Social democracy as it should be

 

The simplest definition of democracy is that it is decision-making by the whole people involving procedures such as free and open debate, free access to information, one person one vote, and the accountability of public officials and elected representatives. Such a decision-making system can be regarded as desirable because one key aspect of the nature of human beings is their ability to reflect and weigh up options before deciding what to do. In other words, a system in which the people as a whole freely decide what to do is the only decision-making system worthy of humans as self-determining ("free") agents. The idea of democracy is also bound up with that of equality, if only in the sense that it is a decision-making procedure in which every human deemed capable of making a reasoned decision has a vote of equal weight. Ensuring each person an equal as possible say in the decision-making process requires a high degree of social equality and not mere equal political rights. ‘Democracy’ under capitalism is different from the generally accepted meaning of the word as a situation where ordinary people make the decisions that shape their lives, frequently summarised as being the ‘rule of the people.’ But democracy is not simply about ‘who’ makes decisions or ‘how’ the decisions are to be made. It is an expression of the social relations in society. If democracy means that all have equal opportunity to be heard, then this not only implies political equality but also economic equality. It further presupposes that people have individual freedom. A genuine democracy is therefore one where people are free and equal, actively participating, without leaders, in co-operative discussion to reach a common agreement on all matters relating to their collective as well as individual requirements. We are told we are ‘free’ but in reality our only freedom is to sell our labour power to someone who is ‘free’ to buy it – or not, as the case may be. If we choose not to exercise this freedom then we are ‘free’ to go without or even starve. It is quickly apparent that in capitalism freedom is an illusion because freedom cannot exist when the conditions for the exercise of free choice do not exist.

Democracy is not an end in itself, but a means to an end; and for us that end is socialism. Democratic organisation and methods are not just one among many possible means to establish a democratic society; they are the only such means. Democracy, in essence, is simple and easily understood. Democracy reveals all the evidence and enables informed discussion and requires inclusion for all in decisions. Democracy’s responsibility is to every member of the world community. The election of a majority of socialist delegates will not be an instruction to them from the whole population to go on running capitalism. It will be an instruction, first, to take control of the armed forces of the state so that they cannot be used against the people. Secondly, it will be an instruction to enact legislation transferring the ownership and control of all companies producing, distributing and administering society's goods and services into the hands of the whole of society. Once this is done, the job of socialist delegates to parliaments and other democratic assemblies will be complete. Their tasks will be at an end and they will return to ordinary life. Socialist delegates will not be observing parliament's meaningless rituals. When there is a majority of socialist delegates there will be no Queen's Speech, no White Papers nor any of the other shams that pass for democracy today. Just the historic announcement that capitalism has been abolished and that, henceforth, real participative democracy in the administration of social affairs, at local, regional and world levels, will obtain. As the old regime is abolished, the new, really democratic, social order, discussed and planned for so long beforehand, will come into operation. Everyone will know what to expect and what is expected of them. Objectors will be allowed to state their objections and try to get support for whatever Ideas they have. What they will not be allowed to do is disrupt industrial processes or social arrangements just because they feel like it.

The organisation and day-today running of socialist society will be a completely separate issue. It will have been discussed and planned at great length by everybody before the actual take-over of power takes place. Although people in different areas of the world may choose different patterns of democracy to implement their wishes, they will all be keen to maintain control over the production and distribution of products and services that affect everyone's life. If democracy is to mean more than one vote nationally and another regionally every few years then an alternative system must be devised. An alternative system involving the general public in all decisions which impact upon them, their communities and local environments, one which embraces the notion that all are entitled to be active participants in the local and global community.

A socialist society will be one in which all people will be free to participate fully in the process of making and implementing policy. What has been decided by democratic majority can only be altered by majority decision. We are not looking for "nice" leaders or any kind of leaders for the workers to follow. The essence of democracy is popular participation not competing parties. In socialism elections will not be about deciding which particular party is to come to ‘power’ and form the government. Politics in socialism will not be about coercive power and its exercise and so won't really be politics at all in its present-day sense of the ‘art and practice of government’ or ‘the conduct of state affairs’. Being a classless society of free and equal men and women, socialism will not have a coercive state machine nor a government to control it. The conduct of public affairs in socialism will be about people participating in the running of their lives in a non-antagonistic context of co-operation to further the common good. Socialist democracy will be a participatory democracy rather than the choice every four or five years, with or without proportional representation, between rival bands of professional politicians that passes for democracy today. Whether decisions about constructing a new playground or the need to improve fish stocks in the North Sea everyone everywhere will be able to voice their opinion and cast their vote. The traditional image of huge crowds with their hands up in council meetings, or queues of people lining up to put a piece of paper in a box, is obviously becoming old-fashioned, even in capitalism. The practical ramifications of this democratic principle could be enormous. If people feel obliged to opine and vote on every matter of policy they would have little time to do anything else. On the other hand, leaving the decision-making process to a system of elected executive groups or councils could be seen as going against the principle of fully participatory democracy. If socialism is going to maintain the practice of inclusive decision making (which does not put big decisions in the hands of small groups) but without generating a crisis of choice, then a solution is required. Technology cannot resolve issues of responsibility, but any system, computer software or not, which helps reduce the potential burden of decision making to manageable levels would. it seems unlikely that an appearance of greater participation will actually translate into genuine participation, given that capitalism is only interested in giving us a say when the issue at stake doesn’t really matter. Nonetheless, capitalism’s drive to make its democratic forms look more participatory may be doing socialism’s work for it, so that in the future the technology to debate, dispute, appeal, complain, conference and vote will all be in place - at the touch of a mobile phone button.

We propose different scales of social co-operation such as local, regional and world scales, this is not a question of there being a hierarchy with power located at any central point. What we anticipate is both an integrated and flexible system of democratic organisation which could be adapted for action to solve any proh1em in any of these scales. This simply takes into account that some problems and the action to solve them arise from local issues and this also extends to the regional and world spheres. How would democracy be fulfilled in socialism? This requires the abolition of the state and its replacement by a system of democratic administration. This can only work from a basis of common ownership and production solely for use. Common ownership means that all people throughout the world will stand in equal relationship with each other. This will be an association of all men and women making the decisions and co-operating to produce goods and organise communities in their mutual interests. The democratic organisation of all people as citizens of the world would need to operate through different scales of social co-operation. Locally, in town or country, we would be involved with our parish or neighbourhood. Even now, there are many thousands of men and women throughout the country who work voluntarily on parish and district councils and in town neighbourhoods for the benefit of their communities. But these efforts would be greatly enhanced by the freedoms of a society run entirely through voluntary co-operation. Such local organisation would be in the context of regional co-operation which could operate by adapting the structures of present national governments. Whilst some departments such as those for administering tax and state finances, which are essential to the state would be abolished, others like Agriculture and the Environment could have an important job to do, especially in the early days of socialism. Such structures—adapted to the needs of socialist society—could be part of regional councils and would assist in the work of implementing the decisions of regional populations. During the early days of socialism it is likely that the organisation of world co-operation would need to take place through a world council. Because the things we need now are produced and distributed through a world structure of production, and because its present capitalist nature has brought about immense problems, action to solve them would be required on a world scale, For example, it would be a priority to set up an ecologically benign world energy system as soon as possible. Such world projects could be co-ordinated through appropriate departments of a world council.

The latest in new technology gives the opportunity for the population to keep themselves better informed and to take a more active role in decisions than at any time since the small city-states of ancient Greece. We have at our disposal today the very means, in the form of modern telecommunications, that could enable us to resuscitate the ancient model of Athenian democracy on a truly global level. What we conspicuously lack is the will and the imagination to look beyond. The managerial system which now dictate how production units such as factories or services should be run would be replaced. Small units could be run by regular meetings of all the workers. In the cases of large organisations these could be run by elected committees accountable to the people working in them. In this way, democratic practice would apply not just to the important policy decisions that would steer the main direction of development, it would extend to the day-to-day activities of the work place.

Democratic control will involve the whole community in making decisions about the use of the means of production. Instead of government over people there would be various levels of democratic administration, from the local up to regional and world levels, with responsibility being delegated if necessary to groups and individuals. But this does not rule out local democracy. In fact a democratic system of decision-making would require that the basic unit of social organisation would be the local community. However, the nature of some of the problems we face and the many goods and services presently produced, such as raw materials, energy sources, agricultural products, world transport and communications, need production and distribution to be organised at a world level. Corresponding to this, of course, there would be a need for a democratic world administration, controlled by delegates from the regional and local levels of organisation throughout the world.

Our aim is not just common ownership; it is democracy. Democracy is not an optional extra or simply a means to an end. It is part of our end, as can be read in our Object. We define Socialism as "...common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth..." What do we mean by democracy? Amongst other things, a world in which people are not bossed around by a government or told what to do by their "superiors". More positively, a world where everyone takes an equal and responsible part in making decisions which affect society, without the strife which is inevitable in a class-divided society. That is one reason why we say there will be no socialist society until a majority desire it. As long as most people are content to be told what to do by elected representatives there will be no democracy in the sense defined. Not that an electoral system is completely worthless. 

The Socialist Party asserts that to secure the political power of the proletariat the only sure way to do this was through the ballot box and with his earlier rejection of campaigning for reforms. They adopted the policy of trying to gain control of the machinery of government through the ballot box by campaigning on an exclusively socialist programme without seeking support on a policy of reforms; while supporting parliamentary action they refused to advocate reforms. This has remained our policy to this day.

Socialism and democracy are complementary; more than complementary – indivisible. A society where the means of production were formally the common property of society but where only a minority took part in deciding how they should be used would be one in which "common property" was merely a fiction since in practice the means of production would be the sectional possession of the decision-making minority. In the end the only guarantee in socialist society against the emergence of a new ruling class which would negate the common ownership of the means of production is people using the democratic institutions—the actual democratic participation of all the people in the running of society. This is why it is absolutely essential that those who establish socialism—the majority working class who will constitute also the major part of the people of socialist society—must be fully aware of its implications, being prepared and organised to participate not only in its establishment but also in its subsequent running.

Can I Vote for Revolution?

 

Revolution seems a frightening concept but it doesn't have to be scary. In fact, we should not need to use the adjective "revolutionary" in regards to socialism because by its nature is a revolutionary theory. To attempt a revolution without majority support is almost inevitably bound to result either in a counter-revolution or in a dictatorship which destroys the goals for which the revolution was undertaken. No doubt as the socialist revolution approaches people will be organising in all kinds of informal bodies ready to take over and run society after the end of class rule, but as long as democratically-elected parliament exist winning control of them through the ballot-box must surely be central to the strategy of any socialist party.

When the workers first won the franchise many of them voted for their masters out of a sort of feudal loyalty, and others were cheaply wooed with flattery and petty bribes: only a few saw that they had in their grasp the instrument to gain their emancipation. You may have noticed that whoever gets elected, nothing really changes. This is because politicians have no intention of changing anything. We give the politicians a blank cheque to do what they want or can get away with. They're really doing very nicely out of the system, recession or no recession. Fewer and fewer people are bothering to vote in elections, for example, correctly realising that it will have little effect on their everyday lives. Attempts to reform capitalism, whether through parliament or dictatorship, have failed.  This leaves conscious majority revolution as the only way forward.

Are elections and voting a waste of time? After all, don’t anarchists say that if voting changed anything it would be illegal? The standard anarchist argument against the revolutionary movement contesting elections is that this inevitably leads to it becoming reformist; revolutionary politicians, whatever may have been their original intention, end up merely administering capitalism - the lame explanation of “power corrupts”. Anarchists, in their criticism, tend to argue that all "parliamentary" parties, within which they include the Socialist Party of Great Britain, have in the past, and in the present, betrayed the working class; that Parliament is not the real seat of power but a "talking-shop"; that the Socialist Party contests elections aims at parliamentary majorities and so on it perpetuate what anarchists see as harmful illusions about law, the state and parliamentary democracy and are therefore no different from all other parties.

Voting has not changed the most fundamental reality that needs to be changed - the reality that is capitalism, for it is this economic system that is ultimately responsible for the inequality and desperation that currently exists in so much of the world. On the other hand, voting has occasionally made things better for some on some occasions. Social Democracy never satisfactorily settled the problem of reform and revolution, of whether or not a party aiming at socialism ought also to campaign for reform of capitalism. They tried to combine the two, having a maximum programme of Socialism and a minimum programme of reforms. This minimum programme was called variously "immediate demands", "partial demands" and "reforms". The question the Social Democrats did not face was: did campaigning for reforms hinder the struggle for Socialism? All the evidence seemed to show that it did. The policy adopted by Social-Democratic parties has generally been described as "parliamentarianism". By which is meant the idea that a parliament dominated by working-class representatives can, through various types of legislation, control the existing system of society in the interests of the community as a whole. Whilst workers have made some gains this way, more and more people are becoming aware that such a path offers no solution to any of the major problems they face because it leaves untouched the basic structure of society which is their root cause. The failure has been attributed, as much to the mechanism of parliamentary elections as to the nature of social reformism itself. It has been argued that the experience Social-Democratic governments prove the uselessness of parliamentary institutions to the workers. We can agree that this is what happened to these parties but offer an explanation: that such parties were co-opted because they advocated reforms of capitalism and not its abolition. Social Democratic parties had in addition to the “maximum” programme of socialism what they called a “minimum programme” of immediate reforms to capitalism. What happened, we contend, is that they attracted votes on the basis of their minimum, not their maximum, programme, i.e. reformist votes, and so became the prisoners of these voters. In parliament, and later in office, they found themselves with no freedom of action other than to compromise with capitalism. Had they been the mandated delegates of those who voted for them (rather than leaders) this could be expressed by saying that they had no mandate for socialism, only to try to reform capitalism. It was not a case of being corrupted by the mere fact of going into national parliaments but was due to the basis on which they went there and how this restricted what they could do. In short, it is not power as such that corrupts. It is power obtained on the basis of followers voting for leaders to implement reforms that, if you want to put it that way, “corrupts”. There is no reason to suppose that the electoral process necessarily corrupts. On the other hand, we contend, a reform programme does corrupt. The appropriate approach is contesting elections only on the basis of delegates being given an instructive mandate for the sole purpose of carrying through the formalities involved in winding up capitalism.

While elections may seem to be irrelevant, workers should not turn their back on the electoral system as such. Once the world’s working people demand socialism, the electoral system can be utilised to effect the revolutionary act of abolishing capitalism by signalling that a majority of ordinary people fully understand and want to effect that change. So we should not be fooled by the myth that there is no alternative to capitalism, that it will always be with us. It will not, it is true, simply collapse.  But its structure rests primarily on the effective control of public thought aimed at persuading people that the society that exists is ‘good’ and works in their interest.  Yet, ultimately, force is always on the side of those who are governed and when ordinary people decided to end the misery and change society the numerical superiority of ordinary working people will make their demands unstoppable.  Critics of the Socialist Party's position fail to appreciate the different content of the term "parliamentary" as applied to orthodox parties and to the Socialist Party. We indeed hold it essential that the transformation to a new society be started by formal democratic methods—that is, by persuasion and the secret ballot. For there is no other way of ascertaining accurately the views of the population. The result of a properly conducted ballot will make it clear, in the event of an overwhelming socialist vote, to any minority that they are the minority and that any attempt to oppose the desires of the majority by violence would be futile. The formal establishment of the socialist majority's control of the state avoids the possibility of effective use of its forces against the revolutionary movement. An attempt to establish a socialist society by ignoring the democratic process gives any recalcitrant minority, the excuse for possibly violent anti-socialist action justified by the claim that the alleged majority did not in fact exist or that the assumed majority was not likely to be a consistent or decisive one.

 The Socialist Party's aim is a revolutionary change in society. Socialism does not mean a different kind of government or State control of industry. It means a completely different social system, based on the ownership of all the means of life by everybody. Socialism means a world where the things of life will be produced solely to satisfy the needs of mankind, instead of for the purpose of realising a profit for your bosses; a world where the whole of humanity will own and control the means of living and where wars and international strive cannot exist: a world where people will no longer be subject to the threat of unemployment and to the perpetual struggle to make ends meet—in short, a world where everyone will freely and equally associate and enjoy all the fruits of their labour. We're talking about a world community without any frontiers. About wealth being produced to meet people's needs and not for sale on a market or for profit. About everyone having access to what they require to satisfy their needs, without the rationing system that is money. A society where people freely contribute their skills and experience to produce what is needed, without the compulsion of a wage or salary.  There is no need for the food we eat, or the clothes we wear, or the houses we live in, to be restricted by the size of our wage packets. There is no need for the output of factories and farms to be restricted by having to make a profit. The productive resources are sufficient to make it possible to abolish buying and selling and thus money and to go over to free distribution of the things people need.

How is the Socialist Party is going to do all this? The answer is that it is not. YOU are going to do it. No politician can help you.The only barrier to the immediate establishment of socialism is that most people, for various reasons, do not accept socialism as a practical option and prefer to keep capitalism in the forlorn hope that it can be made to serve human interests. Even though the politicians share the responsibility for keeping capitalism in being, it is no use your blaming their failures on dishonesty or incompetence since it is capitalism itself that sets the limits to what they can do. The governments you elect have to work within the constraints that profit must come before human need. When a majority use our votes to win control of political power so that class property rights can be ended and the means of production belong to the community as a whole. This new society can only come about when a majority want it and are determined to get it. Nobody can bring it about for you. In our Declaration of Principles, we say: "That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself." The Socialist Party does not present itself as a would-be ruler or a new leader. The world will not change for the working class until they themselves change it. What we propose is that workers throw off the domination of the ruling class and organise and run society in their own interests instead of in the interests of their bosses. Then and only then will we see an end to the problems that have beset the working class for so long. We need to organise to bring about a world where the Earth’s resources have become the common heritage of all and where every man, woman and child on the planet can have free access to what they need to lead a decent and satisfying life.

Despite their shortcomings, elections to a parliament based on universal suffrage are still the best method available for workers to express a majority desire for socialism. The ruling class who monopolise the ownership of wealth do so through their control of parliament by capitalist parties elected by workers. Control of parliament by representatives of a conscious revolutionary movement will enable the bureaucratic-military apparatus to be dismantled and the oppressive forces of the state to be neutralised, so that Socialism may be introduced with the least possible violence and disruption. Representatives elected by workers to parliament have continually compromised to the needs of capitalism, but then so have representatives on the industrial field. The institution is not here at fault; it is just that people's ideas have not yet developed beyond belief in leaders and dependence on a political elite. When enough of us join together determined to end inequality and deprivation we can transform elections into a means of doing away with a society of minority rule in favour of real democracy and equality.

 The Socialist Party adopted the policy of trying to gain control of the machinery of government through the ballot box by campaigning on an exclusively socialist programme without seeking support on a policy of reforms; while supporting parliamentary action they refused to advocate reforms. This has remained its policy to this day. Mandating delegates, voting on resolutions and membership ballots are democratic practices for ensuring that the members of an organisation control that organisation – and as such key procedures in any organisation genuinely seeking socialism. Socialism can only be a fully democratic society in which everybody will have an equal say in the ways things are run. This means that it can only come about democratically, both in the sense of being the expressed will of the working class and in the sense of the working class being organised democratically – without leaders, but with mandated delegates – to achieve it. The socialist movement must stand firmly by democracy, by the methods of socialist education and political organisation, and the method of gaining control of the machinery of government and the armed forces through the vote where possible and only with the backing of a majority of convinced Socialists

We appeal is to those activists who are committed to the concept of a self-organised majority revolution without leaders to abandon their dogmatic opposition to the working class forming a political party to contest elections and eventually win control of political power, not to form a government but to immediately abolish capitalism and usher in the classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless society that real socialism will be. The socialist message is that workers should think long and hard before casting their vote. it would be difficult in one short article to prove any case beyond question, especially a case as big as this. All we can do is give you the bare bones, so don't be surprised if it doesn't convince you straight off. We're not magicians. If you don't have questions to ask at the end of this then we're not doing our job properly, or you're not giving it any thought. And if you have questions, we can only suggest you contact us to ask them. It's up to you. The future is in your hands.

The Struggle

 

Much of the left today has abandoned Marx’s Capital.  Many people against certain aspects of capitalism snatch pieces of Marxism to give themselves progressive legitimacy. Being anti-capitalist does not say much.  It only begs the question: how do we describe capitalism and from what angle are we criticizing it? Much of the Left chooses to divide capitalism between good and bad ones. They replaced Marx's criticism of capitalism with a host of reformist and even reactionary demands peddled under this name. Marxism stands for the abolition of wage labour. Academics have tried to convert it into scientific sociology or an alternative economic science for the left-wing of the bourgeoisie. Pseudo-socialist presented workers with repulsive examples of despotic societies in the name of socialism, like the Soviet Union, China and Albania. The result was to alienate workers from communism, cut the connection between workers and communism.

Capitalism is defined in many ways. Each of these definitions of capital leads to a specific political conclusion. The term capitalism has been increasingly replaced by the more clever-sounding “free enterprise,” or " free markets". One definition of capitalism is based on private property. This definition equates capitalism with private ownership and is also defined in terms of market economy and competition. That is a mistake. Those who define capitalism as private property owners think that to abolition capitalism, state ownership must replace private property. Some others think that we can do away with capitalism if we abolish the market and institute a central planning system. Capitalism can just as be run by the government through state-owned companies as privately-owned enterprises. Defining capitalism by market and private property ownership is a misleading characterization of Marx's criticism of capitalism that led to the failure of the revolution in Russia. Nowhere does Marx says private property ownership is an essential characteristic of capitalist exploitation. What he says is that capitalist exploitation requires that productive labourers be separated from the means of production and it is irrelevant whether the state owns the means of production or a person or a group of people. Many take disparity in income level as a way of defining a capitalist society and unequal political power can be also taken as a criterion to defining capitalism. Those who define capitalism as unequal income level seek redistribution of wealth via taxation reform.

All these definitions of capitalism are alien to Marx. What is socialism? Marx defined socialism as the abolition of wage slavery and the creation of a society based on common ownership. Socialism is humankind's liberation from all forms of deprivation and bondage.

Marx’s theory of surplus-value is the cornerstone of his analysis of capital.  For him, class means the production of surplus-value by the worker and its appropriation by the industrial capitalist. When Marx talks about exploitation, this is what he has in mind. When Marx talks about class exploitation, he has in mind the extraction of surplus-labour from direct labour by the capitalist enterprise. This surplus is the unpaid labour of the labourer that the capitalist lines up in his/her pocket. Marx's entry point to analyse capitalism was neither private ownership nor market but rather exploitation of labour-power and appropriation of surplus value by industrial capitalists. 

Capitalist exploitation does not occur in the market. Buying and selling of  labour-power is a "fair and equal exchange."  Buying and selling of other commodities produce no surplus-value. Whether means of production are owned privately or owned by the state is irrelevant to capitalist production. Capitalist production is the production of surplus-value and its appropriation by people other than the productive worker.

Marx’s theory of surplus-value identifies non-surplus-value producing capitalists, for example, merchants and money lending capitalists (the bankers) and where they stand in regards to the production and appropriation of surplus-value. To expand his/her production, the capitalist may have to borrow money from a moneylender who in return gets a portion of the surplus-value in the form of interest.  Moreover, the industrial capitalist can sell his/her products to a merchant to speed up the capital turnover.  The merchant, in return, receives a part of the surplus-value in the form of a discount, and the capitalist enterprise can concentrate on the production of surplus-value rather than being involved in the commodity exchange process. Another part of the surplus-value goes to the state in the form of tax to secure the necessary stability and protection for capital, and so on.

While the capitalists whose capital is directly engaged in the production of surplus-value,  the industrialist, is engaged in the production of surplus-value, the merchant performs the transformation of the commodity into money.  In other words, merchants do not produce surplus-value, for buying and selling a commodity simply represents the exchange of value between two equals. However, merchants make the realisation of surplus value possible because they turn products of labour into capital. Similarly, the moneylender does not produce any surplus-value, but he/she may lend his money to the industrial capitalist who may lay it out for the expansion of production and creation of more surplus-value.  In other words, the financiers transfer their money to capitalist enterprises only temporarily.  By putting their money at the disposal of industrial capitalists, money lenders provide the condition of existence of production and appropriation of surplus-value.  Therefore, merchants and money lenders neither are the appropriators of surplus value nor its distributor.  They are recipients of portions of the surplus-value in the forms of discount and interests, respectively.  Therefore, neither buying and selling, whether in domestic or international markets nor lending or borrowing money, creates surplus-value.  In other words, Marx uses his theory of surplus-value as a principle tool in locating various segments and groups of people in the capitalist society and where they stand in relation to production and appropriation of surplus-value.   

The last bricks of the Welfare State are being dismantled and even the existing basic level of society's responsibility towards the individual, in terms of social welfare and economic security, is being challenged by employers and politicians. In many parts of the world nationalism and religion are on the ascendance. Yet in other regions of the globe workers are gradually emerging out of their previous political apathy. The world is entering a turbulent period of intensified worker protest movements. Today the destructive results of the recession and government austerity policies for the workers - unemployment, loss of social services, etc. - are felt more than ever. In the whole of Europe questions such as unemployment and lack of job security and so on are becoming a focus for a renewed surge of workers' movement, and the ruling class is losing its capacity for the political intimidation of the workers' movement through its once tried and tested populist mobilisation of the "middle-class" strata. The decline of trade unionism, while having immediate detrimental effects on the life of millions of workers, has created an environment for new thinking and alternative practices in worker organisation in Europe. The workers' movement has already moved towards more radical actions organised outside the traditional union structure, creating alternative organisations, as witnessed by past Walmart protest wildcat strikes. The worker is realising that it is the worker and worker alone who should take care of his economic interests and political rights, without hoping for anything to come from the politicians who fill parliamentary seats or the bureaucrats in their professional union posts. The era of workers' strength on the political stage is once again arriving.

Many political activists shrug their shoulders at socialism and socialist organisation, preferring participation in the host of one-issue struggles and while socialists should actively be involved also in these fields, this doesn't preclude theoretical work for communism. Capitalist society will assimilate protests and re-formulate them after its own image, incorporating them into the establishment. To resist this requires the existence of independent socialist parties. The issue of the primacy of theory over movement, or vice versa, has little meaning. They are the different levels of a single social movement. Socialism is a movement for the working-class and communist revolution. We regard this revolution as possible and on the agenda right now. But as a class that is under pressure, we also fight for every improvement in the social situation which enhances workers'  political and economic power and promotes their human dignity. We also fight for every political opening which may facilitate the class struggle. We are activists of the worker's protest movement. We are fighting for the establishment of the worker's social and economic alternative as a class. The worker's position in production does not change. The economic foundation of society does not change. This class's alternative for the organisation of human society does not change. The worker still has to sell his or her labour-power daily in order to live, and thus views the world from the same standpoint and offers the same solution to it. Socialism is the worker's movement to destroy capitalism, abolish wage labour and do away with exploitation and classes.

There is a need to express the socialist vision in more concrete terms where more practical models of economic and political organisation in socialist society are elaborated.  Many socialists say it is not for us to devise blueprints and utopias, that our task is to organise a revolution against the existing system, to make our goals clear but it is the process of workers' revolution itself that will provide the practical forms of their realisation.  Nevertheless, to some degree, we must offer positive alternatives. Socialists should, firstly, communicate the precise meaning of socialist aims, and, secondly, show the feasibility of their realisation. It must explain that the abolition of bourgeois ownership does not mean the introduction of state ownership, and show how the organisation of people's collective control over means of production is practical. It must stress that socialism is an economic system without money and wage labour, and then show how organising production without labour-power as a commodity is possible. Our job is not to make models and utopias and prepare a detailed blueprint of production and administration in a socialist society but to show in what ways a socialist society differs from the existing one. For example, we show the process of the withering away of the state following a socialist revolution by explaining the material basis of the state in class society and its superfluousness as a political institution in a class-free society, and not by producing a step by step guide programme for the dismantling of state institutions and its departments.

The Cooperative Commonwealth

 

The term commonwealth came into popular usage during the 17^th C English Revolution when the monarchy was deposed and a republic was declared.

 Although the word commonwealth had no connection with the idea of wealth held in common, many radicals such as Gerrald Winstanley and the Diggers saw that it had a deeper meaning reflecting the new models of community they sought to build and not just a new model army.

It was a word to be later adopted in later revolution when the new United States of America accomplished their independence British colonialism. This framing of the states as a commonwealth derives from language of 17th-century thinkers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke and refers to the goal of creating a political community for the common good, a formulation of a constitution.

 Massachusetts, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and two U.S. territories, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands, all call themselves commonwealths in the formulation of their constitutions.

 

 Now another American state to be described as a commonwealth if statehood is granted to Washington DC.

The would-be 51st US state will be officially titled the “State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth”

 

Socialist commonwealth, cooperative commonwealth

It was related to commonweal – that is, the common well-being or the public good, a term resurrected by William Morris for the ‘Commonweal’ journal of the Socialist League.

The idea of an economic system based on cooperatives has also found a more receptive hearing. America has known many utopian schemes that had co-operatives as its basis.

Member of the national executive committee of the Socialist Labor Party, Laurence Gronlund wrote the "Co-operative Commonwealth," a vision for a cooperative economy and society echoed over the next decades in early-twentieth century U.S. and Canadian leftist circles.

 There have been political parties that have promoted co-operatives as policy.  In the 1930s, the populist Farmer-Labor Party could issue a radical platform:
“We declare that capitalism has failed and that immediate steps must be taken by the people to abolish capitalism in a peaceful and lawful manner, and that a new, sane, and just society must be established, a system in which all the natural resources, machinery of production, transportation, and communications shall be owned by the government and operated democratically for the benefit of all the people, and not for the benefit of the few. Palliative measures will continue to fail. Only a complete reorganization of our social structure into a cooperative commonwealth will bring economic security and prevent a prolonged period of further suffering among the people.”

In Washington state the Washington Commonwealth Federation, based on similar ideas, won control of the state Democratic Party during the late 1930s and early 1940s. In a parallel development in Canada, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was formed with some prominent Socialist Party of Canada members joining.

An alternative term for the society socialists aspired towards has been “cooperative commonwealth”.

Today, having fleshed-out their own visions of the Cooperative Commonwealth, Richard Wolff and Gar Alperovitz have been getting a lot of exposure on the alternative media websites for their own “radical"  models for a co-operative economy. But exactly what is there in their proposals to get excited about? They insist that they are challenging capitalism by presenting alternatives to capitalism, but in the end all they offer are prescriptions for curing capitalism. In their mythical “market-socialism” workers would be self-exploited. 

 Co-operatives are still capitalist institutions i.e. capital - even if it's "collective" or "democratic" or "social" capital - is invested to make more capital. Cooperatives that exist under a market economy inevitably replicate the problems of capitalism due to market pressures as Chomsky points out, as well as Marx’s criticisms of them.

"First, you can’t “out-compete” capitalism. Corporations will always have larger capital to invest in research, technology, and their willingness to cut costs through lower wages, less environmentally sounds practices, out-sourcing, etc, will give them an advantage.
Second, is that co-operatives are subject to market pressures to compete just the same as capitalist enterprises and this lends itself to pressures to create the same practices of corporations."
Third, is that many cooperatives face the same issues as small business owners face. Often worker cooperatives are in the service, food or other speciality industries with lower profit margins and because they are smaller and do not have the advantages of scale which larger companies do.

Lastly is the tendency of worker co-operatives to see their needs and interests as an entity apart from and/or above other workers. After all, as cooperatives exist within a market system, their interests are to compete with other companies and expand their market share."

 The pioneer of American socialism Eugene Debs would use the phrase “cooperative commonwealth” as a synonym for a socialist society. It became the name of the federation of a fairly successful Canadian reforming party

A use of it by Von Mises in his book ‘Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth’

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, however, commonwealth was widely used by opponents of capitalism to refer to their ideal post-capitalist society. The noun was usually combined with a clarifying adjective to form the phrase the socialist commonwealth or the cooperative commonwealth. Sometimes, however, the future society was called simply the commonwealth. This, for example, was the name of a weekly newspaper published by the Socialist Party of Washington (the state) from January 1911 to April 1914.  

 

Nowadays the Commonwealth most often refers to the association of former British colonies.  We share a vision of a real "commonwealth”. It means a global system of society where all wealth is held in common and is democratically controlled by all people. It is a society from which borders and frontiers, social classes and leaders, states and governments have disappeared, in which production is geared to meeting needs, not profit, and in which people give of their abilities and have free access to the benefits of civilisation. This is the real "commonwealth" socialists look forward to.

 

Why The Socialist Party is Unique

 

Class struggle without any clear understanding of where you are going is simply committing oneself to a never-ending treadmill. This is where the Leninist Parties go wrong. They think mechanistically that a sense of revolutionary direction emerges spontaneously out of "the struggle" thus circumventing the realm of ideology - the need to educate. It does not. The workers can never win the class struggle while it is confined simply to the level of trade union militancy; it has to be transformed into a socialist consciousness. Conversely, socialist consciousness cannot simply rely on its own increase in ideological persuasion. It has to link up with the practical struggle. The success of the socialist revolution will depend on the growth of socialist consciousness on a mass scale and that these changed ideas can only develop through a practical movement.

First, let us begin with the structure and organisation of the Socialist Party. In keeping with the tenet that working-class emancipation necessarily excludes the role of political leadership, it is a leader-free political party where its Executive Committee is solely for housekeeping administrative tasks and is not permitted to determine policy or even submit resolutions to conference (and all the EC minutes are available for public scrutiny with access on the web as proof of our commitment to openness and democracy). All conference decisions have to be ratified by a referendum of the whole membership. The General Secretary has no position of power or authority over any other member being the person elected to perform day-to-day duties. Despite some very charismatic writers and speakers, no individual personality has held undue influence over the Socialist Party. The longevity of the Socialist Party as a political organisation based on agreed goals, methods and organisational principles and which has produced without interruption a monthly magazine for over a hundred years through two world wars is an achievement that most left-wing organisations have only aspire towards.

Presently, the sole purpose of the Socialist Party is to argue for socialism and put up candidates to measure how many socialist voters there are. We await the necessary future mass socialist party as impatiently as others and do not claim for ourselves the mantle of being or becoming that organisation. Our function is to make socialists, to propagate socialism, and to generally indicate to fellow workers that they must achieve their own emancipation. We do not declare: “Follow us! Trust us! We shall free you.”

 No, Socialism must be achieved by the workers acting for themselves. We are unique among political parties in calling on people NOT to vote for them unless they agree with what they stand for.

"... if we hoped to achieve Socialism ONLY by our propaganda, the outlook would indeed be bad. But it is capitalism itself, unable to solve crises, unemployment and poverty, engaging in horrifying wars, which is digging its own grave. Workers are learning by bitter experience and bloody sacrifice for interests not their own. They are learning very slowly. Our job is to shorten the time, to speed up the process." - Socialism or Chaos pamphlet

This socialist majority will elect socialist delegates to whatever democratic institutions exist (and these may be soviets or workers councils in some places), with the sole objective of legitimately abolishing capitalism.

Concerning the hostility clause,(It only commits the Socialist Party to oppose all other political parties, defined as organisations that contest elections and/or make demands on governments to enact reforms), there needs to be only one working-class class party and that this must be opposed to all other parties which can only represent sections of the owning class and if there were two groups of organised socialists, with more or less the same principles, then it would be their duty to try to unite to further the coming into being of the single "ideal" socialist party, opposed to all others, mentioned in Clause 7. They would both want socialism; they would both favour democratic revolution to get it; they would both be democratically organised internally; they would both repudiate advocating or campaigning for reforms of capitalism. There would no doubt be differences over tactical questions (which presumably would be why there were two separate organisations), such as over the trade union question, the attitude a minority of socialists should adopt in parliament, even over whether religion was a social question or a private matter. But it would be the duty of the two groups to find a solution to this and form a single organisation. Our view is that it is the winning of political control that is more important and that is why we emphasise this.  The Socialist Party stands by its analysis that we should use Parliament, not to try to reform capitalism but for the purpose of abolishing capitalism and that at the same time, the working class will also be organising itself, at the various places of work, in order to keep production going. The case of the primacy of political action has always been prominent in our arguments. We say that the capitalist’s legitimacy comes from their ‘democratic’ rule, so we believe that the capitalist’s legitimacy can be totally be broken by taking a majority in Parliament. But “capturing” Parliament is only a measure of acceptance of socialism and a coup de grace to capitalist rule. The owning class has a supreme weapon within its grasp: political power, – control of the army, navy, air and police forces. That power is conferred upon the representatives of the owners at election times and they, recognising its importance, spend large amounts of wealth and much time and effort to secure it. In countries like Britain the workers form the bulk of the voters; a situation the employers are compelled to face and deal with. Hence the incessant stream of opinion-forming influences which stems from their ownership and control of press, radio, schools to influence the workers to the view that capitalism is the best of all possible social forms. And that only political groups who accept this view are worthy of workers votes. It is the Achilles heel of capitalism and makes a non-violent revolution possible. Therefore, the first, most important battle is to continue the destruction of capitalism’s legitimacy in the minds of our fellow workers. That is, to drive the development of our class as a class-for-itself, mindful of the fact that capitalism is a thing that can be destroyed and a thing that should be destroyed. They must withdraw their consent to capitalism and class rule.

In 1904 the Socialist Party raised the banner for such a single, mass socialist party and proclaimed itself as the basis or embryo of such a party (Clause 8). Not only did the working class in any great numbers not "muster under its banner" but neither did all socialists. So we were left to be a small propagandist advocacy group but still committed to the principles set out in our declaration of principles. But we have never been so arrogant as to claim that anybody not in our organisation is not a socialist. There are socialists outside it, and some of them are organised in different groups. That doesn't mean that we are not opposed to the organisations they have formed, but we are not opposed to them because we think they represent some section of the capitalist class. We are opposed to them because we disagree with what they are proposing the working class should do to get socialism, and for them, of course, the opposite is the case too, they're opposed to what we propose. Nearly all the others who stand for a class-free, state-free, money-free, wageless society are anti-parliamentary. For ourselves, using the existing historically-evolved mechanism of political democracy (the ballot box, parliaments) is the best and safest way for a socialist-minded working-class majority to get to socialism. For them, it's anathema. For ourselves, some of the alternatives suggested (armed insurrection, a general strike) are also an anathema. We shall all present our respective proposals for working-class action to get socialism and, while criticising each other's proposals, not challenging each other's socialist credentials (engaging in comradely criticism). In the end, the working class itself will decide what to do.

 At a later stage, when more and more people are coming to want socialism, a mass socialist movement will emerge to dwarf all the small groups and grouplets that exist today. In the meantime, the best thing we in our party can do is to carry on campaigning for a world community based on the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth's natural and industrial resources in the interests of all humanity. We will continue to propose that this be established by democratic, majority political action; the other groups will no doubt continue to propose their way to get there. And we'll see which proposal the majority working class takes up.

 It's not us. a handful of socialist/anarchist activists, today who're going to establish socialism, but the mass of people out there. Until they move, we're stymied. Until then we agree to disagree. Those who want to argue that such a society should be established through democratic majority political action based on socialist understanding, and who want to concentrate on arousing this, will join the Socialist Party. Those who will argue that it will come about some other way will join some other group. And while at the same time addressing ourselves to non-socialists we should also keep on discussing with each other. We accept what Anton Pannekoek once said:

'If...persons with the same fundamental conceptions (regarding Socialism) unite for the discussion of practical steps and seek clarification through discussion and propagandise their conclusions, such groups might be called parties, but they would be parties in an entirely different sense from those of to-day'.