The only alternative to capitalism is socialism

 

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITED

Climate change is here right now and it will only get worse. Extreme weather events are happening more and more frequently around the world —forest fires, heat-waves, hurricanes and super storms, droughts in one region and floods in another, melting glaciers, unprecedented cold freezes and rising sea levels. Runaway climate change caused by soaring greenhouse gas emissions threatens the survival of life on the planet. If we're not worried by all this, we're not thinking straight.

One thing that is clear is that there is no realistic way to reform or control capitalism. The capitalist response to these challenges is business as usual. The solution to climate change is known and simple: rapidly phase out the use of fossil fuels and make a mass-scale switch to renewables. But gigantic economic interests at the heart of the capitalist system have massive investments in coal, oil, gas and nuclear power and will not change. The switch to renewable energy across the board is being blocked by those who profit from the polluting industries. The sole operating imperative of the big corporations is to secure the greatest possible profits — regardless of the consequences to the planet and its people. It is the Green Party’s view that through legislation the excesses and abuses of the system can be reined in. However, there is absolutely no evidence that this will ever really happen. Even if there are reasonable well-intentioned laws on the books, they are flouted, ignored or simply not enforced.

 Fewer and fewer ordinary people have any confidence about the future — how could they? The all-pervasive ruling-class propaganda machine is ceaselessly promoting scapegoats in an effort to divide ordinary people and forestall or weaken any effective resistance. Refugees, Muslims, benefit claimants on welfare, public housing tenants with a 'spare' bedroom, petty criminals — all are pressed into service by the media and the politicians to distract ordinary people and displace their anger away from the actual system which is destroying our lives.

The labour of working people creates the wealth of society. The rich are wealthy not because of their genius but because they are able to appropriate the toil of the masses. The bosses are able to do this because they own the means of production. We have no alternative — we have to work for them. We get wages, they get the surplus — the profits. The economy is a social enterprise, a product of the work of the mass of the people yet it is controlled by a handful of people the 1% and is run solely to make profits for them. That is the source of all our problems and it has to be confronted. We can't duck or fudge this issue. The corporations control the economy, on which we all depend. Bringing capitalism under social control is the big unspoken taboo. Shouldn’t the means of life be owned by society. As someone once said, people can more readily envisage the end of the world than they can the end of capitalism.

We need a system of social democracy that empowers people. Apologists for capitalism have long devoted enormous efforts to campaign against socialism. They constantly try to prove that it is a completely utopian exercise, flying in the face of human nature; that it will never work. Of course, the idea that society will only function if we have a system of organised, institutional greed — that is, capitalism — is completely ludicrous. Our current problems have arisen precisely because we have such a society. To save ourselves we need change. Fighting to get rid of this rotten system and replace it with a socialist society of peace, solidarity and plenty remains the most urgent task facing progressive humanity. Socialists argue that the only way this can happen is if the economy is brought under social ownership and control.  With the economic levers in our hands we could elaborate a conscious plan focused on meeting human needs. Combating climate change and building a sustainable economy would be the most urgent priority. Plans would be democratically decided. Workplaces would be controlled by producers. This is the socialism. Capitalism, on the other hand, treats the workers like possessions — things to be used like other machinery in the factory in the process of making a profit. In the process, the workers humanity is sucked out of them. It destroys the ability of the workers to live a productive life with love. They live the life of a commodity, or an animal, to be exploited, used, and discarded.

Elections are always a very important moment, a time that encourages discussion on the future. Socialists participate in the electoral process to present socialist alternatives. By fielding Socialist Party candidates in elections at all levels of office, we educate the voters about socialism and its radical solutions. We also promote the independent political organization of working people in direct opposition to the capitalist parties. Our party knows that a socialist revolution is necessary when workers become conscious that the power of the capitalist bosses must be replaced with the power of the people. This is the message that the Socialist Party has promoted in its 2015 election campaigns. Our participation in the elections has given people the opportunity to question our candidates and to vote for a party that is already fighting in their interests. There is access, albeit limited, to the media which enables us to show that we are here. Despite all the difficulties and inequities of the electoral process, in terms of time and coverage we are managing to gain an audience.

Most Green activists want to keep the market. They accept that private property and competition for profit are natural and good even though they add many of their own caveats to that. There is nothing ecological about private property, capitalist competition, or the profit motive. Naturally, human beings, their work, their societies, are communal. Primitive, tribal society was communist. As human society developed the capacity to create a surplus, various forms of property and privatization arose, so that an elite class could claim that surplus for itself, and thus exploit the labour of the rest of us. In primitive society, human beings recognized the simple fact that since we all work together, since we are interdependent, we ought to share the fruit of our labour.

Private property is a story of exploitation and oppression: even though you worked to create the surplus, “I get to keep it. It is mine, not yours, because my class owns the state”. In ancient society “I own you, your body itself, as a slave.” In feudal times because “I am lord of the manor, because of my aristocratic social status, I have the right to collect, from my serfs, a substantial portion of the agricultural surplus.” In capitalist society, private property comes into its own, so to speak, as the culmination of this historical process of class exploitation. It meant, first, that aristocrats and the gentry got to enclose the commons as their private property, and kick the serfs off of it. When they lost their land the peasants moved to the cities in massive numbers. Thus they became prey to the industrialists. Because the industrialists owned the factories, they were the only people who could give workers any livelihood. So they could force the workers to work for very low wages in horrible conditions. “I am the robber industrial baron, now, your new master, and you are a wage-slave to furnish me with the surplus value you create”

Propertarians would argue that this gives small businessman a bad rap—that many employers are kindly and benevolent. Perhaps so. But to be sustainable, every single small capitalist would have to be a saint, would have to give away his profits to his competitors and to the community if he started winning too much at their expense. That is impossible. And if we talk about workers' cooperatives, or the various utopian schemes put forward by the left reformists the same problem applies. With competition for profit, most such cooperatives will eventually go under, while a few will survive. Competition always intensifies, because the rate of profit tends to fall. Capitalists, big or small, cooperative or corporate, compete with each other on the market, and they do so by cutting their prices. The best way to do this is to replace their workers with machines. This works out for the first capitalist who gets the new technology: he can undercut his competitors. But then his surviving competitors get the same technology. Since profit is based upon human labor, profits, in general, fall, as they get squeezed between falling prices and higher technological costs. As profits fall, competition for profits intensifies. As competition intensifies, there will be a strong temptation for relations even within cooperatives to become hierarchical, for a few "elite" members to drive the rest to work harder, so that the cooperative can compete better, externally. In the case of both small businesses and cooperatives, as they compete with other concerns for survival, their decisions will be based upon profit and survival rather than upon what is good, in the long term, for the environment, the larger community, or even for their own workers and their smaller shareholders.

The only alternative to capitalism is socialism. And we will use every forum to keep saying that until our message begins to sink in.

Why Socialism?

 “If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you’re going east, and you will be walking east when you think you’re going west. This generation, especially of our people, has a burden, more so than any other time in history. The most important thing we can learn to do today is think for ourselves.” – Malcolm X

We live in a deeply destructive world and the Socialist Party exists because of a trust in the potential of the working class to change that. We, the workers, have much more power than we realise. Common action has won great things for humanity in the past and now it is time again to carry that legacy forward, to take it to the next level. We do not need reforms, but a whole new system. Obama has been accused, among many things, of being “socialist” If Obama—who spent obscene amounts of money bailing out criminal financial institutions, who staffed key government positions with former Wall Street executives, and who expanded covert military operations beyond Bush—can seriously be classified as a socialist then it truly distorts socialism’s message of solidarity to the detriment of the average working person. Socialism suffers the burden of the past. The Soviet Union proclaimed itself both democratic and socialist yet it was neither. The right-wing media ridiculed the USSR’s claims to democracy, but saw fit to accept its supposed socialism to discredit the idea. From another quarter, supposedly dissident progressive academics and intellectuals, tied the public’s perception of socialism to the brutal Russian regime, declining to mention the fact the average worker was just as abused in Russia as in the United States.

The world about us is falling to pieces. The need for revolution is widely realised. Today humanity faces a global crisis stemming from the incredible rapaciousness of the capitalist system. Catastrophic climate change threatens to end life on our planet, then there is endemic endless wars plus mass poverty and hunger accompanied by a ruthless assault on working people everywhere. Capitalism will destroy the human race. It is absolutely clear that the wealthy will continue to put the drive for corporate profit ahead of everything, even our own future as a species. It is incapable of changing. Even when it recognises the danger it cannot stop doing what it does. Under capitalism, the working class is a ground-down, deeply divided mass — it is simply fodder for exploitation by the bosses in the workplace. Workers are forced to compete against each other for jobs. They are divided by nationality, ethnic background or skin colour; by skill and type of work (blue collar, white collar, etc.); by their wage and general conditions of work; and by age and gender. These divisions are skilfully exploited by the capitalist class to keep the workers disunited and turned in on each other. And, of course, through the all-pervasive mass media workers are constantly inundated with consumerist advertising, offering a fantasy view of what is desirable and never actually possible for them of acquiring. If capitalism is not overthrown, humanity is most likely doomed. The only question is the time-table of this apocalypse. The only way out is the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by socialism.

Socialism is rule by the people. Working people will decide how socialism is to work. This was how Marx and Engels defined socialism. The task of the Socialist Party therefore is to help take power from capitalists for working people to have. Marx and Engels made no attempt to proclaim in advance how a socialist society is to be developed but declared that the builders of a socialist society will be the workers and it will be they who will decide what a classless society is to be like. Capitalism is maintained by class power and will only be displaced by other class power. If the working people want power they will have to take it. It will not be given to them. We have to remember that all politics is about power. The revolutionary calls for power for the working people while the reformist hypocrite prepared to exercise power on behalf of the oppressor, and who claims to do a little good on the side. Capitalism is always shadowed by its nemesis — its gravedigger —the working class. It is the sole authentically revolutionary class. It has no interest in setting up a new system of class oppression but can only end its alienation by destroying the whole edifice of class domination.

To use the word “socialism” for anything but working people’s power is to misuse the term. Nationalisation is not socialism, nor does this constitutes a “socialist” sector of a mixed economy. Nationalisation is simply state capitalism, with no relation to socialism. Nor is the “welfare state” socialist. Socialism will certainly give high priority to health, education, the arts, science, and the social well-being of all. That is why it exists, that is its purpose. But “welfare” under capitalism is simply to improve the efficiency of the government as a creator of profit. It too 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-testing.

The working class is essential for the operation of the social means of production but itself owns none of it. Its conditions of life make it cooperative and collectivist in outlook. Its objective interest is to collectively appropriate these means of production and establish a classless society. This makes it revolutionary — at least potentially

What truly is socialism? The socialist revolution is unlike anything ever before seen in history, something radically different. The oppressed class — the class at the very bottom of the social pile— struggles for political power in order to construct a socialist society where all forms of oppression and exploitation are eliminated.

Socialism is the greatest thing in all the world today. It seeks to undo capitalism’s many wrongs, which are becoming more severe and threatening. As we look about us today we see that the world is filled with suffering and despair. Socialism implies that the means of production are under the control of the community, and people themselves democratically shape the community in which they live. In these hard times especially does socialism show itself to be not only agreeable but necessary. The Socialist Party says there have got to be change. We say that the world is big enough for all the people that are in it, with plenty of room to spare, there is land enough to go around without crowding; that there are farms enough, or can be easily provided, to raise all we can eat, so that no child in all the world need to go hungry; that there is plenty of natural resources in the earth; that there are forests and mountains and water galore; that there are mills and mines and factories and ships and railways and the power supplied free by nature to run them all; that there are millions of men and women ready to do all the work that may be required to build homes, raise crops, bake bread – and cake too –and everything else that is necessary for everybody, and have time enough besides to build schools and hospitals to make this earth a  paradise.

Why should not just these things come to pass and why should not you not help us speed the day when they shall come to pass? Everything you can possibly think of to make this earth sweet and beautiful and to make life a blessed joy for us all is within our reach. The raw materials are at our feet; the forces to fashion them into forms of beauty and use are at our finger tips. We have but to put ourselves in harmony with nature and with one another to sing loud and clear the song of life. Socialists not only dream of the good day coming when the world shall know that men are brothers and that women are sisters to each other, but they are at work with all their hearts and all their heads and hands to make that dream come true. If you want to know what the plans of the Socialist Party are in detail attend our meetings and study their literature. If you're upset about the way things are going — then do something. Get active in the socialist movement, get involved — or get more involved. You'll feel better and — far more importantly — what you do will make a difference. Nothing is more worthwhile and more satisfying participating in the struggle for the communist future of humanity. People cannot live without hope for the future. 

The Socialist Party inspires workers with confidence that the future will be better if only they strive to make it so. The power of the socialists derives from the fact that they give a rational basis to the impulse of the masses to make a better world, an assurance that social evolution is working on their side; that the idea of socialism, of the good society of the free and equal, is not a utopian fantasy but the projection of future reality. When this idea takes hold of the people it will truly be the greatest power in the world. When you organise, you can win. Our power is in our numbers. We will use that strength to wrest our world back from the capitalist class, from the bankers and billionaires who put profits before people. Hope can inspire a bottom-up grassroots movement to make the world a better place to live and work in. No child should go hungry. Health care should be a right, not a privilege for those able to pay for it. Catastrophic climate change is a clear and present danger. The power of food production systems is concentrated in few corporate hands. But another way—a better way—is possible. Locally-produced and affordable agro-ecological food should be the backbone of a food system that increases our food sovereignty. The 'business-as-usual' model can no longer be considered an option for a well-functioning food system in the future.

Money Counts, People Don't.

Every second of every day a river of poison consisting of mercury, iron, aluminium, and nickel flows down the hillsides of San Carlos Creek, twenty miles south of San Jose, California. This is from the now neglected New Idira mine, once the second largest mercury mine in the US. The Environmental Protection Agency has measured the mercury that flows into the creek at levels that are toxic to wild life for more than thirty kilometres. It is five times more than the safe level for humans and affects the nervous system, the brain, kidneys, lungs, and the immune system. During the rainy months, the creek's water flows into the San Joaquin River that flows into the San Francisco Bay, a source of drinking water for two-thirds of California. The EPA and the state have been pressured for fifteen years to clean it up but the first stage alone would cost $10 million. Money counts, people don't. John Ayers.

Another War Is In The Making!

Nobody could be more thrilled at the melting of the polar ice caps than the capitalist class who want to get their hands on the vast deposits of oil, natural gas, nickel, palladium, and other minerals beneath the arctic ice. Though some governments have established a claim to some territories, others are disputed. Both Canada and Russia have competing claims to a patch of seabed near the North Pole. Already Russia has a system of security forces, ice-breaking ships, bases and ports across the arctic and is planning on bringing in new nuclear submarines. The Harper government has said that it will establish a new coats guard HQ in the arctic in 2013 and send eight ice-class patrol boats there at a cost of $3 billion. Another war in the making and one the working class has no stake in. John Ayers.

For our families and for our friends

What do we all want? We want to be all that we can be. And we want this not only for ourselves. But also for our families and our loved ones. We want everybody to be able to develop all of their potential but there are two points to bear in mind.

 First, how can we possibly develop all our potential if we are hungry, in bad health, poorly educated, or dominated by others?

Secondly, no-body is identical so we need to self-define our own wishes and needs as we all differ for everyone else.

 The aim of socialism is individuality, not uniformity. Our goal cannot be a society in which some people are able to develop their capabilities and others are not. We are interdependent and all members of a human family. The full development of all human potential for all is our goal. Satisfaction of communal needs and purposes focuses upon the importance of basing our productive activity upon the recognition of our common humanity and our needs as members of the human family. As long we look at one another as competitors or as customers, relating to others through an exchange relationships i.e., as enemies or as means to our own ends (and, thus, trying to get the best deal possible for ourselves), we shall remain alienated, atomised, and apart, human beings - fragmented. Socialism, if it is to be at all attractive, must promise to remedy those defects and nurture the development of each of us as the necessary condition of the full development of all.  For socialists the concept of solidarity is central. It is because we are a human being in a human society that we have the right to the opportunity to develop all our potential. Common ownership of the means of production (rather than private or sectional ownership), production for the purpose of satisfying needs (rather than for the purpose of exchange) and democratic decision-making within associations of the producers. Socialism wants to create a society in which each citizen actively and responsibly participated in all decisions because he or she has convictions and not opinions formed by media manipulation. We have created a widespread system of communication. Yet people are misinformed and indoctrinated rather than informed about political and social reality.

These are the core elements of socialism that people need to build. Our loyalty must be to the human race. Socialism is rooted in the conviction of the unity of mankind and the solidarity of all. If we believe in people, our choice is very clear: the only path is socialism. We fight any kind of worship of the state or the nation. The aim of socialism is the abolition of national sovereignty, the abolition of any kind of armed forces, and the establishment of a world commonwealth. Socialism is opposed to war and violence in all and any forms. We consider any attempt to solve political and social problems by force and violence not only as futile. Socialism stands for the principle of human relations based on free cooperation of all men for the common good. It follows not only that each member of society feels responsible for his fellow citizens, but for all citizens of the world. The injustice which lets two-thirds of the human race live in abysmal poverty must be removed

Think about this capitalist world of ours. Its very essence is to expand the market, to accumulate capital, to generate more and more surplus value in the form of commodities which must be sold, constantly trying to create new needs in order to make real that surplus value in the form of money. A spiral of growing production, growing needs and growing consumption. Everyone knows that the high levels of consumption achieved in certain parts of the world cannot be copied in other parts of the world. Very simply, the Earth cannot sustain this -- as we can already see with the clear evidence of climate change. However the people in the developing regions of the globe are well aware of the standards of consumption from the media. Are they to accept that they are not entitled to the fruits of civilisation? Are they expected to be deprived of their “fair share” of the benefits of ever advancing technology? Are the poor to be denied the opportunity to catch up with the relatively more affluent in regards to the standard of living and quality of life? Socialism wants material comfort for everybody on the planet.

Capital concentration led to the formation of giant enterprises, managed by hierarchically organised bureaucracies. Large agglomerations  of workers work together, part of a vast organised production machine  which, in order to run at all, must run smoothly, without friction,  without interruption. The individual worker becomes a cog in this machine; their function and activities are determined by the whole structure of the organization in which they work. In the large corporations, legal ownership of the means of production has become separated from the management and has lost importance. They are run by bureaucratic management, which does not own the enterprise legally, but socially. The CEOs while they do not own the enterprise legally, controls it factually; it is responsible (in an effective way) neither to the stockholders nor to those who work in the company. In fact, while the most important fields of production are in the hands of the large corporations, these corporations are practically ruled by their top employees. The giant corporations which control the economic— and to a large degree the political— destiny of the country, constitute the very opposite of the democratic process; they represent power without control by those submitted to it. When mankind is transformed into a thing, and managed like a thing, the managers themselves become things; and things have no will, no vision, no plan. The democratic process becomes transformed into a ritual. Whether it is a stockholders meeting of a multinational or a political election the individual has lost almost all influence to determine decisions and to participate actively in the making of decisions. Even the voice of the unions has been muted as they too have developed into bureaucratic machines in which individual members has very little to say and many of the union chiefs are managerial bureaucrats, just as industrial chiefs are.

While our economic system has enriched mankind materially, it has impoverished it “spiritually”. As a result, the average person feels insecure, lonely, depressed, and suffers from a lack of joy in the midst of plenty. Life does not make sense. It is meaninglessness. The capitalist system offers innumerable avenues of escape, ranging from television to tranquilisers to soulless consumerism, which permit  people to forget that they are losing what is really valuable important in life. Capitalism puts things (capital) higher than life (labour). All production must be directed by the principle of its social usefulness, and not by that of its material profit for some individuals or corporations. Socialism stands for freedom from fear and want. But freedom is not only from, but also freedom to; freedom to participate actively and responsibly in all decisions concerning the citizen and the community, and also the freedom to develop the individual's human potential to the fullest possible degree. The way in which someone spends most of his or her energy, in work as well as in leisure, must be meaningful and interesting. It must stimulate the intellect as well as artistic powers.

The Socialist Party is different from other political parties not only in its objectives, but in its very structure and in its way of functioning. It must also become the emotional and social home for all its members who are united by the solidarity of the common concern humankind and the future. The Socialist Party has developed an extensive educational campaign among fellow workers, who can be expected to have an understanding for socialist criticism and socialist ideals. The Socialist Party strives to gain the allegiance of an ever- increasing number of people who, through the party, make their voices heard throughout the whole world. Its only weapons are its ideas. It rejects the ideas of achieving its goals by force or by the establishment of any kind of dictatorship. We appeal to the true needs of those citizens will give it who have seen through the fictions and delusions which fill the minds of people today. We appeal to everybody to recognize his or her responsibility for their own life, that of their children, and that of the wider human family. People have a deep longing for something they can work for, and have confidence and optimism in. The weakness of present system is that it offers no ideals and that possesses no vision— except more of the same. We in the Socialist Party are not ashamed to confess that we are committed to a vision of a new society, and hold the hope that our fellow workers will eventually share in this vision and then join us in the attempt to realise it. Socialism is not only an economic and political movement; it is a human project. 

A case against nationalism

On September 19^th 2014, the population of Scotland voted narrowly against secession from the United Kingdom in a referendum. The No side eked out a narrow victory in an exceptionally  high turnout. Nationalism runs deep. National identity is a much debated, and hotly contested, concept. Yet despite continued national prejudice and xenophobia outbreaks, there are the growing bonds of a cosmopolitan commonality.

National independence is a much exaggerated myth. Every country is dependent and many vested interests welcome globalisation of their economy. They have twisted their nationalist arguments to justify getting the trade unions to help capitalists become "more competitive". National chauvinism has divided the workers, and undermined the class struggle in the face of ever more sweeping attacks on wages and jobs. It’s no accident then, that in a period of a global crisis of capital, old and new nationalisms are rearing their heads—and many of them in a most virulent and violent fashion despite that many independence movements have been thoroughly discredited by their failures to meet peoples’ hopes. Instead, memories are short and nasty, divisive, increasingly ethnic nationalisms are being promoted in one part of the world after another. In an atmosphere of anger and despair, right-wing ethnic nationalisms, particularly of right-wing ethnic varieties, quite often seize the political initiative.

Every day, the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems try to outdo each other as to how they would restrict immigration further. Political leaders are promoting myths, mistruths and lies simply to win votes. We should welcome immigration, not try to restrict it. We definitely should not be making it more difficult for new immigrants. The influx of eastern Europeans is nothing new to the labour movement, particularly in Scotland. There has been an absence of a class response, and particularly a trade union one, to foreign workers. Instead there is an expectation that the capitalist state will protect the ‘privileges’ of the native-born worker.

At the beginning of the 20th century in Lanarkshire, there was much vitriol against Lithuanian incomers. They were employed in the iron works and the coal pits, and they too were accused of wage-cutting and scabbing. Nevertheless, the Lanarkshire County Miners’ Union, in the space of some 15 years, went from offering support to miners willing to strike against Lithuanian workers to demanding that Lithuanian miners in Lanarkshire should not be deported. During those 15 years, the Lithuanians had joined the union in large numbers and were active in it. Unionisation was the key to improved relations between the Lithuanian labour force and the LCMU.

Once the Lithuanians began to respond positively to local strike demands, the other allegations made against them were simply not an issue. The adoption of a more class-conscious attitude and the strength of their newfound loyalty to the union was in part due to the fact that the union had taken some very positive steps to encourage Lithuanian membership, such as printing the rules in Lithuanian and offering entitlement to claim full benefits.

We suggest fellow workers refresh their class-struggle credentials with a read of ‘A Voice from the Aliens’ from 1895 and one of the earliest appeals against immigration controls.

Fear-mongering and divisive politics play well in creating more xenophobia and it has a long history, as we have shown. But those who fall for the propaganda should know that keeping out immigrants with a ‘fortress Britain’ (or a ‘fortress Europe’) has not and will not solve our problems and make us better off. It is not migration which weakens the working class: it is immigration controls. Immigration controls are weapons by which the capitalists can discipline the working class. By deeming a group of people ‘illegal’, you create a section of the class who risk everything if they raise their head above the parapet and attempt to fight for a decent wage and conditions of work. By creating a variety of ‘legal’ groups of workers, but with different, limited rights, immigration controls create what they hope to be a more malleable and exploitable section of migrant workers, which in turn undermines all workers. We can only address this by fighting for equal rights for all workers - which means no immigration controls, along with demands for secure contracts and a living wage.

The plea that immigration controls should be imposed and certain foreigners excluded should have no place in a workers’ movement that is calling upon the exploited of all the world to unite for their emancipation. Any policy for the exclusion of other suffering wage-slaves is more consistent with the attitudes of the callous capitalist class rather than of the movement whose proud boast it is that it stands uncompromisingly for the oppressed and downtrodden of all the world. Immigrants have just as good a right to enter this country as British workers have in exiting it.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain will not sacrifice principle and jeopardise our goal for some immediate advantage. We will not spurn fellow workers lured here by the glimmer of hope that their burdens may be lightened by the promise of some improvement in conditions. If revolutionary socialism does not stand unflinchingly and uncompromisingly for the working class and for the exploited of all lands, then it stands for none and its claim is a false pretence.

If the Socialist Party risk losing support because we refuse to call for the border gates to be closed in the faces of our own brothers and sisters, we will be none the weaker for spurning such tactics to acquire false friends. All the votes gained would do us little good if our party ceases to be a revolutionary party, yielding to public opinion to modify our principles for the sake of popularity and membership numbers.

In the centenary year of when other supposed socialists abandoned the workers’ internationalism and embraced national chauvinism - with one group under HM Hyndman going as far to demonstrate their patriotic ardour by setting up a National ‘Socialist’ Party - we in the Socialist Party are the party of all workers, regardless of place of birth. We stand resolutely for world socialism and if this is too encompassing for some despite them paying lip-service to the claim - so be it. We shall leave them to their various national ‘socialisms’.

Marx didn’t advocate open borders because at the time he wrote border controls didn’t exist. So no-one can definitively assert what he would have said then which is true enough (and fortunately for him nor was there any asylum-seekers rules and restrictions for political refugees), but Eleanor, his daughter, was particularly active in distributing the statement, “The Voice of the Aliens’, which we recommended as a read. We will quote from it:

 “To punish the alien worker for the sin of the native capitalist is like the man who struck the boy because he was not strong enough to strike his father.” 

Anyone is free to continue to see things from the point of view of market-town parochialism. But there are consequences. You start by defending national borders against the incoming tide of cheap labour, motivated by the purest of socialist principles, and one day you find yourself patriotically supporting your country’s right to defend its front line trenches in some far-off country.

We think we can definitely say what Karl Marx’s views on immigration controls would have been. His programme was for the abolition of nation-states and the international unity of the workers. He saw with his own eyes the effects on the British working class of mass Irish immigration and argued for their incorporation into the working class, not their exclusion. His analysis of capital was that it always creates a reserve army of labour, constantly pushing workers out of jobs and pulling workers into exploitative labour relations. Ireland is a good example, losing a third of its population. Living standards went down for the masses because the reserve army of labour was maintained, so profits went up. Capital cannot serve the interests of the working class. Successful resistance to capitalism makes it malfunction. But the campaign for immigration controls will turn out to be a campaign to attack benefits and restore capital to rude health. It is not enough to reform capitalism; that only makes it malfunction. We have to replace it with the economy of the working class: an international task.

It has been asked what Marx would have done today. We can easily answer by describing what the First International, of which he was a member, did. They organised!

The International announced that “the emancipation of labour is neither a local nor a national, but a social problem, embracing all countries” and that “Each member of the International Association, on removing his domicile from one country to another, will receive the fraternal support of the Associated Working Men”. Furthermore, “To counteract the intrigues of capitalists - always ready, in cases of strikes and lockouts, to misuse the foreign workman as a tool against the native workman - is one of the particular functions which our society has hitherto performed with success. It is one of the great purposes of the Association to make the workmen of different countries not only feel but act as brethren and comrades in the army of emancipation.”

The International consequently addressed fellow workers: “Help us, then, in the noble enterprise, help us to bring about a common understanding between the peoples of all countries, so that in the struggles of labour with unprincipled capitalists they may not be able to execute the threat which they so often indulge in, of using the working men of one country as instruments to defeat the just demands of the workmen in another. This has been done in the past, and seeds of discord and national antipathies have been thereby created and perpetuated. A part of our mission is to prevent the recurrence of such evils, and you can help us to achieve our aims.”

Marx, in the name of the International, writes: “If the Edinburgh masters succeeded, through the import of German labour, in nullifying the concessions they had already made, it would inevitably lead to repercussions in England. No-one would suffer more than the German workers themselves, who constitute in Great Britain a larger number than the workers of all the other continental nations. And the newly imported workers, being completely helpless in a strange land, would soon sink to the level of pariahs. Furthermore, it is a point of honour with the German workers to prove to other countries that they, like their brothers in France, Belgium and Switzerland, know how to defend the common interests of their class and will not become obedient mercenaries of capital in its struggle against labour.”

There is never an appeal to the capitalist state to impose immigration laws, but a call to the workers to unionise.

Borders are a means by which capitalists protect their assets, which include us. It is immigration controls that give employers greater power over migrants, particularly new arrivals or those who are dependent on them for their visa status, a power they do not always have over native workers. Nationalism is a huge barrier to developing class-consciousness. Borders cause workers in countries to care less about the other workers in the world. Across the world, national states are imposing ever more restrictive immigration policies. Nevertheless, people have become more internationalised and are acquiring a cosmopolitan identity.

Making the demand, ‘No borders’, reveals the importance of border controls to capitalist social relations - relationships dependent on the practices of expropriation and exploitation. The rights of property consist of the right to exclude others, while anti-nationalism is a part of a global reshaping of societies in a way that is not compatible with capitalism or of the state. Socialists must reject the concept of borders that are used as control devices over labour. By opposing the idea of borders we begin to perceive nation-states as ‘theirs’ and not part of ‘our world’.

To end with another quote from the First International: “The poor have no country; in all lands they suffer from the same evils; and they therefore realise that the barriers put up by the powers that be, the more thoroughly to enslave the people, must fall.”

We in the Socialist Party seek an end to exploitation, an end to racism, national chauvinism and anti-immigrant discrimination. When people say we are "utopian", they mean either that it is not possible to run society truly democratically, without the ownership of practically everything by a few wealthy people. They are wrong because this society is already largely run through the collective efforts of billions of people. The whole world economy operate only on the basis of widespread cooperation between workers. But under capitalism, the direction of all this collective work and the distribution of its fruits are dictated by a few wealthy capitalists, many of whom make their profits simply through gambling in those giant casinos called stock-exchanges markets. We don't need them to run society. In fact, they are destroying society.

The left's nationalism who cannot think outside of the myth of national interest has given massive ideological assistance to the conservative right wing. It shows up in their opposition to immigration, though they have been shamed into whispering about it since the cruder message of UKIP has come to dominate. We are taking a blunt message into this election campaign: nationalism is racist and reactionary. Defeating the right politically requires a war against the chronic nationalist ideological infection in the working class. We believe that better jobs with better pay cannot be achieved by keeping out immigrants. The problem is capitalism and we see it as our responsibility to explain this to those sections of the working class that blame foreigners for job losses, low wages, poor housing and cuts. We are socialists, not social workers, and we do not aim to help workers find individual temporary relief. We are for a collective fight on class lines. We are for revolutionary change.

Dream More - Work Less

The dream of a just and classless society has a long genealogy. For centuries, it stirred the hopes of women and men, shackled by exploitation, poverty and oppression. The many slave and peasant revolts were motivated by such an idea. The most radical-minded have always been spurred to action because of a vision of an alternative way of living based on solidarity, equality, and community. The early 19th century utopian socialists constructed intricate blueprints for co-operative egalitarian societies. So we can’t claim that Marx and Engels invented the idea of a society defined by common ownership, mutuality, freedom and equality.

Many political activists believe the urgency of resisting economic austerity policies or stopping environmental destruction is a reason for socialists to press the pause switch on the socialist goal. On the contrary, we should bring our vision of socialism into the public arena; we are, after all, the Socialist Party and socialism is at the core of our identity. Pro-capitalist apologists show no reticence in shaping popular misunderstanding of socialism but socialism is slowly finding its way into political discourse. Admittedly, many people don’t yet embrace socialism as we understand it, but they do imagine a society without the hardships, oppressions, worries, pressures, and profiteering that are part of the structure of capitalism. They desire a future that brings material security and a sense of community, they insist on some power over their lives, they yearn for freedom and they hunger for a joyous life. What they want is a little heaven on this earth. In advocating socialism today, we can’t simply repeat what Marx and Engels said. To have the most fruitful discussion, we should create an atmosphere that encourages people to explore without blinkers and in fresh ways. Socialism is acquiring a new necessity.

Since its earliest days, capitalism has inflicted incalculable harm on the inhabitants of the earth. Primitive accumulation, world wars, slavery, various forms of labour servitude, ruthless wage exploitation, territorial annexation and wars, racist, gender, and other forms of oppression – all this and more. And yet as ghastly a history as this is, the future could be even worse for a simple reason: capitalism’s destructive power, driven by its inner logic to pump surplus value out of its primary producers and dominate nature, has grown exponentially compared to a century ago. Unless dismantled, this power is capable of doing irreversible damage to life in all its forms. Over a century ago, Rosa Luxemburg said that humanity had a choice, “socialism or barbarism.” Her warning has even more meaning now.

We face the prospect of unending war and possible nuclear annihilation. The nuclear threat remains and conventional wars scar the landscape and brutally extinguish the lives of millions of people.

Humanity is also gravely endangered by the deep and persistent inequalities that exist across the planet. The evidence of these inequalities is obvious: massive hunger, malnutrition, dire poverty, the worst forms of deprivation creating the breeding grounds for pandemic diseases, with daily and institutionalised brutality, the explosion of slums around mega-cities, massive migrations of workers and peasants in search of a better life and decaying urban and rural communities and whole regions. This is all embedded in the very structures, hierarchies, and dynamics of capitalist development. Unconscionable affluence and wealth at one pole and unspeakable poverty, exploitation, and oppression at the other pole.

Another threat to humanity’s future is ecological degradation. Almost daily we hear of species extinction, global warming, resource depletion, deforestation, desertification, and on and on to the point where we are nearly accustomed to this gathering catastrophe. Our planet cannot indefinitely absorb the impact of profit-driven, growth-without-limits capitalism. Many scientists say that unless we radically change our methods of production and consumption patterns, we will reach the point where damage to the environment will become irreversible. We must move in the direction of sustainability. Capitalism produced a greater variety of goods more cheaply and efficiently, integrated new technologies more quickly and flexibly into the production process, rationalized the production mechanism, and adapted production to new consumer tastes yet the price paid by the working class and the environment was steep, to be sure.

Workers are the producers of surplus value. They are strategically positioned to challenge capitalist rule. Workers keenly appreciate the need for broad unity and are well aware of the need for organisation. It is the working class that will be the main builder of a sustainable, efficient, and equitable socialist economy. The movement for socialism should seek a non-violent, peaceful transition. Some have suggested that talk of a peaceful socialist revolution is nothing but naiveté, a denial of history’s lessons. But is this true? While there are examples of ruling classes using force to block social change, there are also instances where corrupt and discredited regimes have been swept away without mass blood-letting. The brutal South African apartheid regime gave way without the country being thrown into civil war; fascist regimes were replaced with democratic governments in Portugal and Spain; dictatorships in Iran and Philippines yielded to mass movements and when Eastern Europe and the Soviet one-party bureaucratic regimes lost legitimacy they too were dismantled with minimum violence. Thus peaceful change is possible. It may take longer but people will surely feel that delays are well worth it if bloodshed can be avoided. People will move heaven and earth to find a peaceful path to socialism and we should unequivocally express this desire, too. It will be twice as difficult to build a new world if the old one is in ruins.

A dream of a better world drives us and our struggles. Work will be fulfilling and bring personal satisfaction. Leisure time will be expanded. Our skies, oceans, lakes, rivers and streams will be pollution free. Our city neighbourhoods would become places of green spaces and little traffic. Communal institutions, like public cafeterias serving healthy and delicious food, and recreation centers will become routine features of life. The whole panoply of oppressions that damage our people and nation will be on the wane and the diversity of human sexuality and sexual orientation will be enjoyed and celebrated. Culture in all its forms would be the inherited right of every person. The prisons would be emptied and borders no longer recognized. Military barracks will be padlocked and war studied no more. And, finally, the full development of each will become the condition for the full development of all.

Socialism is the alternative

Capitalism is a chaotic and crisis-ridden economic system based on production for profit. The members of the Socialist Party are for the expropriation of the capitalist class and the abolition of capitalism. We are for its replacement by socialist production planned to satisfy human needs. There is no real answer to the capitalist system but the rebuilding of our entire society on socialist principles. We in the Socialist Party want to expropriate the expropriators and overturn capitalism, an economic system whose demise is way overdue. In this age of endless war, low-wage and dead-end jobs, we fight for socialism — not as some utopian dream for a far-off future — but as a necessary and realisable goal today for the liberation of humanity’s majority and the uplifting of people worldwide. The potential for building socialism has never been greater. Technology provides the ability to coordinate production and to plan, not just on a local but on a global scale. Around the world housing, hospitals, schools, roads and rail could be built with breakneck speed, while we put the brakes on the destruction of the environment and climate change. We could immediately end hunger, feed and provide water to the people of the entire world, erase illiteracy, cure widespread diseases, house everyone.

The problem today is that the same technology that could liberate humanity on a socialist basis intensifies exploitation and the masses’ suffering when that technology is in the hands of the capitalist class. Homes are being destroyed and cities blighted. Factory closures are rampant Racism and nationalism are intensified and used by the ruling class as weapons to keep the working class divided and unable to fight them. The issue we face today isn’t that socialism is not real and possible — but the lack of revolutionary class consciousness in the working class. The Socialist Party’s task is how to make the socialist goal something living and real and move our fellow workers in the direction of a socialist revolution. Capitalism offers nothing but misery. The objective conditions for socialism are now ripe and ready. But it is up to us help jump-start that awakening of consciousness of the working class. The Socialist Party seeks to bring together people who share an objective in wanting to build, or participate with others in building, a mass socialist party. There is little purpose in building a socialist party that does not have the objective of achieving socialism. What is the point of that? The objective of the Socialist Party is socialism and we mean the ideas of communism as articulated by Marx and by Engels and by others who followed their ideas (we use the words ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’ interchangeably.) Our goal is a society in which capitalist class oppression has been ended. And in which exploitation, oppression, all forms of discrimination, war, are all ended. We have a society in which there is no state. We have a society within which the resources, the wealth of society, are owned in common and managed democratically by society at large. For that to be achieved, the working class first of all has to get rid of the capitalist system; has to get rid of the private ownership of the means of production. It has to bring about the rule by the working class and that achievement has to be an act by the working class itself.

The act of changing society, that revolutionary act, that transformative act by the working class is, in a sense, the most democratic act ever in history; it is the majority class in society acting in its own interests to change society for the benefit of all humanity, now and in the future. The first thing that the a mass socialist party needs to understand is to have a clear understanding of its objective and needs to try to inspire millions and millions of people about that objective. What could be more inspiring than getting rid of poverty, getting rid of oppression, getting rid of the exploitation of the vast billions on the planet? It is a goal that could mobilise millions of people and it is one that we shouldn’t shy away from. It cannot be achieved by a small party, no matter how Marxist that small party might be. Socialists who want to set about constructing a new party have to have patience; they have to have a long view of history because the construction of a mass socialist party will take quite some time. Sometimes building it might be quite slow. At other times, because of events in society, growth will speed up. There will be events that will raise questions to which people will want answers and if the party is capable of giving answers to those questions then it will draw larger numbers of people to it. We should explain that if we want to end the constant, repetitive attacks on our class, then the only way to do that is to end the system that drives those attacks, that is, we need to end capitalism. Karl Marx, in Capital, has shown us that as capitalism develops, it leads to the concentration and centralisation of capital in a few hands. As a result of this law, huge amounts of capital get accumulated. This, in turn, needs to be deployed to earn profits which is the raison d'etre of the system.

What awaits humanity is a re-newed and fresh wave of assaults and onslaughts. History has repeatedly shown that no amount of reform within the capitalist system can eliminate exploitation which is inherent in the very production process of the system. The only way of liberation from this exploitation is the establishment of a socialist system. No amount of reform of capitalism can make it an exploitation-free society. An alternative socio-economic political system has to be put in place and that can only be socialism. The inevitability of capitalism's collapse is not an automatic process. Capitalism has to be overthrown. As Rosa Luxembourg many years ago put it: this choice is between socialism or barbarism. Social revolution and emancipation is the only course available to humanity to save itself from being engulfed by this slide towards barbarism. To those who argue that there is no alternative socialism is the alternative.

Our Socialist Objective Is What Makes Us Socialist

We are socialists. And we are proud of that fact. Socialism is everything we have ever stood for and it continues to define our urgent mission for social and economic change. It is at the core of who we are. It binds us in eternal solidarity with our brothers and sisters around the world. Our socialist objective means that we are sensible enough to recognise that “competition” and “free-market” solutions to our problems will not create the better society we all desire. Our objective means we recognise the deficiencies of capitalism. It’s what keeps us from being just another party that stands for very little. It’s what makes us the party of “labour” even if most workers don’t know it. We are the party of the disadvantaged and the dispossessed. The Socialist Party does what it has always done: argue for an economic and social revolution to benefit the many, not the few. Nothing sets the Socialist Party apart from other parties more than its history of demanding world socialism. “The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.” This objective is a statement of our reason for existence.

It's not a stretch to say that during the last one hundred years, the words socialism and communism have been two of the most controversial words and concepts on the planet. It's equally true that those two words/concepts are also widely and tragically misunderstood. You don't have to go very far to see and hear someone talking about how the fall of the Soviet Union and fluctuations in China are proof that "Karl Marx was wrong." So, in order to clear the air, let's start by saying beyond "The Communist Manifesto", Marx wrote very little about socialism/communism (Marx used both terms interchangeably). The bulk of his writings were about the demise of capitalism as the dominant form of political economy. So, if Marx didn't write very much about socialism, and his name - right or wrong - is the name most closely associated with it then what exactly is socialism and how do you understand it and explain it to other people? So much anti-socialist propaganda has been spread and most so-called “socialist” parties have done very little to clarify the confusion, so many people are still unable to clearly understand the socialist concept. For example, if you study the old Soviet Union, that society can only, at best, be classified as a state capitalist system because critical aspects of socialist principles such as democratic input and production meeting the people's needs, are missing.  A socialist system cannot be a dictatorship since the system is organised around what the people want - which is having their needs a priority of the system.

Socialism maintains that, since production is socially derived, the means of production must be socially owned. Capitalism, however, gives custody of the means of production to a minority, who accumulate most of the wealth originating from production; while for the producers, the working class, only a meagre proportion of the fruits of their labour is the remuneration. This great disparity of reward causes an even greater socio-economic inequality. Rampant individualism embitters what once were fraternal communities. The capitalist values of self-interested profit, competition and consumerism have engendered a society devoid of co-operation. Capitalism denies people a just share of production or satisfying work. Capitalist obstacles are numerous, and include class divisions, economic inequalities and, the ever prevailing, inequality of opportunity. Most, if not all, of the solutions to these problems converge into a single focal point: Socialism.

Our socialism is the vision of an economy in which all elements significant to the production, distribution and delivery of socially indispensable goods are socially owned and controlled in the interest of the community. Common ownership implies that there exists no particular class of owners of the means of production, either individual or collective. Everyone is equally an owner, which means that no one in particular is an owner. Property would no longer offer privileges, as the means of production would be accessible to everyone. Exploitation, or the capitalist command over the labour of other and its appropriation would end. The socialist conception of equality envisions a society free from class and hierarchy and instead comprise of individuals equal in worth and potential. the implementation of the idea first articulated by Louis Blanc and then adopted by Karl Marx  - "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" - requires a classless society where everyone is a participating member of the community, sharing in the means of production and in pursuit of providing for every public need.

Socialism is the only guarantee of true liberty because of its three components, equality in production, in consumption, and in the political sphere. It is impossible to address over a hundred years of constant anti-socialist propaganda in one short article, but hopefully this piece can give you something to think about, discuss, and use as a gauge.  Especially the next time you hear someone attempt to talk about socialism. People have to be convinced that socialism is a good idea and then the rest starts to follow on.

From here to where?

Has socialism lost its way, lost its goal? Apologists for capitalism have long devoted enormous efforts to arguing against socialism. They argue that it is a completely utopian exercise that flies in the face of human nature. They say that it will never work. If you don’t know where you want to go, no road will take you there. You need an understanding of your destination. You need a vision for the future. Socialists possess a very clear vision, one which would permit the full development of all human beings – a society where everyone is allowed to develop their potential that can only come about by our own actions. As socialists, we urge working people to break with the capitalist parties, to fight for their own independent class interests. One way or another, this century will be decisive for the fate of human civilisation. Environmental catastrophe on an almost unimaginable scale, threatens the survival of all life on the planet. The capitalist response is either denial, quack remedies or business as usual.

Capitalism itself has provided the prerequisites for building socialism. Firstly it has progressively eliminating the need for routine drudgery and toil. We can share now in increased leisure and luxury rather than suffer shared poverty. Socialism will eliminate the alienating nature of work under capitalism that takes out the fun and the desire to do one’s bit for the common good. A socialist society is where each consumes freely according to needs, with all types of exchange relationship absent. Social or common ownership means all property (except personal property) is held collectively by everyone in society. Socialists do not aim to create a market economy of cooperatives with workers privately owning their means of production. Rather, our aim is that the means of production be owned by all the people. We are also opposed to any form of state ownership which assumes the right to sell the means of production, the right to hire managers to control people who use the means of production, right to own the revenue from sale of commodities made using the means of production, etc. State ownership simply takes over this capitalist definition and thus sets up a managerial regime to control workers just as capitalists do.

Socialism is the way to ensure that our communal, social productivity is directed to the free development of all rather than used to satisfy the private goals of capitalists, groups of producers, or state bureaucrats. It permits workers to develop their capacities by combining thinking and doing in the workplace and, thus, to produce not only things but also themselves as self-conscious collective producers. It substitutes the focus upon self-interest and selfishness to satisfy the needs of others and relations based upon solidarity. This is the society we want to build. This is where we want to go. And if we don’t know that, no road will take us there. However, knowing where you want to go is not enough. There exists a connection between the objective, and the means we intend to take to get there. True socialism is based around a voluntary society that does not involve the state. Socialism can be defined as a political and economic system with freedom and equality for all, so that people may develop to their fullest potential in harmony with others.

If freed of the fetters of private ownership and converted into social property, technology and automation becomes a blessing and not a curse. Owned in common, super-efficient factories could be cooperatively operated to produce for our collective use, and an abundance for everyone, readily turned out with the minimum of labour contribution from each. And the same units of production that, while they are capitalist-controlled, menace us with unemployment and alienated work, would, when socially controlled, serve ideally as the constituencies of a modern industrial democracy, a self-government of free producers unmatched in the previous experience. Socialism -- social ownership of every facility and resource needed for social production -- is the only answer to the grave problems raised by the advent of the automatic factory. We fight for a world fit for human beings. To save ourselves and our planet we need a sharp change of direction towards a new people-centred form of social organisation — socialism.

Imagine a society where each individual has the means to live a life of dignity and fulfilment, without exception; where discrimination and prejudice are wiped out; where all members of society are guaranteed a decent life, the means to contribute to society; and where the environment is protected and rehabilitated. This is socialism — a truly humane, a truly ecological society. More and more people are realising that society needs to be liberated from the rule of capital. We need a radical system of grassroots, participatory democracy that empowers the people who are currently excluded from genuine decision making power. This would be based on organisations of popular democracy in localities and workplaces which could directly make decisions affecting their respective communities. Real democracy is impossible if one part of society (the capitalist class) owns the main levers of the economy and can run them autocratically in their own private interest and at the expense of the workers who are compelled to work for them. In other words, we need revolutionary change. Revolution doesn’t mean a violent insurrection by a minority: a revolution can only come about when the majority of people see the need for radical change, and are actively involved in bringing it about. A revolution is a mass struggle to create new and far more democratic forms of political power and a new social system. The guiding principle of a socialist society would be placing the welfare of all people and ecological sustainability first. No one would be abandoned to their fate, as is the case under capitalism.

For Ourselves

Down through the ages, people have dreamed of a world of freedom and equality, an end to exploitation and misery. The capitalist system is incapable of meeting the needs and aspirations of the people. By its very nature, capitalism generates or intensifies poverty, nationalism, sexism, racism, war and environmental destruction. Only socialism can have the interests of the people as a priority. Only socialism can use the benefits of the scientific and technological revolution for the well-being of all. The basic conflict between capital and labour is inherent to the capitalist system. The capitalists, who control the main means of production, employ wage-workers only so long as their labour produces profits for them. They hold down wages to the lowest possible level so as to squeeze greater profits out of the exploitation of the workers. The workers fight to maintain and increase their wages, improve their living and working conditions, and extend their economic, social and political rights. This is the heart of the class struggle. There are times when social and economic problems become so bad that people are forced to choose between the social system that makes their lives difficult and a new one that will make their lives better. Times like that are called revolutionary times. They don’t come often, but when they do the question of HOW to make the change that’s needed becomes as important as WHAT that change should be. We face that kind of choice today. Capitalism creates countless problems that it cannot solve. It uses technology to throw people out of work and to make those who keep their jobs work harder. It creates hardship and poverty for millions, while the few who own and control the economy grow rich off the labor of those allowed to keep their jobs. It destroys the cities that we built up. It is destroying the natural environment that is the source of the food we eat and the air we breathe. Every effort made to prevent these problems, or to keep them from growing even worse, has failed. Is this what we want? Is this what we have worked so hard to build? Should we keep a social system that is destroying the lives, the liberties and the chance for happiness that our work and productivity make possible? Is it really worth the price to keep a small and despotic class of capitalists living in obscene wealth?

If you agree with us that the time for such a change has come, then there are certain things we must understand. The first is that workers can expect no help from those who benefit from capitalism. Individual capitalists may see the handwriting on the wall and join with the workers but as a class, however, the capitalists, just like the slave-owning and feudal classes before them, will try to keep their strife-ridden and poverty-breeding system going. The workers can only rely upon themselves to build a better world and free themselves through their own class-conscious efforts. The second thing to understand is this: Workers make up the vast majority of the population. By workers we mean the working class. We mean all whose intellectual and physical labour contributes to the development, manufacture and distribution of the goods, services and information that our complex society needs. We mean all those who must sell their physical and mental talents and skills on the labour market, and who depend on the wages and salaries they receive in exchange. We mean white-collar and blue-collar, production and office workers, those who research and develop as well as those who build, distribute and serve. We mean the whole working class, including the unemployed and those forced to settle for part-time or temporary work.  The working class makes everything and it makes everything work. Collectively, it has tremendous potential power.

For social change toward a better world, socialists believe the most important and indeed decisive social force is the struggle of the working class. Why the working class? Taken as individuals, there is no reason to argue whether workers are "better" human beings than others because they are workers and are no better or worse than you or I or any other Tom, Dick and Harry.

Rather, workers are taught organisation not by their superior intelligence or by outside agitators, but by the capitalists themselves. Workers are organised on the assembly lines, in the factory gangs, in shifts, in work teams, in the division of labor of capitalism itself. Capitalism cannot live and cannot grow without "organising" its workers and teaching them the virtues of a form of "solidarity", of working together. It hammers home every day the advantages of pooled effort, and the subordination of the interests of an individual to the needs of the group. The collective interests of workers lead them to struggle. There always arises the pressure of demands for higher wages and better working conditions which cannot be wished away. Steadily the labour movement's demand all comes in conflict with the capitalist insistence on the rights of employers and private property, to challenge the power of capital. The roots of worker self-activity and self-organisation in opposition to the employer lie, in the first place, in the reality of exploitation; i.e., the wage relationship—the very heart of capitalist accumulation, expansion, and growth. The conditions and interests of working class pushes it towards organised struggle against capitalism. It is the experience of exploitation and its intensification that lies behind the great labour upheavals. Working class life embodies experiences that contradict many of the old ideas and assumptions.  These contradictions tend to be sharper and more frequent at the point of production (but they can and do break out in other realms of life as well.)  The experience of exploitation and the intensification and reorganization of work and/or falling real incomes that inevitably accompanies it push workers into collective conflict with their employers.  People will put up with a lot when they feel they have to, but sooner or later some people begin to fight back, then more join in. 

 The key question facing the working class is that to change society it must understand it and itself. Class consciousness is a slippery item to investigate. Gains in consciousness can be gradual or rapid, partial or more or less total depending on the magnitude of the experience that shakes up the old ideas and the alternative ideas available. But consciousness can slip back into old habits as well. While we will talk about different levels of consciousness, we do not mean to imply some stage theory of consciousness. The means by which thoughts and perceptions of the world change within an individual are clearly complex and possesses a "psychological" side. Marx made the distinction between the consciousness of being a class "in itself" and "for itself."  The first is the simple recognition that the working class is a distinct class with interests opposed to the capitalist class. It involves an awareness of class conflict and the need for organization, but a more or less unquestioned assumption that "the system" is here to stay and all that is to be done is to make it better for the workers.  The consciousness of being a class "for itself" is the awareness that capitalism can be replaced and that it is the task of the working class to emancipate itself by doing just that.  A class is only really a class, a class ‘for itself’ when it is also a social movement, when it has a consciousness of its mission and the organisation to express that and bring it about. This is socialist consciousness.

Marx didn't look to the working class because of some supposed moral superiority, the clarity of their ideas at any particular moment, or the infinite effectiveness of their trade unions.  Marx looked to this class because in capitalist society they were the only other class, besides the bourgeoisie, who had the potential power to change things.  Their power flowed from their position in the economy and from their numbers.  "Ye are many, they are few," as the poet Shelley put it.  More than that, this class has the power to create society's wealth and, acting as a class, to bring society and its production to a halt.  "Without our brain and muscle not a single wheel would turn," the Wobblies sang.  We might now add: "Not an inch of fiber optic cable laid, no just-in-time delivery made.” The problem has always been organising that power and giving it conscious expression for a common purpose. While socialists can and do play an important role in building and providing direction for such movement, they don't have to invent them. While we don't claim to have the road map, we do claim to have a compass.  It points to the working class being the agent of change. We in the Socialist Party cannot make workers act but we can explain why they should and must take action.

We are all exploited

Socialists say workers are exploited and this creates a mental picture of sweatshops with over-bearing overseers cracking the proverbial whip to extract every last ounce of work from toiling employees. For sure, such conditions exist around the world but this is not exactly the meaning of exploitation we have in mind. In Britain when people complain that they are being ‘exploited’ at work, they usually mean that they are being treated unfairly or being ripped off by zero-hour contracts or whatever.  We need to go further than this simple idea of unfairness because that naturally implies that there can be a fair wage, a job where we aren’t exploited and that is not true. Our definition of exploitation is the forced appropriation of the unpaid labour of workers. Under this definition, all working-class people are exploited. The ultimate source of profit, the driving force behind capitalist production, is the unpaid work of wage-earners. So for Marx, exploitation forms the foundation of the capitalist system. Every dividend paid to the shareholders, every penny demanded as interest by the bankers, every pound collected by capitalist landlords--all of this is the result of the uncompensated labor of working-class people. The "rentier" classes, such as finance capital and landlords, take their cut from the wealth extracted from the labour of workers in the form of interest on loans to the industrial capitalists and to others in society, rent for factories and homes, and so on. And because exploitation is at the root of capitalism, it follows that the only way to do away with exploitation is to achieve an entirely different society—socialism. Simplistic theories of exploitation say capitalism can be made fair by making the worst capitalists behave. The Marxist theory of exploitation means that society can be made fair only by overthrowing the capitalists and getting rid of their system.

The distinction between "labour-power" and "labour" is the key to understanding exploitation under capitalism. When a capitalist pays a worker a wage, they are not paying for the value of a certain amount of completed labour, but for labor-power. The soaring inequality in contemporary society illustrates this--over the past three decades of neoliberalism, the wealth that workers create has increased, but this has not been reflected in wages, which remain stagnant. Instead, an increasing proportion of the wealth produced by workers swelled the pockets of the superrich, who did not compensate the workers for their increased production on the job. It appears that the capitalist pays the worker for the value produced by their labour because workers only receive a paycheck after they have worked for a given amount of time. In reality, this amounts to an interest-free loan of labour-power by the worker to the capitalist. As Marx wrote, "In all cases, therefore, the worker advances the use-value of his labour-power to the capitalist. He lets the buyer consume it before he receives payment of the price. Everywhere, the worker allows credit to the capitalist."

The capitalist buys labour-power on the market. In general, the wage--the price of labour-power--is, like all other commodities, determined by its cost of production, which is in turn regulated by struggles between workers and capitalists over the level of wages and benefits, and by competition between workers for jobs. As Marx wrote in Wage, Labour and Capital, the cost of production of labour-power is "the cost required for the maintenance as the laborer...and for his education and training as a labourer." In other words, the price of labour-power is determined by the cost of food, clothing, housing and education at a given standard of living. Marx adds that "the cost of production of...[labour-power] must include the cost of propagation, by means of which the race of workers is enabled to multiply itself, and to replace worn-out workers with new ones." So, wages must also include the cost of raising children, the next generation of workers. So in Marx's generalized analysis, the level of wages depends on what it takes to keep workers and their families (who represent the next generation of workers) alive and able to work--with their standard of living affected by the outcome of class struggles between workers and capitalists. The cost of wages or labour-power depends on factors completely independent of the actual value produced by workers during the labor process. This difference is the source of "surplus value," or profit.

To the individual worker, only if pay begin to fall below the level of what is needed to live normally, does work begin to look like “exploitation”. Otherwise it seems like a “fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay”. But all is not as it seems. Labour power is unique. It alone has the ability to create extra value out of all the other inputs. It creates this value in the very process of being used up, put to work. If you think about it, it becomes obvious. What would a fridge full of raw hamburgers, jars of pickle and stacks of sesame buns be worth to McDonalds without workers there to cook and serve them? Answer: the same as the capitalist paid for them. Only labour power can increase their value. But workers are not paid the whole value that they create in production. They are only paid the amount needed to reproduce their labour power. The extra value that workers create is effectively stolen by the buyer of labour power, the owners of the workplace – the capitalist. This “surplus value” is the secret behind the constant growth of capital, behind the capitalists’ profits. Whereas a worker at best “accumulates” some personal and household possessions – some savings, a retirement pension – the capitalists accumulate in their hands the entire vast means of production and distribution – the factories, offices, supermarkets, land, banking. We built it, they own it. The capitalists don’t do this because they are good or bad. They invest capital and make a profit neither out of their goodwill to ‘provide jobs’ or ‘get the economy going’ (as they always claim) nor out of a wicked desire to exploit people. It’s more than just greed. The individual capitalist is compelled to extract the maximum surplus value from his or her workforce because of competition with other capitalists. The weak get swallowed up. The strong get bigger. That means not just taking the profits and spending it all on yachts and mansions. It means re-investing some of them back into the business to build more factories, better machines, create new products. And so competition drives development and further industrialisation and expands its capacity therefore to produce even more … capital. That is why Marx’s criticism of capitalism as a system is not a moral or ethical one. These are just the natural dynamics of it as an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and market competition.

This competitive drive to accumulate, to make profits is absolutely opposed to the interests of the worker. The capitalist can increase surplus value only at his or her expense. This can be done in two ways. One is by getting more work out of us for the same wage – by increasing the length of the working day (overtime) or by making us work harder and faster. The second way to boost profits is to reduce wages – by cutting workers’ wage packets, or sacking some of the workforce or moving production to a country where labour power can be bought more cheaply. In this ceaseless struggle workers have only one resource – the fact that no surplus value will accumulate, no profits be made without their labour. If the individual worker is powerless, the workforce united is powerful. When bosses push workers too far they strike and remove the source of profit – their labour. Out of the need to resist the capitalists’ remorseless hunger for surplus value comes the need for a collective fight-back. Out of capitalist exploitation comes the class struggle.

Socialists aim not merely for a more equitable distribution of the social product, but for a transformation in the mode of production - the abolition of private property in the means of production and the conversion of these into a democratic economy of the associated producers, a planned administration of things rather than the coercion of people, material wealth for all on the basis not of equal rations, but “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”

Work For Two Weeks For No Pay!

A recent Toronto Star article focused on the plight of gold miners at La Rinconada in Peru, which, at 5,200 metres above sea level, is the highest mine in the world.

 Corporation Minera Ananea, the owners, allow groups of young men to work for two weeks for no pay, and, if productive, are allowed to work for a day or two for themselves.

 Like all mining, it's dangerous work with a constant fear of rock falls, inhalation of toxic gases ,and the need to extract the gold by hand using mercury, itself a highly toxic chemical. A group of miners excavated 65 grams that brought each of them $238.50 It might be several weeks before they are so lucky again and several months before the UN environmental program decides on a legally binding global mercury treaty. 

Nobody forces these men to work for so little, for so long, and in such dangerous circumstances. So what does? It's something called economic necessity, bearing in mind they have families to support. 

Let's speed the day when such conditions of work will not be necessary. 

John Ayers.