of poverty crisis in the UK led to the Glasgow City Mission closing its doors and unable to provide basic foodstuffs to those in need. Almost 8,000 people in Scotland were helped in January alone by being offered tinned fruit, bread and other foodstuffs donated by others. But following an appeal by the Glasgow Mission, schoolchildren in the city's schools collected food from parents to give to the charity to help with the shortfall.

To qualify for food bank handouts, applicants are strictly selected and their finances looked into before being offered any food.

The New Yorker discovers Marx

From the January 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

One hundred and fifty years after the publication of the Communist Manifesto, the New Yorker has discovered that "Marx's version of free enterprise also chimes with the views of many contemporary businessmen, who would rather be flogged than labelled Marxist".

John Cassidy's 5,000-word essay "The Return of Karl Marx" in the October 27 issue of this magazine from the bastion of American capitalism does not include Marx's view of a future world based on common ownership. Nor does it support his labour theory of value. It is however amazingly laudatory when dealing with Marx's analysis of how capitalist accumulation operates. Cassidy quotes one Wall Street organiser of stock issues as saying: "The longer I spend on Wall Street, the more convinced I am that Marx was right . . . I am absolutely convinced that Marx's approach is the best way to look at capitalism."

At first Cassidy was astonished at that claim and recalled that he had studied economics with his financial friend at Oxford in the early eighties when their teacher had taught them to agree with Keynes that Marx's economic theories were "complicated hocus pocus". He decided to re-examine Marx's writings and found himself agreeing with his Wall Street friend.

After sneering at Marx's writing style he goes on to heap praise on his analysis of capitalism:

"When he wasn't driving the reader to distraction, he wrote rivetting passages about globalizaion, inequality, political corruption, monopolization, technical progress, the decline of high culture, and the enervating nature of modern existence--issues that economists are now confronting anew, sometimes without realising that they are walking in Marx's footsteps."

Cassidy is unstinting in his praise for Marx's materialist conception of history:

"Indeed, as Sir John Hicks, a Nobel Prize-winning British economist, noted in 1969, when it comes to theories of history Karl Marx still has the field pretty much to himself. It is, Hicks wrote; 'extraordinary that one hundred years after Das Kapital . . . so little else should have emerged'."

Globalisation

On the growth of global markets Cassidy again praises Marx. "Globalization is the buzzword of the late twentieth century, on the lips of everybody from Jiang Zemin to Tony Blair, but Marx predicted most of its ramifications a hundred and fifty years ago. Capitalism is now well on its way to transforming the world into a single market, with the nations of Europe, Asia, and the Americas evolving into three rival trading blocs within that market."

While criticising Marx's view of the struggle between worker and capitalist as "too rigid", Cassidy provides some startling figures about ownership in the USA in modern times. "Between 1980 and 1996, the share of total household income going to the richest five percent of the families in the country increased from 15.3 percent to 20.3 percent, while the share of the income going to the poorest sixty percent of families fell from 34.2 percent to 30 percent." Even more to the point he writes: "According to Edward Wolff, a professor of economics at New York University, half of all financial assets in the country are owned by the richest one percent of the population, and more than three-quarters of them are owned by the richest ten percent."

In discussing the role of the unemployed in keeping down wages, Cassidy is in no doubt that Marx got that right too. "Marx believed that wages were held down by the presence of a 'reserve army' of unemployed workers who attempt to underbid the employed. Reduce the ranks of this army, he said, and wages would rise--just as they have started to do in the last year."

The role of the state

This remarkable essay ends with the writer discussing the relationship of politics to ownership. "Perhaps the most enduring elements of Marx's work is his discussion of where power lies in a capitalist society . . . Marx, of course delighted in declaring that politicians merely carry water for their corporate paymasters. 'The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie,' he wrote in the 'Manifesto', and he later singled out American politicians saying they had been 'subordinated' to 'bourgeois production' since the days of George Washington. The sight of a President granting shady businessmen access to the White House in return for campaign contributions would have shocked him not at all."

For socialists reading any praise for the works of Karl Marx in such a supporter of American capitalism as the New Yorker magazine is astonishing. It shows that once an enquirer frees himself of the prejudices of orthodox thinking the only way to understand how world capitalism is developing is from the standpoint of Marx's materialist conception of history.

With a little more application Cassidy may even rid himself of the orthodox nonsense that he at present embraces; namely "supply and demand curves, production functions and game theory", and realise that Marx's labour theory of value is the view that best explains production, exploitation and surplus value.

But let's not look for too much. We still relish his conclusion that "despite his errors, he was a man for whom our economic system held few surprises. His books will be worth reading as long as capitalism endures."

Richard Donnelly

The Cost of Plum Positions

Many American ambassadors get their position by donating money to a political party, the more the donation, the better the location. But what bang do you get for your buck? Margaret Carlson (Toronto Star, Feb 22 2014) asked the question, " how stupid can you be and still be a US ambassador?" George Tsunis, Obama's appointment to Norway didn't even bother to look that country up on Wikipedia to find out that it is not a monarchy. He also managed to call the Progress Party, part of the ruling coalition, an extremist group with fringe elements. Mercifully, he was stopped by senator McCain before he created an international incident. He is an ace at fundraising, however and brought in almost one million dollars for Obama in 2012. Thirty-seven per cent of his appointees are not career diplomats narrowly trailing Ford and Reagan who weighed in at thirty-eight per cent. The cost of plum positions is going up, however. George Bush sent Henry Catto to London in 1989 for contributions in the low six figures. Nowadays, appointees to Rome, Paris, and Stockholm raised a total of $5 million. Just another sorry side of our system. John Ayers

It's Not All Gloom

The picture painted by the popular press of a Britain living through a period of harsh austerity doesn't apply to everyone. 'According to an authoritative new survey by the Hurun Global Rich List, Britain now has an astonishing 56 sterling billionaires. London already boasts more than 30. ...... Around half of Britain's super-rich have come from abroad, attracted to the lifestyle, private schools and the rule of law. There is also less scrutiny of tax and general business affairs than in some jurisdictions.' (Daily Mail, 7 March) We trust such cheering news will enable you to cope better with your mortgage and rent arrears. RD

CONS'IS'TENT INCONS'IS'TENCY

From the December 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Saturday afternoon meeting of the Socialist Party at Glasgow's Exchange Square was "honoured" by the attendance of some members of the International Socialists who, not having a meeting of their own to bore people with, decided to latch on to ours instead. Immediately, our speakers were taken to task for not doing anything about "the current urgent problem facing the working class".

"Which urgent problem?"

"Unemployment. You never protest against these problems!"

"Wrong", the speaker replied. "That's precisely what I am doing this afternoon: protesting not merely against unemployment, but all the problems the working class as a whole suffer directly under capitalism".

"But that's not positive enough. What you should be doing is getting out on the streets and marching. That gets definite results."

"Yes, sore feet. Don't you understand the basic ABC of capitalism? Employers employ workers to produce commodities. If they can't be sold on the world's markers to realize a profit for the owner, then he will have no alternative but to close down his factory."

"We would occupy that factory", the critic asserted.

"They tried that in an Italian car factory", said the SPGB speaker. "Then they made a brilliant discovery: you can't eat tyres or drink petrol. So they simply came back out".

"But they would be assisted by their fellow trade-unionists".

"All that would result in", said the speaker, "would be a factory full of unpaid night-watchmen". He added, on the question of the so-called "right to work": "Unemployment can't be solved by making slavish demands for an alleged 'right' which doesn't exist. Neither can any tangible difference be made by screeching at trade-union leaders or throwing sticks at Callaghan's car. How illogical can you be in the IS? First you urge the workers to vote the Labour Party into power - then, when they do get in, you attack them for doing what you voted them into power for: running British capitalism!"

"Tactics, comrade, tactics", the IS member explained. And, with a straight face, he said: "What you've got to do is show the workers the utter futility of voting for the Labour Party, by telling them to vote Labour. That way they experience how awful the anti-working class Labour Party is".

Trying to prevent himself reeling dizzily off the platform, the SPGB speaker said: "What will happen if you put up candidates at the next election? Will you urge workers to vote Labour in constituencies where you are contesting?" This brought the discussion round to the fact that, despite their avowed anti-parliamentarianism, IS were contesting the election at Walsall. This mental somersault was defended with the claim that workers, disgusted with the National Front, would turn instead to them!

The speaker told the audience that the SPGB had tried to debate with the National Front but the meeting was broken up by "freedom-lovers" who were against the free expression of opinions - including members of IS. Apparently as the only reply they could think of, one of the IS group said: "Do you mean that you actually debated with people like the National Front?"

"We debated with IS too", said the speaker. "The way to defeat organizations like the National Front is not to suppress them but to have them express their views and then expose them for the gibberish they are. Once armed with Socialist knowledge, no worker will allow himself to be led up every blind alley demanding the thousand-and-one 'urgent' reforms which only ensure that capitalism stumbles on a little longer".

Exit IS members shaking their muddled heads, perhaps trying to clear them.

Tone.

No Shortcuts

Society is divided into two classes: the working class, doing all the labour; and the idle class, living on the fruits of labour. Workers resistance to capitalist exploitation is as old as the working class itself. The first unions were formed with the greatest sacrifice on the part of workers. Their immediate goal was to unite workers and to organise their collective fight for better wages and working conditions. They marked a great step forward for the working class: its passage from a scattered and weak state to the first attempts at class organisation.  The unions are the broadest and most important mass organisations of the working class. They are an indispensable weapon in the workers’ struggle against capitalist exploitation. But as the class struggle developed, the limits of the unions became clearer. Left to themselves the unions tended to withdraw into the fight for reforms alone, and to remain outside the revolutionary political struggle.

Karl Marx said: “Trade Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerrilla warfare against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wages system.”

Marx correctly pin-pointed the weakness of all trade unionism. What every worker must realise is that the  trade union struggle is not fighting causes  but only symptoms. We are fighting against the effects of the system as Marx points out, and not against the system itself.  Not merely that, but they also envisage the continuation of the capitalist system. What trade union struggles really do is to fight to improve the conditions of the working class within the framework of the capitalist system. They do not challenge capitalism itself. Every wage increase that is won by the workers is eventually offset by the employers by more intensive work, by stricter supervision etc. and by a general price increase. So that, usually the worker is back to from where he started. What all workers must understand is that their misery is due to exploitation carried on by the capitalist class. Trade unionism merely restricts their struggle to attempts at lessening this exploitation. It does not fight to end exploitation i.e. to end the capitalist system and replace it by socialism. This is the fatal limitation of trade union struggles.

Regardless of their flaws, economic organisations of workers are a necessity and we do not, of course, oppose trade union struggles or refuse to participate in them. The unions are a powerful weapon in the workers’ hands to defend their immediate interests.  But it became necessary for the working class to create a higher form of organisation in the struggle to do away with capitalism. It is only when socialist ideas began to take hold in the working class that the awareness also of the need to overthrow capitalism by means of revolutionary political struggle begn to grow and the ensuing creation of a socialist party.

 There are no shortcuts to the socialist revolution. The social revolution is an immense task and should not be dreamt of if  workers cannot have their own organisations. The unions’ role is to defend the workers’ interests and to act as schools of class struggle while the Socialist Party strives for strong unions defending the workers against capitalist exploitation so as to develop, strengthen and unite a current of class consciousness through agitation and propaganda with the purpose of turning trade unions away from sectional interests and into class organisations,  and to build unity in action and solidarity among workers and unions, and educate their members in the spirit of class struggle.

Names and terms have frequently given rise to bitter disputes  so let us be clear in our understanding.  A Socialist means a man or a woman who recognises the class war between the worker and the possessing class as the historic outcome of the capitalist system and its economic and social antagonisms which it engenders and fosters. .

One class—the capitalist class—owns and controls the economic resources of the world. That class, for its own protection and perpetuation in power, subjects all institutions to its own interests. Capitalist ownership of industries had its origin in the unfolding of conditions which hastened the downfall of the feudal system, and the advent of the capitalist class to power. The feudal lords had to surrender their scepter to the ascending capitalist class. Capitalism has now  fulfilled its historical mission and socialised all aspects of labour,  and has grown to  become an obstacle for the progress of society. It thus compels the working-class to take power into its own hands and, in the interests of the whole of society, to abolish the form of appropriation of wealth which prevails in capitalism.

The working class alone is interested in the removal of inequality, and that can only be accomplished by a revolution. The workers, in their collectivity, must take over and operate all the essential industrial institutions, the means of production and distribution, for the well-being of all. This can only be by the complete control by the whole people, thus abolishing the class State and the wages system, and constituting a co-operative commonwealth. Private property in social necessities must be abolished root and branch. It is not enough to seize the means of production and abolish private property. It is necessary to abolish the basic condition of modern exploitation, wage slavery, and that act brings forth the succeeding measures of reorganisation that would never be invoked without the first step.

The trade unions are more than merely a means to win a few cents an hour more in wages or a few minutes a day less of work; they are an army of emancipation in the making. At heart and in their daily action the trade unions’ unchangeable policy is to withhold from the exploiters all they have the power to. The day will come when they will pit their strength  against the parasitic employing class to end the wages system forever and set up the long-hoped-for era of social justice. That is the true meaning of the trade union movement. The unity of the workers is the merger of political parties or trade unions because  of the need for mass action.

Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution.The government is an executive committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.  Our enemies are the monopoly capitalist class and all those in league with them. The Labour Party is not “the lesser evil”. The Labour Party is the greater danger! 

Hundreds of Associates will be laid off!

Sears Canada has existed for over sixty years and kept going while Eatons, Simpsons, and the Bay went under. Now the future doesn't look so rosy with the liquidation of five major stores in major population centres. To quote a spokesperson, " On February 9th. hundreds of associates will be laid off." That's a fancy way of saying the word 'worker'. Call it what you will, unemployment equals hardship. A guy who doesn't mince words is Mark Cohen, Sears Canada CEO from 2001 to 2004, " The company in Canada has been treated like an ATM machine by its corporate owner." This is a Sears holding based in the US that declared the five stores unprofitable. In the retail wars there will be winners and losers like all capitalists competitions but in the end, it's the workers, or should we say associates, who will pay the price as always. John Ayers

Short Unhealthy Lives

Sometimes we read about statistical data that is truly astonishing, but the following findings are hardly in the the astonishing column. 'The rich live 20 years longer in good health than the poor, official figures show. In a sign of Britain's "staggering" health divide, the poorest 10 per cent of the population can expect little more than 50 years of healthy life, the Office for National Statistics said.  (Times, 15 March) Not only are the working class exploited all their lives their health and longevity are affected by capitalism. RD

Now is the time for socialism

For as long as anyone can remember, the ruling class have been promising  “peace with prosperity,” while they have subjected millions around the world to agony and waged wars of plunder from one end of the globe to another. But today their whole system of legalised robbery are once again caught in a desperate and deepening economic and political crisis which is fast approaching the point of world-wide explosion. And now they demand of the world’s workers that we accept even more and greater hardship and misery in order to perpetuate this system. There is no return to the ‘happy days’ of the past or any other  prospect other than continued suffering and sacrifice, enslavement in one form or another and unparalleled destruction of the environment. This is the future for the people so long, and only so long, as the slaves of each country remain unquestioningly loyal and blindly obedient to their masters and set their sights and their aspirations no higher than the miserable horizons imposed by the ruling classes and the capitalist system. There is another path - a path not backward but forward – the path of resistance against and ultimately the overthrow of our oppressors. Revolution is the only means people can break free of the chains of exploitation and degradation.  The only path to real freedom and the only war worth fighting is the class war against the ruling class. The future must be wrested from the hands of those who, at the cost of unspeakable misery and destruction for the people of the world, are determined to preserve – and chain humanity to – the past.

So long as society is divided into classes, in whatever form, the economics and politics as well as the ideas, culture, etc. of society will be dominated by one class or another – they cannot serve all classes, exploiter and exploited, oppressor and oppressed, master and slave, equally. Capitalism has laid the basis for an unprecedented development of society, without scarcity and without therefore the basis for antagonistic social conflict. But capitalism itself has become the very force that stands in the way of the realisation of this potential, and the longer capitalism prolongs its existence the deeper become the antagonisms within it. The capitalist class made possible for the first time a thoroughly scientific view of society and the world, the recognition of class struggle as the motive force of society’s development and of the ultimate outcome of that class struggle – the achievement of classless society.

Capitalism has outlived its progressive role and its gigantic increase of productive power cannot be fully used under capitalist conditions. The interests of the capitalists and of the working class are irreconcilable. Exploitation and recurrent crises of the capitalist mode of production oppress the working class and working people in a thousand different ways. The continual attacks of the capitalists on working people meet resistance in fierce and bitter economic class struggles. This resistance limits the extent to which the capitalists can increase the rate of exploitation.  Capital must accumulate in order to survive. It grows by keeping for itself the surplus value produced by workers after they have reproduced the value of their labour power, their wages. Surplus value is the source of all profit. The unending search for surplus value, for profit, is the motive force of capitalist production. Capitalism can produce only for profit. It is forced constantly to seek new ways to achieve the maximum rate of profit. Competition between rival capitals (which still persists in modified form in the monopoly stage of capitalism) ensures the destruction of all capitals which do not conform to the blind laws of capitalist production.

The capitalists cut their costs of production mainly by stepping up their already vicious exploitation of the working class. They cut their wage bills by reducing wages and sacking workers. They also make the remaining workers work longer hours and they increase the intensity of labour. capitalists also reduce their wage bill by buying more advanced machinery in order to produce the same goods with less labour.

The cut-throat competition between capitalists, particularly at times of crisis, means that eventually factories using outdated machinery will inevitably be closed down unless the owners can make a profit by installing new machinery, and have the capital to do so. In many cases they cannot. And so repeatedly the capitalists are forced by the laws of capitalist production to destroy the means of production on a massive scale and make thousands of workers unemployed.

In its restless search for maximum profits, spurred on by ruthless competition, each capitalist company is bound to attempt to increase its productive strength to the full. Yet this continually increasing capacity to produce goods inevitably and repeatedly comes up with a jolt against the restricted purchasing power of the workers to buy these goods. Goods pile up unsold, factories run well below capacity or go bankrupt. These are crises of overproduction, cyclical crises of capitalism, which are now occurring with increasing frequency and without full recovery of production after each crisis.

Especially at times of crisis the capitalists tell us to tighten our belts and toil harder for them, “in the national interest”. They try to increase exploitation so as to get the huge profit needed to start capital expanding again. Competition among the capitalists to minimise losses is very fierce. In this battle the winners as well as the losers lay workers off and further reduce living standards. Inflation and unemployment are the two main ways the capitalists at present are trying to offload their acute crisis onto the backs of the working class.

 The socialist revolution simplifies all social relationships and gives them a purpose, at the same time providing each citizen with the real possibility of participating directly in the discussion and decision of all social matters, replacing the present mastery of the product over the producer by that of the producer over the product. This direct participation of citizens in the management of all social matters presupposes the abolition of the modern system of political representation and its replacement by direct popular legislation. Against the collective power of the propertied classes the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes. That this constitution of the working class into a political party is indispensable in order to ensure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate end — the abolition of classes;

The economic emancipation of the working class will be achieved only by the transfer to collective ownership by the working people of all means and products of production and the organisation of all the functions of social and economic life in accordance with the requirements of society. The modern development of technology not only provides the material possibility for such an organisation but makes it necessary and inevitable for solving the contradictions which hinder the quiet and all-round development of those societies.

Eliminating the class struggle by destroying the classes themselves; making the economic struggle of individuals impossible and unnecessary by abolishing commodity production and the competition connected with it; putting an end to the struggle for existence between individuals, classes and whole societies, it renders unnecessary all those social organs which have developed as the weapons of that struggle during the many centuries it has been proceeding.

Without falling into utopian blueprints about the social organisation of the future, we can now foretell the abolition of the state, as a political organisation opposed to society and safeguarding mainly the interests of its ruling section. In exactly the same way we can already now foresee the international character of the impending economic revolution. The contemporary development of international exchange of products necessitates the participation of all in this revolution.

That is why the socialist parties in all countries acknowledge the international character of the present-day working-class movement and proclaim the principle of international solidarity.

Socialism is the issue (4/4)

PART FOUR (concluding)

For time immemorial,  those who have built the houses, cultivated the fields, raised the crops, spun the wool, woven the cloth, supplied the food we eat and the clothes we wear, and furnished the homes we live in, have been the poor and despised, while those who profited by their labour and consumed the good things they produced, have been the rich and respectable.

Socialism will mean the beginning of a new era of civilisation and the dawn of a happier day for mankind. It will mean that this Earth is for all  those who inhabit it and wealth for those who produce it. It will mean society organised upon a co-operative basis, owning in common the sources of wealth and the means of production, and producing wealth to satisfy human wants and not to gorge the insatiable appetites of the privileged few. It will mean that there shall be leisure for the workers and that all shall enjoy it.

A privately owned world can never be a free world. Such a world is a world of strife and hate and such a society can exist only by means of coercion and physical force. There has never been “Peace on earth and goodwill toward men;” and we shall have to go forward and not backward to realise that ideal.

When shall peace come to earth? Capitalism makes war inevitable. Capitalist nations not only exploit their workers but ruthlessly invade, plunder, and ravage one another. The profit system is responsible for it all. Abolish that, establish a social democracy, produce for use, and the incentive to war vanishes. Until then men may talk about “Peace on earth” but it will be a myth. Let us show the people the true cause of war. Let us arouse a sentiment against war. Let us teach the children to abhor war. We are socialists, world socialists, and we have no use, not one bit, for capitalist wars. We have no enemies among the workers of other countries; and no friends among the capitalists of any country; the workers of all countries are our friends and the capitalists of all countries are our enemies.The class war is our war and our only war. We have no interest in national wars for ruling class conquest and plunder. In all these wars the workers are slaughtered while their masters grow fat on the spoils of conquest. The time has come for the workers to cease fighting the battle of their masters and to fight their own; to cease being slaughtered like cattle for the profit of the ruling class and to line up in the class struggle regardless of race or nationality for the overthrow of class rule and for the emancipation of their class and humanity These are our principles and convictions as  revolutionary socialists. Would or patriotic critics have us believe for one moment that Wall Street and City of London is recruiting to fight for freedom, justice and humanity? These arch-enemies of democracy, these plunderers of the people, these corrupt ruthless exploiters of the working class, these are our enemies and the enemies of our people, and it is a a mockery,  to attempt to persuade the working class that these, their brutal, relentless, uncompromising enemies, are their friends. The oligarchy’s purpose is to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth and they do not shy away from waging war upon one another. But the the the the industrial barons do not go to war themselves.  The feudal lords of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all the wars and their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their social betters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their loyal obligation to fall upon one another and to cut one another’s throats for the profit and glory of the aristocracy who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars and  the subject class has always fought the battles. The ruling class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subjugated class has had nothing to gain and all to lose - particularly their lives. The rulers of every land  have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people. It is the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace.
“Yours not to reason why; 
Yours but to do and die.”

The Socialist Party since its founding has stood opposed to having its members and our fellow workers slaughtered in capitalist wars.

 Every wealth producer, every wage worker, ought to be in revolt against the system that robs  him, and, if he was, the capitalist system would  not last overnight. The reason the workers of this  and every other nation on earth are not in open  revolt against the system that robs them is that the beneficiaries of capitalism control every avenue of information and education from the cradle to the grave. Every child is a potential revolutionist. All the institutions of capitalism, including  the state, the church, the press, the schools, and even the centres of amusement, conspire to poison  the receptive mind of the children. Just so long as the capitalist class control the education of the masses, so they will despise them as beasts of burden. We need to grow out of the selfish, sordid, brutal spirit of individualism which still lurks even in socialists and is responsible for the strife and contention which prevail where there should be concord and good will.

Socialism is the issue. There is no other. Proclaim it everywhere! Socialism or capitalism! Freedom or slavery? Which? That is the issue and the only issue. The working class may be robbed, trampled upon, crushed, broken, clubbed, imprisoned, and shot but its march continues. The mercenaries of the ruling class can not turn back the progress of the working class of the world. The very defeats promotes solidarity, and will insure ultimate triumph. The class struggle against the class-ruled society is as wide as the domain of capitalism, and as deep-rooted as the exploitation of the working class. Labour and capital are locked in an international conflict that rocks the globe. Economic freedom will elevate humanity to a higher plane than it has ever known. Wealth and leisure for all is now possible for the first time in the history of the human
race. We are fit for better than slavery and cannon fodder. You need to understand that you were not created to enrich an idle exploiter and impoverish yourself in the process. You need to know that you have a mind to improve and develop. You need to know that you are at he door-way of a great new world. You need to get in touch with fellow workers and to become conscious of your interests, your powers and your possibilities as a class. You need to know that you belong to the great majority of mankind. You need to know that as you remain indifferent, as long as you are apathetic, unorganised , you will remain exactly where you are. You will be exploited; you will be degraded, and you will be a beast of burden. You will get just enough to keep you in working order, and you will be looked down upon with scorn and contempt by the very parasites that live off your sweat and unpaid labour.

The planet has vast areas of the richest and most fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible abundance, the most incredible productive machinery, and millions of eager, skilled workers ready to apply their labour to that machinery to produce for every man, woman, and child. And if there are still vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from youth to old age, until at last death comes to their rescue and lulls these hapless victims to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of Nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we live that ought to be abolished not only in the interest of the toiling masses but in the higher interest of all humanity.

 All things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned—that industry, the basis of our social life, instead of being the private property of a few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of all. We oppose a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence. We shall have the universal commonwealth - the harmonious cooperation of every land on Earth.

Let us build! Let us build ourselves and one another by building our movement and our party.

Entrepreneurs or Money-Grubbers?

We were reminded about what the Olympics and other international competitions are really about by the article in The Toronto Star (Feb 15, 2014) entitled, "Canada's winners in the Personal Brand Olympics. It goes on to rank Canada's top prospects for advertising companies and corporations to reel in the greatest amount of money while NOT plying their specialties. The most telling part is the "great endorsement because" section. For Alex Bilodeau, for example, gold medal in moguls skiing competition, it says, " What athletes can do really well is also share a social message, which he does when he talks about the challenges of his brother (Frederic, who has cerebral palsy)…He definitely has proved his worth to corporate Canada in a number of ways". Please meet the money- grubbers and hangers-on of the capitalist world otherwise known as entrepreneurs. John Ayers

Socialism is the Issue (3/4)

PART THREE

You cannot make socialists by passing resolutions. Men have to become socialists by study and experience, and they are getting the experience every day. There is one fact, and a very important one and that is the necessity for revolutionary working class political action. What is a party? It is the expression politically of certain material class interests. You belong to that party that you believe will promote your material welfare.  Our interests as workers are identical.  If you support a party that opposes your interests it is because you do not have sufficient understanding to know your interests. The question of poverty, which is really the question of all humanity, will never be solved until it is solved by the working class. It will never be solved for you by the capitalists. It will never be solved for you by the politicians. It will remain unsolved until you yourselves solve it. As long as you are willing to stand these conditions, these conditions will continue; but when you unite across the globe, when you present a solid class-conscious mass, economically and politically, there is no power on this earth that can stand between you and complete emancipation. As isolated individuals we are helpless, but united we are an irresistible force.

We may, at times, temporarily better our condition within certain limitations, but we will still remain wage-slaves, and why wage-slaves? For just one reason and no other we have got to work. As long as the bosses owns the machinery and the tools, he owns our job, and if he owns our job, he controls our fate. We are in no sense free. We are subject to his interest and to his will. He decides whether we shall work or not. Thus, he can decide whether we shall live or die. We will never be free, we will never stand proudly erect  until we are in charge of production, and when we can freely work without recourse to any employer, and when we do work, all the community shares in what we produce. Will you insist that life shall continue as it is, where it is always a struggle for existence and one prolonged misery to which death often comes as a blessed relief?

You organise in unions to fight the exploiting class. It is along the same line that you have got to organise politically. Nature has provided a bountiful abundance. There is plenty for all, and any system of society that denies a single one the right and the opportunity to freely help him or herself to the necessities and luxuries of life is an iniquitous system that ought to be abolished.

The Socialist Party is not satisfied with things as they are, and no matter what government is in office, there will be no material change in the condition of the people until we have a new social system based upon the mutual economic interests of the people - until all of us collectively control and in common own those things that we need and use. There are  only a few things that cannot be produced in abundance. Nature has provided a full larder and is a treasure-mine of raw materials. Marvelous machinery can transform these raw materials into whatever we desire. Why should any man, woman or child suffer for the want of food, clothing or shelter?  Look at the great technology at our disposal, why should we permit any one individual to lay claim to this legacy of all humanity and demand tribute? Instead, why not jointly own the machines, and operate them co-operatively and share the products among ourselves. Farmers work all day long and hard enough to produce enough to live the quality of life fitting a man, not as of one of his animals, but of a human being.

We socialists propose that society with all its capacity to produce enough that all shall take according to needs and give according to abilities; that every man and every woman shall be economically free; that all have what is necessary to keep them in comfort and satisfy their requirements. We will reduce the working day and give every person a chance to develop their talents and indulge their pleasures.

The development  of industrial processes has rendered the capitalist a useless functionary while  at the same time evolved productive organisation co-operative in character, so that industry may be carried on without friction, for the benefit of the whole people instead of the profit of the individual capitalist. The control of industry will be delegated to men and women who are technically familiar with all its processes, similar as it is now entrusted to line managers by the shareholders of a corporation.  Actual details of the re-organisation may well be left to the future when the time comes. It is not the responsibility of the Socialist Party to speculate concerning the manner in which the workers will conduct their affairs when they have taken possession of their inheritance. Society will have a new birth and humanity a new destiny.

Workers have had their eyes opened in spite of themselves. They have been made to see what the present system means to them and to their children.  They see machinery that possess the potential to liberate but produces only misery and deprivation. They see millions idle and poverty-stricken all about them, while a few are glutted to levels of degeneracy. They see parasites in palaces and honest workers in hovels. They see the politics of the ruling corporations dripping with corruption. They see vice and crime eating away at society like a cancer. They see disease sapping the mental and physical vitality of people.

 ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! THERE MUST BE A CHANGE!

We are not a party who regard vote-getting as of supreme importance and of no matter by what method they are secured. The Socialist Party holds out no inducements and makes no representations which are not at all compatible with the principles of a revolutionary party. Other supposed socialists may seek to make their  propaganda so attractive by eliminating whatever may give offense so that it serves as a bait for votes rather than as a means of education, and votes thus gained in such fashion do not properly belong to the socialist movement and do injustice to our party,  as well as to those who cast them. These type of votes do not express a desire for socialism and in the next ensuing election are quite as apt to be turned against us and favour our enemies. It is better, in the first place, that they be not cast for the Socialist Party, as they register a degree of progress the party is not entitled to and indicating a political position the party is unable to sustain. Socialism can never genuinely grow by obtaining for it a fictitious vote. We seek only the actual vote of socialism, no more and no less. In our propaganda we state our principles clearly, and speak the truth, seeking neither to flatter nor to offend, but only to convince those who should be with us and win them to our cause through an intelligent understanding of its case.  We make it clear that the Socialist Party wants the votes only of those who want socialism, not for the sake of gaining political office to pass some palliative measures.

The working class character and the revolutionary integrity of the Socialist Party are a priority. The Socialist Party is organised and run from the bottom up. There is no leader and there never can be unless the party abandons its principles and ceases to be a socialist party. The education of the people, not the few alone, but the entire class,  in the principles of socialism can be performed only by themselves.

The Labour Party and the Conservative Party are in fact one. They both stand for capitalism, for the private ownership of the means of subsistence, for the exploitation of the workers, and for wage-slavery. Both of these old capitalist class party machines have become corrupt and are worse than useless. They now present a spectacle of political degeneracy rarely witnessed in this or any other country. Both are torn by dissension and rife with disintegration. Cameron and Milerand engage in a mad fight for the spoils of government and they exposed the whole game of capitalist class politics and reveal themselves and the whole brood of capitalist politicians in their true role before the people. They are all the mere puppets of the ruling class. They are literally bought, paid for and owned, body and soul, by the powers that are exploiting, enslaving and robbing the toiling class. What earthly difference can it make to the millions of workers whether the Tories or Labour are is in office? These two parties differ in name only. There is no depth of dishonour to which they have not descended. Their hypocrisy and corruption cannot be efficiently expressed in words. How can any intelligent, self-respecting wage-worker give support to either of these corrupt capitalist parties?

 Labour and the Tories are on the side of the corporations, the banks, the plutocrats, the parasites and job-hunters of all descriptions; the filth and the slime of the ruling class glorify their plundering. Professional politicians of whatever party are very much alike and serve the interests of their masters. Their noisy theatricals have lost their magic and now excite but the scorn and derision. No longer can the political harlots of capitalism betray the workers. Both the Tory and Labour parties reek with corruption in their servility to the wealthy. Their manifestoes are filled with empty platitudes and meaningless phrases, but they are discreetly silent about the millions of unemployed, about the starvation wages of factory slaves, about the bitter poverty and hopeless future of the poor, and about every other vital question which is worthy of a moment’s consideration by any caring person. They are impotent and senile capitalist parties, without principles and without ideals.

There is but one issue for the Socialist Party and it is the unconditional surrender and utter destruction of the whole capitalist class. To this end the Socialist Party has been organised; to this end it devotes all its energies and resources; to this end it makes its appeal to the workers. In the name of the workers, the Socialist Party condemns the capitalist system. In the name of freedom, it condemns wage-slavery. In the name of abundance, it condemns poverty and famine. In the name of peace it condemns war. In the name of civilisation, it condemns the slaughter of  children. In the name of enlightenment, it condemns religious ignorance and superstition. In the name of the future, it arraigns the past as a barrier to the future. In the name of humanity,  the Socialist Party demands social justice for every man, woman and child.

Now is the time for the workers to develop and assert their political and their economic power, to demonstrate their unity and solidarity. In the coming social order, based upon the social ownership of the means of life and the production of wealth for the use of all instead of the private profit of the few, for which the Socialist Party stands in this and every other campaign, peace will prevail and plenty for all will abound in the land. The brute struggle for existence will have ended, and the millions of exploited poor will be rescued from the clutches of poverty and famine. Sexual exploitation and human trafficking, fostered under the old system, will be a horror of the past. Every child will then have an equal chance to grow up in health and vigor of body and mind and an equal chance to rise to its full stature and achieve success in life. These are the ideals of the Socialist Party. The spirit of our time is revolutionary and growing more so every day. The signs of change confront us everywhere. The Socialist Party stands for social ownership and co-operation, against  industrial despotism and for industrial democracy. The workers who have made the world and who sustain  the world, are preparing to take possession of the world. This is the meaning of socialism and is what the Socialist Party stands for. We demand the machinery of production in the name of the workers and the control of society in the name of the people. We demand the abolition of capitalism and wage-slavery and the surrender of the capitalist class. We demand that all children born into the world shall have equal opportunity to grow up, to be educated, to have healthy bodies and trained minds, and to develop and freely express the best there is in them in mental, moral and physical achievement. The Socialist Party is the only party that has the children at heart. We demand complete control of industry by the workers; we demand all the wealth they produce for their own enjoyment, and we demand the Earth for all the people. Not the modest demands of the reformists but the necessary ones for a social revolution.

No Housing Problems Here

Many workers face trouble paying rent and mortgages on their homes but no such problems exist for these New York residents. It has been labelled "the world's most powerful address", the luxurious Manhattan tower block where Wall Street titans, foreign oligarchs, technology moguls and film and music stars live away from prying eyes. But a book has now revealed the secrets of 15 Central Park West, an imposing $1 billion tower block where the ultra-rich and famous enjoy commanding views of New York's famous green space. 'It is no surprise that the building is home to New York's most expensive apartment, a palatial $88 million penthouse. It was bought by a trust fund from the fortune of Dimtry Rybolovlev, a Russian fertiliser tycoon, for his 22-year daughter, but it is now at the centre of the world's most expensive divorce battle with his estranged wife, Elena. Apartments at 15 CPW currently on the market include a 6,000 sq ft unit owned by steel magnate Leroy Schecter. He initially listed the property for $95 million. It is now available for a snip - at just $65 million. (Daily Telegraph, 12 March) RD

Socialism Is The Issue (2/4)

PART TWO

The working class are learning. They are beginning to spell solidarity and to pronounce socialism. Our propaganda is one of education to teach workers to unite and vote together as a class in support of the Socialist Party, the party that represents them as a class. Organised labour does not lie down at the command of  Prime Ministers or Presidents.  No strike has even been lost, and there can be no defeat for the labour movement. No matter how disastrous the day of battle has been, it has been worth its price, and only the scars remain to bear testimony that the movement is invincible and that no mortal wound can be inflicted upon it. The union has from its inception taught, however imperfectly, the fundamental need of solidarity; it has inspired hope in the defeated and despairing worker. The union has fought the battles of the worker upon a thousand fields, and though defeated often, rallied again and again. The union was first to outline the lesson that the worker needs to learn, that only through the collective interest and welfare of his or her class and embracing our class as a whole is permanent change of conditions possible. Although only vaguely and imperfectly accomplished the union has promoted the class-conscious solidarity of the working-class.

Perhaps the trades-union movement has in some respects proved a disappointment, but it may not on this account be repudiated as a failure. The worst that be said of it is that it has not kept up with changing conditions and situations but there are reasons for this as most know. The trades-union movement of the present day has enemies bent upon destroying it or reducing it to impotency. Step by step the writ of legal injunction has invaded the domain of trades-unionism, limiting its influence, curtailing its powers, sapping its strength and undermining its foundations and this has been done by the courts in the name of justice but at the behest of the indusrrial oligarchs and financial plutocrats. Court orders have been issued restraining the trades-union  members from striking, from boycotting, from voting funds to strikes, from walking on the public highway, from gathering together in public spaces, from asking others not to scab and  from communicating with those who had taken or were about to take their jobs. In fact the law has been evoked hindering unions from doing anything and everything, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the employing class in their unalienable right to run things to suit themselves. The law have found in favour of the bosses, leaving the workers and their unions defenceless. The court system is under the control of employers, and so shamelessly  perverted it reveals the class character of our capitalist government and leads to the inevitable conclusion that the labour question is also a political question and that the working class must organise their political power to put an end to class rule forever.

The members of a trade-union should learn the true importance and discover the labour movement means  infinitely more than a paltry increase in wages and the strikes necessary to secure it; that while it engages to do all that possibly that can be done to better the working conditions of its members, its higher object must be to overthrow the capitalist system, abolish wage-slavery and achieve the freedom of the whole working class (and all mankind.)
The trade-unions, however, is not, and can not become, a political machine and nor can it be used for political purposes. The Socialist Party has no intention to convert the trades-union into a political party and would oppose any such attempt on the part of others. The important thing to impress upon the mind of trade unionists is to do their own thinking. Unions are an economic organisation with distinct economic functions and as such is a part, a necessary part, but a part only of the labour movement. It has its own sphere of activity, its own platform and is its own master within its economic limitations.

The socialist movement is its political side and  the Socialist Party expresses the political power of the labour movement. The class conscious worker uses both economic and political power in the interest of his or her class. The struggle between labour and capital is a class struggle; that the working class are in a great majority, but divided, some in trades-unions and some out of them, some in one political party and some in another; that because they are divided they are helpless and must submit to being robbed of what their labour produces; that they must unite their class in the trades-union on the one hand and in a socialist party on the other hand; that industrially and politically they must act together as a class against the capitalist class and that this struggle is a class struggle, and that any worker who deserts the union in a strike and goes to the other side is a scab, and any worker who deserts the Socialist Party on election day and goes over to the enemy is a traitor to their class. Capitalism can only rule by corrupt means and its politics are essentially the reflection of its debasing economic character. He who controls my bread controls my head.

The capitalists are far more thoroughly organised than the workers. In the first place, capitalists are comparatively few in number, while the workers number millions. Next, the capitalists are men of financial means and resources, and can buy the best brains and ability the market affords. Then again, they own the factories, the communications, the transport and retail stores and all the jobs that are attached to them, and this not only gives them tremendous advantage in the struggle, but makes them for the time the absolute masters of the situation. The workers, on the other hand, are poor as a rule but they are in an overwhelming majority. In a word, they have the power, but are not conscious of it. This then is the task of activists and militants; to make them conscious of the power of their class, or class-conscious workers.

The working class alone does all the work, has created and  produced the world’s wealth, constructed its roads, drives the trucks, laid its rails and operates its trains, spanned the rivers with bridges and tunnelled the mountains.  The working class alone - and by the working class we mean all useful workers, all who by the labour of their hands or the effort of their brains increase knowledge and add to the intellectual wealth of society - the working class alone is essential to society and therefore the only class that can survive in the world-wide struggle for freedom.

The Socialist Party is to the workers politically what the trades-union is to them industrially; the former is the party of their class, while the latter is the union of their trade or profession. The difference between them is that while the trades-union is confined to occupation, the Socialist Party embraces the entire working class, and while the union is limited to bettering conditions under the wage system for its members. The Socialist Party is organised to conquer the political power, wipe out the wage system. Trades-union and the Socialist Party, the economic and political wings of the labour movement, should not only not be in conflict, but act together, in harmony, in every struggle, whether it be on the one field or the other, in the strike or at the ballot box. The main thing is that in every such struggle the workers shall be united and be no more guilty of scabbing on their party than on their union, by voting a pro- capitalist on election day and turning the working class over to capitalist misrule. Would a worker ever think of voting in the union to turn it over to his employers and have it run in the interest of management?


To do its part in the class struggle the trade union need no more go into politics than the Socialist Party enter into the trade unions. Each has its place and its functions. The union deals with work issues and the Party deals with politics. Trade unionism is by no means the solution of the workers’ problem, nor is it the goal of the labour struggle. It is merely a line of defence within the capitalist system. Its existence and its struggles are necessitated only by the existence and predatory nature of capitalism. Until the workers shall become a clearly defined socialist movement, standing for and moving toward the unqualified co-operative commonwealth they will only play into the hands of their exploiters. The socialist must point this out in the right way. He is not to do this by seeking to commit trade-union bodies to the principles of socialism. Resolutions or commitments of this sort accomplish little good. Nor should socialists be  meddling with the details or the machinery of the trade-unions. Or trying to commit socialism to trade-unionism, and vice versa,  trade unionism to socialism. It is better to have the trade-unions do their separate distinctive work, as the workers’ defence against the encroachments of capitalism and  giving unqualified support and sympathy to the struggles of the organised workers to sustain them economically. But let the socialists also build up the character and strength of the socialist movement as a political force, that it shall command the respect and confidence of the worker, irrespective of union obligations.

 It is imperative we keep in mind the difference between the two so that neither shall handicap the other. The socialist movement, as a political development of the workers for their economic emancipation, is one thing; the trade-union development, as an economic defense of the workers within the capitalist system, is another thing. Let us not interfere with the internal affairs of the trade unions, or seek to have them become distinctively political bodies in themselves. The unions can never become a political machine, but they must recognise the necessity for a united political party. Let socialists attend to the development of the socialist political movement as the channel and power by which labour is to come to its emancipation and its commonwealth. It is of vital importance to the trades-union that its members be class-conscious, that they understand the class struggle and their duty as union men on the political field, so that in every move that is made they will have the goal in view, and while taking advantage of every opportunity to secure concessions and enlarge their economic advantage, they will at the same time unite at the ballot box, not only to back up the economic struggle of the trades-union, but to finally wrest the government from capitalist control and establish socialism. Declaring  opposition to the capitalist system of private ownership of the means of production, and urging upon the working class the necessity for working class political action is as far as the trade union organisations need to go. If you were to use your economic organisation for political purposes you would disrupt it, you would wreck it.

The mainstream parties have sounded a note of alarm at the so-called “apathy” of the voters, and there is reason for their fear. Unintelligible sound-bites from campaign spin-doctors will no longer answer the insistent questionings of a slowly awakening electorate. The workers are refusing to get enthusiastic over the many fake election issues, for all these dwarf into insignificance before the very practical question of “What are you going to do about the problem of the unemployed”? To which questions the Tories and Labour can answer only, “Who knows!” The Socialist Party is the only one that gives the worker a practical and logical answer to his elemental question.

If you have no right to work you have no right to life because you can only live by work. And if you live in a system that deprives you of the right to work, that system denies you the right to live. No work, no food and all this in the shadow of the abundance these very workers have created. In capitalism a  worker can only work on condition that he or she finds somebody who will grant them permission to work but for just enough of what his or her labour produces to keep them in sufficient fit state and working order. Why should any worker need to beg for work? Why be forced to surrender to anybody any part of what his or her labour produces? No matter whether you have studied this economic question or not, you cannot have failed to observe that society has been sharply divided into classes into a capitalist class upon the one hand, into a working class upon the other hand. The capitalist has become a profit-taking parasite. The capitalists are absolutely unnecessary; they have no part in the process of production – not the slightest.

So long as the means of production are privately or state owned, so long as they are operated for the profit of the capitalist or a bureaucracy, the working class will be exploited, millions will be reduced to want, some of them driven to be vagabonds and criminals, and this condition will prevail in spite of anything that organised labour can do to the contrary.

What is it that keeps the working class in subjection? What is it that is responsible for their exploitation and for all of the ills they suffer? Just one thing, the working class have not yet learned how to unite and act together. The capitalists and their retinue have managed during all these years to keep the working class divided, and as long as the working class is divided it will be helpless. It is only when the working class learn (and they are learning ) and by very bitter experience to unite and to act together, especially on election day, that there is any hope for emancipation.

 We have now no effective revolutionary organisation of the workers along the lines of this class struggle, and that is the demand of this time. The capitalists are combined against you. They are reducing wages. They have control of the courts. They are doing everything they can to destroy your power. You have got to follow their example. You have got to unify your forces. You have got to stand together shoulder to shoulder on the economic and political fields and then you will make substantial progress toward emancipation.