Why Scientific Socialism?

Socialism is the future system of society. Towards it, the world is moving. Under capitalism today the means of wealth production are privately owned. In socialism tomorrow they will be collectively owned. Socialism is a message of hope. It is addressed to the working class. It will save the working class, or rather, show the working class how to save itself. The world does not need to be cursed by toil and drudgery, by low wages, by starvation, by disease and by worry. Many now know that these conditions may be completely changed. When enough of the workers understand socialism, believe in it, and are firmly resolved to have it, the time will be ripe for the change. That change is coming.

If misrepresentation and misinterpretation could destroy a new thought, an idea, or a movement  then socialism would have been dead long ago. The adherents and advocates of socialist principles would have been buried with the death of the idea. But as it is, socialism is still  a spectre haunting the world. A healthy sign of progress exists everywhere. But there are also many things to dampen the enthusiasm. Socialism is so much discussed, yet so little understood even though the arsenal of facts based on political and  economic developments and conditions, in support of socialism is almost inexhaustible. Socialism is a theory—but not an infallible dogma hatched out in the brains of a few academics but draws its support from facts in life.

 The Law of Evolution - the great immutable "law of change." - may be stated as follows: all things in the universe today are the results of the actions of the forces of the universe upon the matter of the universe applied throughout the eons of time, producing innumerable changes, which have finally developed higher and more permanent forms of life out of those which were lower and less stable. The physical conditions which compelled changes in animated nature, and under which they occurred, are usually denominated "the environment" - the surrounding influences.

Joseph Dietzgen, in his philosophical works, demonstrated the fact that all of man's ideas come from the outside — that no thought ever sprang spontaneous in the human brain. In other words — human thoughts, human ideas, spring from human contacts and experiences with the physical universe about us. Man's ability to think —   consciousness — the thing we call the "Ego" — the mind — is a natural development through the orderly operation of the laws of the Universe, and, as such, it may be studied, analyised and classified. The science of psychology takes its place naturally as part of the larger and more extended sciences of biology and anthropology. Whim and caprice disappear, and the laws of cause and effect are seen operating in an orderly and rational sequence. Individuals takes their place as a resultant of the experiences of their forebears and their own contacts with the world around them. Their environment and the history of the human race have made them what they are. Knowing the intimate history of any person, and with a given human situation, we may confidently predict what his or her actions will be. Similar experiences beget similar ideas. The average of the experiences of a community, or a class, begets the central idea of that community, or class; therefore, in attempting to explain the tendency of any such community,or class to orient about some central idea, or concertedly move towards some definite goal, we must discover those similarities of experience which furnish the common ground for similarity of thought and unity of action. Mankind is a gregarious species. We herd together in social organisations, and our history is not complete without an examination of the relations which people sustain toward each other.

Marx’s researches into history observed certain classes of men always standing together—always appearing upon the same side of the great historical arguments—and, upon a careful analysis, he surmised that the thoughts and actions of men are determined by the manner in which they obtain their living. The same being only another way of stating the evolutionary truths, that man is a product of his environment; and that his thoughts and ideas are generated by his contacts and experiences with the world around him which is translated into Marxist terminology as the  Materialist Conception of History.  All the social phenomena in any historical epoch may be explained upon the basis of the method of wealth production and exchange existing at that time. Immediately history ceases to be a mere record of the achievements of individuals. Instead, it becomes a moving panorama of the struggles for supremacy of the various classes that have successively dominated society. Fundamental causes are seen at work, continuously and methodically shaping the trend of events. All the apparently disjointed and unrelated facts marshal themselves into orderly array, and take their places as sign posts along the  road of history.

The pre-eminent fact of history is the institution of private property with the division of the people into classes in the terms of wealth and power — the separation of society into opposing camps — which carry on a continuous warfare among themselves - the class struggle. And in each civilization we find a dominant class imposing its will upon the balance of society and maintaining the basic method of wealth production and distribution of that time. All the laws, the religion, the educational system or lack of educational system were designed to retain that class in its position of power and privilege. Internal peace depended upon the relative degrees of acquiescence in the general scheme manifested by the secondary and subject classes, and their ability to wrest concessions from the dominant class by a display of their organized strength.

The ancient slave and serf classes were not essentially revolutionary, and if they had been their ignorance and isolation was sufficient to prevent any concerted action. Mere physical revolution against an irksome environment cannot be called a revolutionary spirit, and while the slaves and serfs indulged in rebellions, they were usually planless and contained no germ of a constructive nature. At the most, some measure of participation in the benefits of the existing system was all they sought. There was no idea of the establishment of a new order of society, which should promote a greater diffusion of culture, and thereby create a better and nobler race. Success upon their part would have meant only social chaos and a recession in the scale of civilisation. Any force in society that lacks a constructive programme is useless — a futile force. If it merely defends a set position and does not keep pace with the progress of the age by means of a positive policy of its own,

Class conscious workers denies the right of the owner of the machines to hold them in subjection. They seek a way to seize the means whereby they lives and turn it to their own use and purposes. They think in the terms of a class, for they now realise their class position and knows that only as such can they hope to survive. They find that they must attack the structure of a society based on private property and their point of attack is at the point of production, the point where they daily meets his enemy. Their whole attitude is one of opposition—opposition to the property of the master class—an attitude utterly subversive of all modern ethics, morals, religions and laws, a revolutionary attitude.  Workers makes no appeal to any but other members of  the wage working class. The future society comes only at the desire and with the consent of the proletariat, for it is evidently the only class able to safeguard humanity by means of a new society. The needs and aspirations of working people are the justification of the social revolution. Marxism declares that the historic mission of the working class is to overthrow capitalism and establish a new order of society; therefore, the method of its organisation is of the first importance.

Worldwide in the scope of its activities, socialism points to a new civilization where the forces of production and distribution will be  co-ordinated—where those who labour will enjoy their work—where childhood will be free to learn and experiment—where life will be secure—where there shall be in harmony with the world. The tide is turning. Workers, in defiance of time-honoured customs have begun to think, to meditate and to act. In ever-increasing numbers,  stirred by a deeper knowledge of the principles underlying socialism, they have begun to move of their own accord and to take matters into their own hands. Revolts of workers may be acts of instinct only, not governed by deeper thought and consciousness, but they are significant. They express a desire for a change, these revolts shatter old traditions and pave the way for a propaganda on correct lines. They reflect some changes in the mental makeup of the workers. The agitation must start on this point else there is danger of relaxation, and deeper discouragement and indifference than in the past.

Socialism will need no armies police, and prisons.  Judges today are almost wholly concerned with two kinds of work.  One is to try cases at law which grow out of private property relations. When two property holders quarrel about a piece of property they go to court in order to have the fight settled as cheaply as possible. Another function of the courts is to sit in judgment upon and determine the punishment of such of the poor as may have been "guilty" of disrespect for private property. Of course everybody now knows that rich offenders purchase this "justice," while poor offenders get it presented to them. Do the starving poor take food? They are sent to jail. Do they strike for more wages? They are clubbed, shot or imprisoned. Such is the nature and purpose of the political government today. With  socialism there will be no lawless rich to keep their place by crushing the poor. There will be no enslaved poor to be kept down. There will be no great private fortunes to fight about in the courts. Hence government will concern itself only with the management of industry, with the promotion of public education and with other public activities which are of benefit to the workers

From time immemorial the struggle for existence, for bread, comfort, and better things in life was making for progress and the elevation of the human race from the lowest to ever higher stations of civilisation. Social, political, and other relations of mankind conformed themselves to these constant changes in the methods of getting ever more and readier access to the gifts and resources of nature, and of using instruments invented, made more and more perfect to transform these gifts of nature into useful things for the living. The relatively lower or higher stage of civilization or progress that the world had acquired were reflected by the relatively cruder or higher developed mode of production by which natural resources were utilised and matter transformed into useful things.

As time passed necessity forced constant improvements in the tools and the operations to produce necessities of life, and to harness the forces of nature, compelling them to yield their producing energies to the ingenious designs and useful exploitation by mankind. The means of production underwent constant changes. but with the perfection more accomplished, the original purpose of production, that is to satisfy the wants of all mankind, changed also.

First it was a combat to subdue nature's forces and energies. The stimulus in this conquest was the prospect of getting readier access to more of the good things that were stored up for conversion into useful things. But the achievements and yields of this combat constantly urged improved methods, but the results were not applied to the corresponding improvement of the life conditions of all the human race. From the physically strong, who in the first stages of human endeavors acquired larger control over the life affairs of others, grew out in the long course of centuries the economic master who with strong hand absorbs all the results of the struggle for larger returns from the improved methods of production, and allows the great mass which is used as a human attachment to these progressive methods enough to live, to exist and to propagate an offspring which again may be used in the same station of the producing process.

Human intellect and energy has developed the system of production to a very high point of perfection. But the great majority realises more and more that they are denied a just share in the enjoyment of the yields and returns from this age-old contest. They begin to think that the results of thousands of years of progress and efforts should be enjoyed by all alike.

Education towards Revolution

The Socialist Party has one aim — the propagation of socialism. We hope to see society transformed, to be changed into something quite different from what it is now. It is a new society that we are working to realise, not tidying up our present political mess. The real business of socialists is to impress on the workers the fact that they ought to run society. It is not too much to expect that the whole working-class can be educated in the aims of socialism in due time. History teaches us that no revolts that are without aim are successful even for a time. We are no mere debating club, or philosophical society and so we must take part in all popular movements where we can make our own views unmistakably clear; that is a most important part of the education in organisation.  Regular and co-ordinated exchanges are a necessary part of education; no independence is sacrificed by sharing knowledge, and propaganda is made much easier by it. One word to those who hold a tendency aloof from joining a political party. If you really disagree with our principles, or the tactics which follow from them, your membership would inevitably result in disputes and splits. But if you share our principles and tactics as practically the same, it seems a great mistake to maintain a distance. The present is no time for the formation of separate political organisation. We appeal to all who agree with us to join our Party so that we may confront in unison our common enemy in these troublesome yet hopeful times that are ahead.

The Socialist Courier blog aspires to attract attention to the study of our principles from those who have not yet thought of socialism, or who are hostile to it through ignorance. We seek to awaken the apathetic and  to strengthen the wavering. It is its task to attack unsparingly the miserable system  of capitalism with its rich and poor, slaves and slave-owners. We invite from all discussion of anything we post, in the belief that even criticism may bring forth useful information which might otherwise have been neglected.  Our appeal is to the workers chiefly for it will be through them alone, wage- slaves , the present misery will end. Socialism above all things aims at obtaining for the worker the desire for beauty, for knowledge, for more abundant life, in short. Not the sham art of commercial consumerist commodity capitalism, void of life or reason for existence. The way of working when people are not working for wages, but for the wealth of the community will mean the work would be done deliberately and thoughtfully for the good’s sake and not for the profit’s sake.  In work so done there is no drudgery; whereas ordinary work now is nothing but wage-slavery. Work will be done with variety with real workmanship and artistry.  Our function is to educate the people by criticising all attempts at so-called reforms, whose aim is not the realisation of socialism, but the hindering of it; and by encouraging the  the working class towards Revolution. The true aim of the people is to learn how to live, and to assert their right to do so in the teeth of all opposition.

State or municipal ownership is not socialism. There is a certain section of left-winger who never tire of hailing all such demands for nationalisation, a form of ownership in which the private capitalist is seen to be superfluous as a sign of the growth of the socialism. Calls for such demands is highly misleading. It is only state capitalism, not an abandonment of capitalism: but the strengthening of capitalism. Socialism abolishes the state and industry is transformed into new administrative norms of the organised producers, and not through the state. Socialism rejects state ownership, rejects state capitalism as a phase of socialism. State capitalism is not socialism and never can become socialism.

The lure offered to the workers is the struggle to “democratise” state capitalism by transforming state capitalism into socialism by “democratising” the government, placing it in the hands of “the people.” This policy is equally condemnable as strategy and tactics, – as strategy, it dispenses with the necessity of overthrowing the state as an indispensable phase of the social revolution; as tactics, it strengthens the state and weakens the proletariat by obscuring the fact that its power resides in control of the industrial process. Moreover, state capitalism is fundamentally and necessarily undemocratic; it cannot be democratised, it must be abolished by the working class. The coming of socialism is a process of  implacable struggles, not a dress parade of amicable transformation. The concept of “transformation” in practice doesn’t transform capitalism, it transforms the workers’ movement into a caricature of socialism and a prop of capitalism.Socialism is a struggle for proletarian power.

On the strictest definition, socialism is the movement of working class people trying to build an alternative to capitalism; and a "socialist" mode of production would likewise be a new set of self-reproducing relations of production (associated labour, worker control, etc) - however there is no complete agreement over how exactly these relations of production are to be like. What we do know is that state-ownership is just another separation of workers from control over means of production and thus another type of class society, and conflating that with all forms "socialism" gets socialists irate.

 People say ‘I want to see a plan as it were of the new state of Society.’ Our reply is when the plan is visible the new state of society will be realised, it cannot be visible before.

Socialism not Reformism

The capitalist system may well destroy itself but unfortunately it does not necessarily follow that socialism will be the successor. The need for revolution is increasingly realised. A new generation understand that their parents’ world is on a course of self-destruct, but they do not know what to do about it.

Socialism is defined as the rule of the people, a society of the free and equal. To use the word “socialism” for anything but working people’s power is to misuse the term. Socialism, though, is a hardy plant. Once it has taken root, no matter how unfavourable a soil, it tends to survive.

We socialists are the most consistent advocates of democracy in all fields and that, in fact, we are completely devoted to the idea that socialism cannot be realised otherwise than by democracy. The socialist movement will not advance again significantly until it regains the initiative and takes the offensive against capitalism.  Our task, as socialists living and fighting in this day and hour, is simply to restate what socialism and democracy meant to the founders of our movement, and to all the authentic disciples who followed them. The authentic socialist movement has been the most democratic movement in all history. The authors of the Communist Manifesto linked socialism and democracy together as end and means. All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The  claim—that the task of reconstructing society on a socialist basis can be farmed out to a privileged and uncontrolled bureaucracy, while the workers remain without voice or vote in the process—is just as foreign to the thoughts of Marx and Engels, as the reformist idea that socialism can be handed down to the workers by degrees by the capitalists who exploit them. All such fantastic conceptions were answered in advance by the reiterated statement of Marx and Engels that “the emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves”. Such a revolution is unthinkable without the active participation of the majority of the working class, which is itself the big majority of the population. Nothing could be more democratic than that. All Marxists define socialism as a classless society—with abundance, freedom and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state, not even a workers’ state.

 Nationalisation of mines, railways, steel, etc. is not socialism. Such nationalisation in a capitalist society is simply a degree of state capitalism, with no relation to socialism. Nor is the “Welfare State” socialist. “welfare” in a capitalist state, to improve the efficiency of that state as a profit-maker, is not socialism but a form of state capitalism. It can be an improvement on capitalism with no welfare, just as a 40-hour week is an improvement on a 60-hour week. But it is not socialism. (the “Welfare State” inevitably turns into the “Means Test State”.)

Reformism is the illusion that a gradual dismantling of the power of capitalism is possible. First of all you nationalise 20 per cent, then 30 per cent, then 50 per cent, then 60 per cent of capitalist property. In this way the economic power of capitalists is dissolved little by little. Reformism is therefore essentially gradualist. Socialists are not a mere wage negotiators. Their aim has to be not a better wage, but people’s power.

Ultimately, the power of capitalists to grant concessions depends upon the expansive power of their economies and of the world market. A crisis, such as the current repetition of the economic experiences of the 1930s, very soon finds capitalism showing its uglier side once more. Instead of the expected era of positive achievements, of social reforms, of the “hollowing out of capitalism,” we had a period of high prices, wage cuts, of armament spending and of war itself, of nationalist obstruction, of dictatorships and of stagnation in all social legislation. Even the accomplishments of the old social democracy – the precious but limited reforms which did not even challenge the capitalist order – are beyond the grasp of contemporary reformism.

Workers’ discontent is again beginning to grow and this time with more genuine, more real possibilities. It is occurring in a period of growing working class disillusionment with the servile politician lackeys in whom they had long placed their faith. The Socialist Party cannot unite with those “socialists” who preach reformism and the accomplishment of their goals under capitalism. What type of party do the working class want -- a revolutionary socialist party or a refurbished Labour Party? A party dedicated to overthrowing capitalism or a party set upon reaching accommodations with the capitalist class?

The SPGB holds that involvement in daily struggles is not inherently reformistic. Indeed, such involvement, conducted in principled, non-opportunistic fashion is an indispensible aspect of sound class struggle tactics. Only a dogmatist would insist upon a complete divorcement of the socialist forces from all others, everywhere and under all circumstances. Marx castigated those who looked upon workers' struggles against the constant encroachments of capital as contrary to revolutionary principles in his essay, "Indifference to Politics," written in 1873. However, that there is a fine line, an all-important line, between "practical every day action" that is consistent with socialist principles and goal, and reformism, which negates or contradicts those principles and obscures the goal as Rosa Luxemburg wrote: "But if we begin to chase after what is 'possible' according to the principles of opportunism, unconcerned with our own principles, and by means of statesmanlike barter, then we will soon find ourselves in the same situation as the hunter who has not only failed to slay the deer but has also lost his gun in the process." She observed, "From the viewpoint of a movement for socialism, the trade-union struggle and our parliamentary practice are vastly important in so far as they make socialistic the awareness, the consciousness, of the proletariat and help to organize it as a class. But once they are considered as instruments of the direct socialization of capitalist economy, they lose not only their usual effectiveness but cease being means of preparing the working class for the conquest of power." ("Social Reform or Revolution")

 Neither welfare nor social security has anything to do with socialism; yet, it may also be said that they are a result of socialism. The reason neither of these social reforms has anything to do with socialism, of course, is that socialism implies an end to the poverty and social insecurity that come from private ownership and control of the economy. Welfare, social security, NHS/Medicare, minimum wage, etc., are so many concessions to the socialist contention that capitalism is incapable of eliminating the social ills the system creates. They are like so many confessions of wrong-doing by the ruling class, as are all examples of so-called labour legislation. Socialism does not strive to lessen the effect of capitalism's evils on the working class: it strives to root out capitalism and the social evils it spawns. The fundamental principle of socialism is that freedom for the workers is not possible while the system of wage slavery lasts. Hence socialism has for its mission the overthrow of the capitalist system of private ownership of the machinery of production and the establishment of collective ownership in its place.

The theory that socialism can with safety depart from the hard and fast line of its ultimate goal and follow the lure of "something now" batters itself against the hard fact that "something now" is not obtainable by it, and the logical consequence of such departure would be the degeneration of the movement into a "something now," or reform, movement. If the aim of socialism were to be made the getting of "something now" and socialism later, socialism would have to be sacrificed to immediate progress. Hence for a “socialist” to preach "something now" means that he discredits socialism, and only helps to prepare the workers as voting cattle for capitalism, when capitalist parties, by "stealing," by taking up the "something now" demands, promise their immediate realization. The lure of getting "something now" will wind up by getting nothing now. Nor will it get anything later, because it will have lost the golden opportunity of preparing the workers and the way for the benefits of the socialist goal. The more attention that socialists pay to the  goal, the more will the capitalist class endeavour to stem the tide and check its progress by offering "something now" schemes galore; so that, granting that "something now" is desirable, the way to get it is not by bothering about it but by working steadily for the goal.

Whether  reforms are direct aids to capitalists in exploiting the workers, or in perpetuating the capitalist system, or in deceiving the workers into believing that their fate can be improved under the capitalist system, the fact remains that the are generally contrary to the interests of workers. They invariably are designed as, or turn out to be, scaffolds for the unstable edifice of capitalism. Incidentally, this is literally, not merely figuratively, true. Social security and workers' compensation were introduced onto the stage of the class struggle by none other than Otto von Bismarck, the "Iron Chancellor" who in the 1870s, passed the infamous Anti-Socialist Laws aimed at destroying the socialist movement. When these failed of their objective, he, in the 1880s, introduced a number of so-called social insurance laws providing some compensation to victims of industrial accidents and old-age pensions. The purpose was not to ease the burden of the victims of the industrial system, but to deflect the socialist movement and, if possible, to split it. It was a brilliant piece of political strategy that worked like a charm, as the difficulty the movement has had in overcoming the seductive lure of such reform schemes shows all too well.

In their repetitious shedding of crocodile tears over the inequities of the present system, in their pious advocacy of relief for the most deprived and oppressed victims of capitalism's ruthless exploitation, in their selective and pretentious condemnation of the intensified onslaught against constitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties, and in their unctuous lip service to the nation's traditional concepts of democracy, the liberal reformists have often been guilty of a degree of hypocrisy that would be difficult, if not impossible, to match. Their record of "accomplishments"  generally demonstrates convincingly the futility of trying to reconcile democratic principles and precepts with a social system -- capitalism -- premised on a denial of the most fundamental freedom -- economic freedom -- to the vast majority in society, the working class. It does not require any profound insight to realize that hopes for a sane and decent society do not lie with the  plutocracy nor politician. Nor do they rest with men and women "of good will," or of "a progressive persuasion," no matter how sincere or commendable such sentiments may be. Those hopes lie with the  latent political and industrial might of that working class.

In regard to those radical reformers, proponents of co-operatives and worker-owned enterprises, it is understandable that, in times such as these, some workers will be attracted to the idea of "worker-ownership." They are desperately seeking ways to assure a livelihood for themselves and their families. But this is worker capitalism, not worker management. No matter who owns and manages it, it's going to have to be run like a business. it would still function within the overall context of a capitalist economy. "Worker ownership" does not miraculously free a company from the anarchy of the marketplace, competition, and the effects of capitalism's recurrent economic crises. In order to compete in such a climate, "worker-owned" enterprises have little choice but to intensify exploitation just as much as their capitalist-owned competitors do. They must cut wages, close old factories, modernize outmoded equipment and lay off workers made superfluous by automation. The experience of co-operative schemes demonstrates that they do not attack the cause of workers' misery. In fact, to make such schemes "succeed" in a capitalist context, workers must make more sacrifices and intensify their own exploitation. Yet, they do undoubtably demonstrate that production in no way depends on a capitalist class whose sole function is to drain off the social wealth produced by workers' labor. But, if the concept of worker ownership is to truly benefit workers, it must be effected on a society-wide basis. To do that, a socialist revolution is needed to abolish the entire system based on private ownership and control of the means of production by a parasitic capitalist class. The potential of worker ownership can be fully realised only by replacing an economic system based on exploitation, competition, the market and the profit motive with one based on social co-operation for the common good. What workers must gain is not nominal ownership of individual plants, but real control of the entire economy.

The history of workers' uprisings concretely demonstrates that workers are capable of self-government and instinctively recognise the need to set up bodies capable of administering and operating the industries and services without any help from capitalists or bureaucrats. Taken as a whole, the history of workers' uprisings concretely demonstrates that workers are capable of self-government and instinctively recognize the need to set up bodies capable of controlling, directing, administering and operating the industries and services without any help from capitalists or bureaucrats. That history also demonstrates that during periods of extreme economic hardship and political and social upheaval they have repeatedly moved to create their own industrially based associations and elected councils and made them the basis for conducting a revolutionary struggle against their ruling-class oppressors. At the same time, the history of those uprisings is also a history of defeat. These defeats have always been at the hands of a well-armed class enemy. Contributing to those defeats, however, have been the workers' failure fully to understand the nature of its class enemy. Socialism, democratic workers' control of the economy, is an attainable goal. To attain the goal, however, workers must have a greater understanding of society and the social forces with which they must contend, and be better prepared and organized than any other revolutionary class in history. The more thoroughly the working class is already organised around a sound revolutionary program and principles during a revolutionary crisis, the better its chances for success.

APPENDIX
The Paris Commune was the first attempt at a workers social revolution. The next historical example of workers' capacity for self-government was during the Russian Revolution of 1905. In that year, general strikes spread throughout the industrial centers of Russia. To coordinate their efforts, workers' organized Soviets -- locally based workers' councils consisting of elected delegates from factories. The Soviets were reborn during the Russian Revolution of 1917. More significantly, workers also formed factory committees -- elected and controlled by assemblies of all the workers in each factory. Through these committees, the Russian workers collectively controlled and operated much of the industrial means of production during that chaotic period.  The Bolsheviks soon curtailed the powers of the factory committee and brought them to heel. In the aftermath  of World War I, workers' council movements, in large measure patterned after the Russian Soviets, workers' assemblies and factory committees emerged and struggled for power in Hungary, Poland, Italy, Germany and Bulgaria. All of these movements were put down by the stronger forces of counterrevolution. In some instances, the workers' movements were co-opted and integrated into the capitalist system, as in Italy. In other instances, they were smashed outright, as in Hungary. In still other instances, they were neutralized by a combination of these two tactics, as in Germany. During the Spanish Civil War the entire province of Catalonia, including the city of Barcelona, and other sections of Spain was administered through councils directly controlled by and responsible to the workers and peasants. In Hungary, in October 1956, the violent suppression of a protest by students and writers set off a nationwide rebellion and general strike. Workers spontaneously formed inter-industrial councils in the major cities. As Hungarian state authority collapsed, the councils assumed control of much of the country. Demands for workers' control of production were raised and efforts initiated to form a National Workers' Council to supplant the existing state ruling class. The list can go on: Paris 68, Portugal 1974, Poland in the 80s, Argentina in the 90s

Socialists Are Better Anarchists than Anarchists

All the materials and forces are at hand and easily available for the production of all things needed to provide food and shelter for every man, woman and child, thus putting an end to the poverty and misery. But the raw material, the machinery and transport must be taken from private ownership and control to be fully socialised, and democratised and then set into  operation for the common good of all. A privately owned world can never be free and a society based upon class conflict cannot be at peace. Such a world is a place of strife and such a society can  only survive by means of militarism and physical force.

What is it that divides the Socialist Party many anarchists? Like ourselves, they are for the working class. The emancipation of the workers is our common aim. The point of difference here between socialists and anarchists is not one as to the form of organisation of the future society, or of the details of such organisation. It is not that socialists wish to impose on the future society a huge bureaucratic system, spreading its tentacles, octopus-like, over all the arrangements of social life, suppressing individuality, and reducing every detail of daily life to rule and plan. All socialists are rebels against any kind of enslavement and exploitation. But the Socialist Party does stand for social ownership and social control, whereas there are many who consider themselves  anarchists, while still professing to be a socialist and to believe in social ownership, are critical of social control and propose some form of workers’ control over production. So there is a difference in the conception of future society of the socialist and that of some anarchists. The very essence of socialism, as the word connotes, is that society, the community at large, has interests superior to those of any individual or section of it. This is a basic difference between the socialist and the anarchist.

It is the aim of socialists to deprive the capitalists of the means of production. But that in itself is not enough. We must also determine who is to control these means of production. When another minority takes the place of the capitalists and controls the means of production, independently of the people and frequently against their will, the change in property relations does not signify socialism.

 It is very interesting to speculate on the future arrangements of society, but it is not in our power to say that these arrangements will be this or that and any discussion on this matter must necessarily be of an academic character. We are not called upon to make rules for future society; we can very well afford to let society at the time to take care of itself in that respect.  Nor should diverging speculations as to future society prevent people working together for a common object.

There are anarchists who believe that even under the limited conditions of today’s democracy workers should utilise the methods of the insurrectionary general strike, because, in their opinion, such methods will bring socialism more quickly than the casting of ballots, and that in the final analysis the opponents of socialism in the democratic states will yield only to insurrection and the general strike. They assert that socialists cannot hope to attain an electoral majority as long as the opponents of socialism retain control over the economic centres and the mass media. The Socialist Party reply: For sure, the power at the disposal of the capitalist, the economic dependence of the workers, the influence of the media and the stealing of elections can be brought into play even under democracy. But a Socialist Party which is unable, regardless of these obstacles, to obtain the support of a majority of the people in a democracy will find it even more impossible to obtain such a majority by the use of armed force or the general strike. For in the latter instance the weapons at the disposal of the opponents of socialism will prove even more effective than under the form of democratic struggle. The road of force and violence requires even greater sacrifices from the working class than the road of democracy. The use of force and violence requires the support of a much greater majority of the people if socialism is to win.  When force is pitted against force, the power at the disposal of the ruling classes comes much more into play and to counter that power we would require the support of an overwhelming majority of the people. The superiority of numbers is the sole decisive weapon the workers’ movement can command in any great decisive contest. Both insurrection and general strike have proven quite useless, however, when they were utilised by a minority.  The vote is the shortest, surest and least costly road to socialism. Our exploiters are not unaware of this fact. Hence, their their efforts to emasculate the franchise wherever they can. It would be nonsensical to contend that the Socialist Party is obliged to use democratic methods under all circumstances. Such an obligation we can assume only with respect to those who themselves use only democratic methods. The capitalist masters in some countries will stop at nothing to maintain themselves when they are confronted with the danger of expropriation. Acts of violence cannot be repelled by ballots, newspaper articles or mass meetings. Nevertheless, in circumstances when the  Socialist Party is compelled to meet violence with violence we must first seek to win the support of the majority. This is the essential prerequisite of victory, regardless of whether they apply democratic or other methods. However, the “Iron Heel” is simply the ruling class ultimate weapon. The capitalists resort more often than not to economic than military instruments, just as the working class in the great decisive political struggles fought with economic rather than military weapons. The methods pursued by the capitalists are essentially the same as those used by the workers: the strike, the crippling of production. The workers fight by stopping work; the capitalists fight by stopping the circulation of capital. By this means they have succeeded in overthrowing governments which they regard as inimical to their interests.

Where democracy does not exist the task before the labour movement  is to establish political freedom. It is quite erroneous to say that the workers must first emancipate themselves economically, and that only then will “true” democracy be possible. It makes no difference whether or not we choose to regard a strong representative assembly of the people, elected by universal equal suffrage, and coupled with freedom of the press, speech and organisation, as mere “formal” “bourgeois" democracy. The fact is that without such institutions the workers cannot emancipate themselves economically. To be sure, democratic institutions will change their character when society will be organised on a socialist basis. Today they are essential instruments of struggle for the working class. Socialist will make them instruments of free social administration. And this will constitute the difference between present day democracy and the democracy of a socialist society.

The Socialist Party fights not for shorter working hours and higher wages. These struggles are the responsibility of more fitting organisations - the trade unions, but for the liberty, equality, fraternity of all human beings, regardless of occupation, gender, colour or creed. Our task is not merely to abolish the capitalist order but to set up another in its place. It is for this reason that the democratically-minded must oppose all tendencies threatening the freedom of society’s members, tendencies manifested not only by the capitalists but also those that originate with anti-capitalist groups. A true socialist commonwealth must represent the realisation of the slogan of the French Revolution, which was “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.”

Capitalism and the State

In Feudalism, the landlord charged a rent/tax from the peasants in exchange of protecting them and giving them access to his land. You could rationalise this and say "Well the landlord is protecting the peasants, so it's a fair exchange." But ask yourself this, who is the landlord protecting peasants from? Well, from the other landlords he is constantly at war with...  Oh-oh, something seems rather fishy about Feudalism. It's like it's based on a type of circular logic, that the existence of the Feudal class system is what "justifies" the role of the Feudal classes (and hence their existence). The only thing that justifies Feudalism is Feudalism itself, it exists for it's own sake not for some bigger reason or due to eternal or "natural" laws of society; and the roles people play inside Feudalism are historically specific to that mode of production and subjected to change when relations of production change. The same is true for Capitalism.

Workers rely on Capitalists hiring them and advancing accumulated surplus as wages. Why do they? Because they lack means of production to employ themselves and surplus to sustain themselves. Why? Because Capitalists own the vast majority of the means of production. If access to means of production and relations of production changed, the role of Capitalist would be unnecessary, redundant. It is a historically specific phenomenon, not the result of eternal laws of economics, and trying to justifies it by saying "the Capitalist deserves X or Y" is missing the point.

It is very easy to rationalise the monopoly of the social surplus under any type of class society: If you tried to argue that the Capitalist plays an important role advancing Capital (and argue he "deserves" part of the surplus), you would be right! The Capitalist is definitely very important... but only for the Capitalist mode of production, much like the Feudal Baron played an important role in the Feudal mode of production - those respective modes of production wouldn't even exist if it weren't for people playing the role of Capitalist and Noble.

The function of Capitalist means advancing money and gaining back more money at the end of the day: Advancing money to buy means of production and labor-power, let labour power use the means of production to make commodities, sell commodities for more money. The process of exchange does not create or add any new value by itself (new value or an aggregate rise in prices can only come from producing new things, all pure exchange can do is shuffle existing value around), and neither can the means of production act as the source of surplus (they can not 'add' more than what they cost to buy as they are 'dead-labour' or 'stored-labour' that left alone produce nothing, in the end all production reduces itself to labour. So the only possible source of surplus from this exchange must be the work of the labourers: The price of labour-power is lower than the value produced by said labour-power, and hence the 'value added' to capital by the worker. In the aggregate labour-power is the only commodity that can "add" more than what is costs to buy.

 A capitalist doesn't need to "allocate labour and resources", he can hire managers and market analysts for that (and management, depending on the function, is productive labour). The function of Capitalist is the act of advancing money and obtaining more money. The most easily observable example of Capitalism is stocks and share-trading: Shares in a company can change hands multiple times a day on the stock exchange without the share-owners ever coming into contact with production, its decision making or resource allocation; and the factory keeps producing just the same. This is because investors are attempting to get money out of advancing money, exchanging money for more money - being capitalists.
A capitalist, for sure,  can do many things other than being a capitalist. He can be a manager and CEO, an inventor and innovator, or do absolutely nothing like a rentier or an heir to riches. But the function of a Capitalist, the function that is the source of most of his income as a capitalist, by itself produces or adds no new value to production - yet still gets a surplus. This surplus can only come from unpaid-labour. This carries several implications (that capitalists work to get as much out of workers as possible, that the rate of wages is not about 'marginal productivity' but about market power, that a reserve army of labour benefits the capitalist economy by depressing wages, etc).

 If workers do not have means of production (the ability to employ themselves) and also are not employed by a Capitalists, they would starve. Marx argues that, since the only choice workers have is to sell their labour-power in the market, Capitalists can buy this labour-power for less than the value the labour produces, and the difference between these two amounts is the surplus accumulated.

So the real question is: Why do workers not have the ability to employ themselves? Because the vast majority of the means of production are owned by a minority. How did that situation come about? Marx argues this situation came about and is maintained due to an enormous act of violence: During the last days of Feudalism, the Mercantile State did everything in it's power to dispossess the small producers and peasants. The Enclosures of common land, the establishment of artificial prices on un-settled land, banning hunting on forests, slavery, mercantilist monopolies and tariffs - all of this was part of a process that took the means of production from the many and put them in the hands of a minority. The "voluntary exchange" happens in a very involuntary context, workers and capitalists are not equal parties exchanging the commodity "labour-power" for the commodity "Capital"; it is an exchange between vastly unequal parties (one is completely reliant on the other) .

You must work for a living whether you want to or not, whether that's on land that you're farming or as part of a business organisation. The real question is: How do we work, in what conditions do we work, who gets to control the product of the work and what do they do with it? The answers to those questions give us the mode of production we live under. If we live in a class society, we have to work in a class society and our work must be understood in class terms. The fact we have to work is not the question, the fact we need to work in a class society is.

 One thing that can't be taken from workers is their labour-power. However, without access to viable means of production, labour-power is nothing. "It doesn't matter if you use it to till land or work a factory", but without the land or the factory, what are you going to do? Just look at the very existence of unemployment.

 After Capitalist relations of production were established, the bourgeois State must act as a monopoly on force and a defender of the Capitalist-type of private property, using continual coercion to maintain the system. Marx argues that no type of class society would stand without a State. Who would enforce Capitalist forms of private property and contracts and break up workers on strike if not a State? What would prevent workers from just seizing the means of production? It is on a similar line that Anarchists argue that Capitalist private property and relations of production are unenforceable in the absence of the State. The State isn't an "overarching" institution but part of the superstructure of Capitalism. If the most basic Capitalist social relations imply a conflict of interest, this will remain true regardless of the amount of government intervention in the economy.

The Marxist concept concerning the state is well-known. The state, as an historical category, is the tool of one class for suppressing other classes of society. If the state is a relation between men, then insofar as it oppresses, represses or dictates it does so in behalf of some men at the expense of others. Those who oppress and those who are oppressed represent a social division upon which the state is founded. This class division, this social antagonism as the source of the state power is the only scientific conception of the state.The core of state power is always the apparatus of violence: the police, the army and the courts of justice. The Marxist will always make use of and fight for democratic rights and liberties, but never believing that such demands may be obtained other than partially and incompletely under capitalist conditions. The socialist never attempt to hide that any success in such struggles under capitalist conditions, will only be partial and of limited permanence. Lasting and significant social progress will be part and parcel of an entirely economic system - socialism.

 The nature of the state is determined by its relation to the economic structure and the economic classes of society. The capitalist apologist  recognizes this fact by implication when he gives his own grounds for believing that the state is “impartial.” No sooner does the government, through a tax bill, legal decision, strike mediation or some other action yield to necessity, to class pressure, and deprive the capitalist class of 1% of its profits, than the pro-capitalist shouts: “You see, here is an anti-capitalist government.” He neglects to notice at the same time that the government has guaranteed, ensured, the other 99% of capitalist profits and the economic system which makes them possible. The superficial issues which so captivates the attention of the easily diverted media does not embrace the essence of the state power. Even if the working class were to win their battles on all these issues (which never happens), the government remains capitalist because the whole essential substratum of action and policy, which occupies the attention of the state 365 days of the year, is designed to uphold and administer the capitalist system.

The fact that the capitalist class or individual capitalists cannot get everything they want from the capitalist state does not at all impress. They can’t because circumstances make it impossible, not because the state power is against them. This is particularly true in the present period, when corporations must surrender a large portion of their profit to the war machine in order to safeguard the rest of it.  Some thoughtless and irresponsible (from their own viewpoint) critics on the libertarian right such as Ron and Rand Paul try to make political capital and anti-establishment platform of this, but they have been rejected by the overwhelming majority of the capitalist class in both the Republican and Democratic parties. For the rest, the capitalist class as a whole keeps up a running fire against high taxes, not because it could or would alter the tax structure fundamentally, but in order to keep its share as low as possible within the limits dictated by present circumstances.

The basis of the Koch brothers philosophy is that the existence of private ownership of the means of production makes it possible for the people to control the government because there are sources of power for them to lean on outside the government. If however private economic power is abolished, then there is a danger that when no power remains outside the government, government itself will rest on power. The “will of the people” could not prevail against the new pressures of government since only one power structure remains therefore the people are now disarmed. Here is the libertarian capitalist argument reduced to its bare bones: We need the capitalists and their power to rest upon in opposition to government.

 Historical research into the French, American, English, Dutch and other capitalist revolutions has demonstrated that the masses of the people (the professional and intellectuals, shopkeepers, workers, etc.) had to wrest these liberties from an unwilling capitalist class. Research find the power of the private propertied class to be a barrier in their way in all their efforts to control the government. Despite their vehemence against Marx, Middle America have to accept his law of capitalist development: that capital grows out of commodity production and that big capital grows out of little capital and that monopoly capital grows out of big capital, and that this process cannot be reversed by protests and lamentations so long as capitalism continues. We see the ridiculous spectacle of small-town conservatives  appealing to the Koch brothers and the Pauls, in all seriousness, that these are just the boys who will do the job!

In no country, after generations of capitalist rule, has democracy been carried to the full. In this country we have a hereditary chamber, a hereditary monarchy, and an irremovable judiciary, appointed by the elite from among the elite, to interpret and to enforce the laws, the whole forming a system of frustrating the people’s will which acted in a most effective manner. It is a system of “checks and balances” which reduces the rights of the population. Bourgeois democracy at its optimum is a restricted and partial form which serves as vehicle for the overlordship of the tiny portion of the population that owns the means of production.

In America there exists a president with near royal prerogative powers, and the administration, centralised in a way which only an autocracy could rival, invested with a plenitude of powers the Supreme Court is the supreme sanctifier of the laws. The “sovereignty” lies in the dropping of a piece of paper into a box every four or five or seven years. Democracy has been and still is to-day a  sham. Under its cover we had all along nothing else than the dictatorship of the capitalist class. Marx used the phrase “democratic swindle” whereby he meant it was a swindle not insofar as it was democratic but, on the contrary, insofar as it utilized democratic forms to frustrate genuine democratic control from below. Marx was referring to a country which had one of the most democratic  constitutional forms of the time: the United States. It was, indeed, “the model country of the democratic swindle” not because it was less democratic than others but for precisely the opposite reason. The fact that the US had developed the formal structure of the constitutional republic in the most democratic forms meant that its bourgeoisie likewise had to develop to its highest point the art of keeping the expression of popular opinion within channels satisfactory to its class interests. There has been a plethora of clever electoral systems devised to insert a manipulative factor into the forms of a more or less universal suffrage, beginning with the American Constitution. Engels would write  that “England is undoubtedly the freest, that is, the least unfree country in the world, North America not excepted”,  that the methods and forms of the political system are designed toward “making concessions merely in order to preserve this derelict structure as long as possible”. He goes on, “The Englishman is not free because of the law, but despite the law, if he can be considered free at all” , for it is the constant threat from below that ensures the recognition of democratic rights in practice. Engels concludes “But mere democracy is unable to remedy social evils. Democratic equality is a chimera, the struggle of the poor against the rich cannot be fought out on the ground of democracy or politics in general. Hence this stage too is only a transition, the last purely political measure that still is to be tried and from which a new element must immediately develop, a principle transcending everything political.This principle is the principle of socialism.”

What is democracy? It is the rule of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is our battle-cry in the class war. The Socialist Party has been sincere advocates and champions of democracy. The working class has succeeded in obtaining possession of political power. What is called bourgeois democracy, was never regarded by us as anything more than a means to an end. The fight for democratic forms of administration is part of the socialist effort; not its be-all and end-all but an integral part of it all. The issue has always been what will maximise the influence of the  workers movement on the political forces. Social democracy is not merely the replacement of the authority of bourgeois rulers with the authority of a socialist central committee but rooting out old habits of obedience and servility.  It is the use of all the means of political power to  expropriate the capitalist class – in the interests and through the will of the revolutionary majority, that is, in the spirit of socialist democracy. Without the conscious will and action of the majority of workers, there can be no socialism.

Anarchists and Left Communists Against Independence

Edinburgh Anarchist Federation have posted a blog that reflects many of the views of the Socialist Party enabling the Socialist Courier blog to quote extensively from it.

“Don’t buy into the ideology of the Yes campaign or its variant, left nationalism. Whatever the rhetoric of some on the Left, this is a Scottish nationalist campaign, just as the No camp represents a British nationalism.  Anyone who cares about class struggle politics needs to strongly oppose both.

Nationalism, whatever form it takes, does two things: it tries to create a community of interest between the bosses and the working class; and it binds this community to the capitalist nation-state, reinforcing the latter’s power and role in exploitation. There is no genuinely ‘progressive’ form that this can take. We have, as Paul Mattick observed, a century of experience of national liberation struggles where apparently progressive anti-imperialist movements culminated in an oppressive new ruling class. And we could now potentially see a new wave of independence movements in Europe in response to neoliberal restructuring and the more immediate crisis of capitalism.  Do we expect different results?...

Are smaller states better and more democratic? 

...Well, if we were to take a critical look at actually existing small European states we find:
That they’re certainly no more favourable to workers’ organising;
They are also coercive (which is the role of any state apparatus) and can be just as authoritarian (an example being the role played by the Catholic church backed by the Irish state);
They have been remarkably open to neoliberalism and austerity (which has had a devastating effect on small states from Finland to the Netherlands, never mind southern Europe);
There is a growing anti-immigrant trend related to systemic white supremacy across northern Europe;
That some have also sent willing to send troops abroad (Denmark in Afghanistan) or have aided others who have (Ireland again, offering Shannon airport for use by the US Air Force);
And they are always subject to the dictates of larger supranational structures and of capital itself....

The Nordic example

... Common Weal want us to emulate the Nordic states where thanks to a number of reasons – a strong labour movement,  available natural resources etc. – it has been able to maintain more of its welfare provision than Britain.
“ we still have a cabin on the upper deck, but it is the upper deck of Titanic.” - Asbjørn Wahl

 But all of the Nordic states have experienced their own neo-liberal offensive and inequality is growing there too.
Swedish welfare academic, Daniel Ankarloo, argues that the labour movement there has been ‘weakened by ... class co-operation’  and belief in a ‘social policy road to socialism’– i.e. that somehow the welfare model was an example of socialism in practice that just needed to be expanded.  Instead, to defend existing gains as well as to fight for a different society, we need to rediscover class militancy and that this, ‘radicalisation must ... come from below in the form of the self-organisation of the labour movement’. .

 What about the Scottish Left? 

...Both Common Weal and the vision of the Radical Independence campaign are concerned with trying to manage capitalism better.

 Common Weal is an explicitly class collaborationist think-tank – nicely summed up in its slogan ‘All of us first’.  Its proposals in creating a high-growth economy, are in reality about increasing the rate of exploitation and outcompeting workers internationally. Its advocacy of ‘work councils’ to smooth relations in the workplace is a necessary part of increasing productivity – i.e. profit. Where they have been used in Europe they have consistently undermined unions and workers’ militancy....

The most comprehensive statement made by members of the Radical Independence campaign, is a call for united frontism to the extent that socialism – even a bureacratic state ‘socialism’ – isn’t even on the agenda, but is treated as a utopian project for some distant future. It seeks to create a Scottish broad left – not an ‘anti-capitalist’ – party along the lines of Syriza or Die Linke, and it reproduces the same ‘Keynesian wish list’ based on the same weak analysis of the state and capital, critiqued so well by Michael Heinrich. Like Common Weal, it sprinkles radical rhetoric – participatory democracy, decentralisation – on its reformism.  It doesn’t differ substantially from the latter, but offers mild criticism of certain aspects, including its support for the Nordic model.

After the referendum

...We should not trust an independent Scottish state to share much wealth, to protect NHS provision, not to attack the unemployed or the disabled, not to make cuts, to deport people or remove trade union restrictions. Some are hopeful that the grassroots pro-independence movement will produce an oppositional social movement after secession.  But this is wishful thinking.  It would require it to reject its own ideological basis, its very nature as a cross-class alliance organised by forces who seek to gain political power. ..

Whatever the result of this referendum, the lasting gains we need depend most of all on our own capacity as a class for itself to organise and struggle...

The Internationalist Communist Tendency on the Referendum

The Left Communist organisation on their website also made some insightful comments of the referendum which again is well worth quoting

One of the ruling class’s weapons in its armoury is its ability to mask the reality of the exploiter/exploited class relation. Its web of cultural constructs is aimed at obscuring that reality - and the weave of that web is religion, race, gender and above all, nationalism. Nationalism isn’t “natural”. It is manufactured. It is the particularly manufactured ideology of the capitalist class. For them it is the perfect expression of their rule. They can pretend that in the nation we are all “free” even if some of us are freer than others because they have more money...Scottish Independence is just a diversion from the real issue based on a reactionary fantasy.

Post Referendum

If a ‘yes’ vote created a Scottish state, it would begin life already crippled with its share of UK National Debt – a sum estimated by the National Institute of Social Research to be £143 billion. That debt will have to be serviced, as will the debt incurred in the functioning of any capitalist state – borrowing for investment, infrastructure, defence, the social wage (pensions, health, welfare etc). For example, Edinburgh, Scotland's capital, is currently paying £5.8 million a year interest on its new 8 mile tram line even before any repayment of the £776 million capital costs.. Naturally, services such as libraries, social care, teachers and nurses etc ( all part of the social wage) are discretionary spending, while interest repayments are written in stone. The UK state, despite its vicious hacking back of the social wage, its use of cheap migrant labour to help drive wages down, its attack on working conditions and wages, has so far been unable to cut its deficit – in other words far from being able to address its debt, it is daily increasing it. Again, that debt incurs interest – and that interest is set by global money markets that take a very close interest in state spending. The Scandinavian states, for long hailed as examples of successful welfare states, are seeing their social spending slashed because the money markets demand it. National governments are expected to be ‘responsible’ (i.e. shaft the working class) or pay the price when they come to sell bonds, gilts or raise loans. This is an inescapable fact of crisis ridden global capitalism – no country is immune...

...Foreign capital investment, crucial to any Scottish state will expect, and get feather-bedded treatment in terms of grants and tax-breaks. What the workers will get can be seen in the brutal working conditions of the staff in the huge Amazon depot at Dunfermline. Any serious attempt by a Scottish government to improve working conditions there would see Amazon pack up and move elsewhere. No surprise in this – it’s how capitalism operates. The surprise lies only in the fact that so many are prepared to believe ‘We’re different up here’...

....There is only one internationalist response to this referendum – fuck it! The real issue for the world’s workers is that they face an increasingly dire future under whichever capitalist regime rules us.... Our only hope lies in getting rid of the system that produces such misery and such abominations. In the long run only autonomous working class struggle on our OWN terrain can hold out any hope for our future. In the short term, refusing to be dragged in to ruling class power plays is a crucial first step – seeing our class brothers and sisters sucked into nationalist traps in the likes of Ukraine, Libya, Gaza and Kurdistan only underlines the importance of this....

Socialist Courier has to add the caveat that neither group accepts our position that we support the democratic principle of voting in the referendum by going to the polling station and spoiling our ballot. Neither No, Nor Yes But World Socialism. 

Chinese Hypocrisy

Wealthy Chinese tourists are splashing out up to £100,000 on hunting trips to Scotland, so they can feel like Downton Abbey's Earl of Grantham. Inspired by the ITV series, hunting parties from China are hiring out castles with butlers and staff included so they can try their hand at bagging some of the biggest game roaming the countryside. 'Among those visiting is Jack Ma, one of China's richest men. He recently hired out Aldourie Castle near Loch Ness for £36,000. Mr Ma spent a week with 11 friends on the 500 acre estate, also hiring staff including a butler and cook.' (Daily Mail, 11 August) Mr Ma is reckoned to have a fortune of over £6 billion. Oh, by the way the Chinese government claims they have communism in China! RD

Workers’ Knowledge

 Capitalism has always been sold as the best way for the greatest number of people to improve themselves through their own efforts. Many however have neither the means nor the opportunity to move up the ladder. While there exists a great potential for moving down the rungs, in all reality there is very little possibility for the vast majority to climb up. The notion that anyone can reach whatever level of success they desire, while it does happen for some, is far from being true and is absolutely one of the biggest myths ever propagated.

Almost all of us are slaves to the system. Many think it’s all too complex to change the system. If so then we can all just throw up our hands and surrender to a life of servitude for ourselves and those we leave behind.  But the truth is change can be made with an informed people working to effect political change.

World capitalism is in a profound crisis. The ruling class is seeking to claw its way out of disaster by chipping away at all the hard-won gains of working people. In the face of this assault the workers are tragically misled and therefore disunited. The bulk of our class feels itself to be powerless, lacking any credible alternative to the politicians who betray them at every turn. Many workers resign themselves to clinging on, hoping that the present shallow economic upswing will bring relief. Others are fighting, attempting to put an end to the prevailing desperation. The only real deterrent to the attack on  workers by capitalism, is the socialist revolution because capitalism will yield its minimal sops and reforms only out of fear of mass unrest that they cannot control.

There is no short cut to the social revolution. Reformism is a programme of relying on gradual change and making things a little bit better, slowly. Reforms are regarded by the revisionists as a partial realisation of socialism. We  oppose the mechanical theory that every crisis inevitably carries the working class towards socialism. Marxists do not believe in the automatic theory that capitalism must collapse and that socialism must emerge from the ruin. Such is a fool’s conception of history, not the materialist conception of history. Capitalist society is complex, there are many ways it can drag out a slow and painful existence. History does not solve problems and contradictions. It is human will and initiative that comes forward as vital factors in social development. Marxists recognise the reaction of the human factor upon history, and it is this that compels us to pay so much attention to political strategy. There is no socialism without the class struggle. The class struggle, is a struggle for power. The class struggle itself is a form of war, social war, and class power decides the issue. The capture of the state machine is the first step in the social revolution, but the seizure of factories by the workers is also an act of the greatest importance in relation to such conquest.

For genuine socialists building class consciousness is fundamental. Once workers understand their material interests, not just as good ideas or moral imperatives but as inescapable necessities, they will embrace revolution. Workers recognising their self-interest will see the absolute need for the unity of their class in order to overthrow the capitalist class. This revolutionary consciousness is not a matter of education in any narrow sense but comes from  the struggle between the classes, struggle in acts as well as ideas which are in turn derived from action, past and present, the living class struggle. The working class continually generates and regenerates its consciousness.

The vanguard intellectuals grow cynical about the potential of the workers for revolution.  Confident that their superior knowledge and understanding entitles them to lead the downtrodden  they try  to manipulate people to achieve their own goals: the rationalisation of capitalism. They assume themselves to be  general staff of the proletariat, who are to be the cannon fodder to be commanded by The Party “in the name of the working class”. Convinced that the the majority  cannot accomplish its tasks, the the leadership assume their own “socialist” programme are an adequate replacement for the consciousness of the workers and attempts to become the “condescending savior”.

In the words of the Socialist Party of Canada:
" ...in order to fit themselves for this task the workers must acquire the consciousness which alone can enable them to do so. This consciousness must comprise, first of all, a knowledge of their class position. They must realize that, while they produce all wealth, their share of it will not, under the present system, be more than sufficient to enable them to reproduce their efficiency as wealth producers. They must realize that also, under the system they will remain subject to all the misery of unemployment, the anxiety of the threat of unemployment, and the cares of poverty. They must understand next the implications of their position – that the only hope of any real betterment lies in abolishing the social system which reduces them to mere sellers of their labor power, exploited by the capitalists.

“They will see then, since this involves dispossessing the master class of the means through which alone the exploitation of labor power can be achieved, there must necessarily be a struggle between the two classes – the one to maintain the present system of private (or class) ownership of the means of living and the other to wrest such ownership from them and make these things the property of society as a whole. This is the struggle of a dominant class to maintain its position of exploitation, on the one hand, and of an enslaved and exploited class to obtain its emancipation, on the other. It is a class struggle.

“A class which understands all this is class-conscious. It has only to find the means and the method by which to proceed, in order to become the fit instrument of the revolution.”

http://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/ws33.class.struggle.htm

Every sincere socialist thinks and asks: How can the socialist movement be unified and strengthened? The first task for the workers in all countries of the world is to break from the capitalist class and their political parties, and renounce any and all sympathy and support for their parties. The workers must build a party of their own with the aim of taking the power out of the hands of the capitalist class and into their own hands. A major economic crisis arose in the capitalist world and in its desperation to shore up the system the capitalist employing class have been launching attacks against the pay and living standards of the workers. Capitalism promises the people not amelioration of conditions but austerity and oppression. While bailing out the corporations the government declines to open the books of big business so that the truth about prices, wages, cost of production, distribution and profits, executive salaries and bonuses, kickbacks and bribery, so that the waste and inefficiency, so that the source of the crisis of the economy is laid bare. The capitalist system, not workers is responsible for the recession.

Reformists throws all the blame for problems upon the government of the day and contends that they could permanently improve the material comfort of the masses if its proposals were adopted by Parliament. Socialists often hear the comment that "Socialism is a good idea but it’s not practical." But today it’s becoming more apparent than ever that it is the present system — capitalism — that is impractical and unworkable. Despite the campaign of lies and distortions about the socialist viewpoint we are confident that developing realities, together with the conscious participation of all who consider themselves socialists will advance the workers’ movement. Capitalism — the rule of commerce and business — must be abolished.  Working people need to throw the capitalist parties out of office and form their own “government”  that will fundamentally transform society. The entire apparatus of the State, set up to defend the interests of the corporations, must be transformed.

Japanese Hypocrisy

270,000 have signed a petition to the Norwegian Nobel Committee for Japan to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for Article 9 of the Japanese constitution. The article states that "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or the use of force as a means of settling international disputes", and promises "land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained". 'Japan actually has one of the biggest military forces in the world, although it operates under strict constraints. These were relaxed earlier this year when Mr Abe's government reasserted the "right to collective self-defence", which would allow Japanese troops to fight side by side with allies overseas.' (Times, 25 August) So the constitution renounces war but they have one of the biggest military forces in the world. RD

Guardian Letter

Discussing the referendum earlier this week, Sir Tom Hunter said, "whatever the people decide we'll just get on with it" (Report, 20 August).  And the "we" Scotland's first billionaire is referring to is really the few who own the country.  "That's democracy", he concedes, generously.  In fact it is the opposite, but he neatly exposes the irrelevance of the referendum and the sham that is democracy within capitalism.

Brian Gardner

Glasgow Branch

Socialist Party of Great Britain

A Rose by any other Name

There is no such thing as politics without projecting ideas about the future. The only difference is that those who predict that things will always remain the same do not know that they are making a prediction. The reformists dream of the establishment of social peace between the classes, between exploited and exploiters, without abolishing exploitation but instead by exercising self-restraint  and by the giving up of all “excessive” and “extreme” demands antagonisms which exist between the worker and capitalist would disappear.  It is impossible for a socialist to share this illusion of the reconciliation of classes. Social harmony shall come about by the ABOLITION of classes. The leading principle of socialism is the overthrow of the capitalist system, and the establishing in its place of a Co-operative Commonwealth.

The words socialist and communist are changing their meaning just as the change in definition of the word christian meant heretics were burned by thousands in the name of the love thy neighbour. Lenin abandoned the word socialism and invented the belief of making socialism mean a “first stage” in the development of communism, thus elaborating the smoke-screen and making it possible to put over in the name of “socialism” the Bolshevik policies of state capitalism.

We wish to make it quite clear as to our exact aim and object. We are socialists, wishful above all things to advance socialism, and by socialism we mean the common or collective ownership of all the wealth production, and this involves the complete ABOLITION of the capitalist system. Socialism means a classless society, and a classless society means that a privileged minority of the population are not in a position to enjoy the national wealth, while the majority live only on their labour to produce it. It means especially that privileged individuals who do have excess income cannot invest it in the instruments of production with which others work, thus reducing them to a position of fixed subservience. It means an end of rent, profit, and interest on stocks and bonds, an end of “surplus value”, an end of the exploitation of labour. This economic change is regarded by socialists as pre-requisite and fundamental.

Being socialists, we are therefore for the labour movement and as trade unionists we value unions very highly, but we should never side with unions who adopted an anti-socialist attitude.  Effective unions will never exist till the workers are revolutionary socialists, just as effective political action can never come till the people are thoroughly class-conscious and are fully determined to stop all robbery by moulding present-day capitalism into the co-operative commonwealth.

One of the early criticisms of syndicalism the Socialist Party had was that it was a continuance of private ownership albeit sectional ownership. The coal mines do not belong to the coal miners merely because they work in them. The road-builders might as well claim the streets if that was the case. It would be of small gain to expropriate the present individual owners of the means of production merely to put them in the hands of other groups of individuals, who would be actuated by the same motive of making the most out of them which was permitted. It is only in the name of and for the benefit of the people as a whole that the present possessors can be rightfully expropriated. This common  ownership of wealth by all people is the economic cornerstone of  the brotherhood of all men. We ask the working class to organise with us to end the domination of private ownership — with its poverty-breeding system of unplanned production — and substitute in its place the Socialist Co-operative Commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his or her faculties.

 Individual production makes individual ownership necessary. Large-scale production, on the contrary, means co-operation or social production. In mass production the individual does not work alone, but a large number of workers work together to produce a whole. Accordingly, the modern instruments of production are extensive and powerful. It has become wholly impossible that every single worker should own his own instruments of production. Ownership by the workers in common of the instruments of production means a co-operative system of production and the extinction of the exploitation of the workers, who become masters of their own products and who themselves appropriate the surplus of which, under our system, they are deprived by the capitalist. To substitute common, for private, ownership in the means of production, this it is the economic development we are urging.

 If all the machinery and technology at the disposal of mankind  to-day were applied co-operatively to the supply of useful goods and social luxuries, in Robert Owen’s words “wealth might easily be made as plentiful as water.” Non-arduous, enjoyable labour by all members of the community would thus produce plenty for all, and wages and prices would disappear. The object is not the enactment of palliative reforms under capitalism, nor the obtaining of higher wages under existing circumstances, but the immediate establishment of a co-operative commonwealth. That is, in fact, the emancipation of the whole wage-slave class.

When you join the Socialist Party you enjoy the thrill of a new aspiration; you are no longer a blinkered wage-slave. You begin to understand your true and vital relationship to your fellow-workers. You are a person and you have a brain, and if you do not use it in your own interests you are guilty of betraying yourself. When we unite and act together, the world is ours. Together we shall form a world wide Co-operative Commonwealth and when the world-wide co-operative commonwealth having been established, mankind for the first time be ensured the material and mental and moral requisites of a grand and noble existence.  The Co-operative Commonwealth that has been the aim of generations of working-class will attain its full meaning and realisation only with the ending of capitalist rule. The needs of all will be met. It will mean the beginning of  peace and plenty for all the inhabitants of the Earth, the beginning of co-operation between the peoples of the Earth.

D-I-Y - Build A Sane World

The Socialist Party is the only organisation with a "Do It Yourself" plan for changing society. We have been almost alone have warned of the dangers of depending upon "leaders" who want to do your thinking for you. For years we have explained that since the working class is intelligent enough to plan, design build and operate the complex and complicated industries throughout the world, it is also intelligent enough to collectively own and administer those same productive forces through the democracy of socialism.

Instead of workers being divided into hostile groups competing for jobs that will pay enough to keep a family until next payday, we will work in harmony, cooperating to produce most efficiently the best possible products, since we will all directly benefit from each improvement in quality and quantity of the goods and services we have made available. Socialism is not a paternalistic society in which the good things are handed down to you. It is a society of economic equality, which is to say, equality of economic opportunity. You will have full say in the industrial democracy of socialism.

 The Socialist  Party calls upon the majority to vote for the change from private ownership to social ownership. You can "Do It Yourself" at the ballot box.

 It is important that we restate in definite terms what the Socialist Party is and what it stands for, at the same time pointing out the anti-socialist character of such political parties as the "socialist" and "workers" parties. Socialism will have no private ownership in the necessaries of life, i.e., the industries and the system of communication and distribution, as well as the social services. Second, there will be no political State, no political parties, no politicians, and, accordingly, there will be no State ownership or bureaucratic control of these necessaries of life. Third, there will be no wage system, hence, no exploitation. In place of private and/or state ownership, we shall have social ownership of the necessaries of life. Socialism is a social system under which all the instruments of production, distribution, education, health, etc., are owned, controlled and administered by the people, for the people.

We do not advocate a hodgepodge of state ownership or municipal ownership all of which would make necessary the retention of the political state and give politicians positions of power as the ruling bureaucrats making meaningless promises in the name of "socialism." They pay lip service to "social ownership," "industrial democracy," "production for use," and then in the next breath advocate higher minimum wages, expanded unemployment and old-age benefits, free maternity care, equal pay for women, and the like. Their "ace-in-the-hole" is "a Workers' State. These political hucksters have no right to the title "socialist," but unfortunately there is no way to stop them from using it. These reformists opportunistic outfits while the Socialist Party is a political party whose aim is, and always has been, the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialism.

But capitalism cannot be abolished and replaced by socialism by a political party despite claims of such phony "socialists". That is a task that only the workers as a class can do for themselves. The social revolution cannot be accomplished unless the working class becomes conscious of its class interests  The Socialist Party demands, via the ballot box, the unconditional surrender of capitalism, "locking out" the capitalist class and continuing production and social services under the direction of a workers and community councils.  Together we shall do the common-sense thing; make the means of production our collective property, abolish exploitation of the many by the few, and use our productive genius to create leisure and abundance for all. Society must be reconstructed and workers of hand and brain must build this new world and emancipate themselves through their own class conscious efforts and they can apply their collective strength to the task at hand only through organisation. Politically workers must draw together in a party that stands for their own collective interests. For too long workers have relied on capitalist politicians to speak for them. They must build their own political organization, to challenge the domination of the capitalist class and help all workers realize how socialism serves their needs, and how it can be won. But a political party by itself is not enough. Socialism means more than a change in ideas, or a different set of political figures in government. It means that the masses of working people must build the new forms of socialist administration.