The problem is capitalism. The solution is socialism

Socialism is not some pipe-dream. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism. Socialism will bring social ownership of social production. It is the next step in the further evolution of society.

The means of production – the factories, mines, mills, offices, farm fields, transportation system, media, communications, medical facilities, retailers, etc., will be transformed into common property. Private ownership of the means of production will end. The economy will be geared not to the interest of profit, but to serving human needs. This will release the productive capacity of the economy from the limitations of profit maximisation. A great expansion of useful production and the wealth of society will then become possible. Rational economic planning will replace the present anarchistic system. Coordination and planning of production will aim at building an economy that will benefit the people. Because capitalism has already developed an advanced economy, socialism’s task will be to reorient this structure towards social needs. The protection of the environment would be ensured. Socialism will uphold the principles of democratic controlled common ownership, production for the people’s needs, and the elimination of exploitation.  The elimination of private ownership of the main means of production will permit a more equitable distribution of social wealth. There will be no billionaires nor paupers. 

The capitalist system of production, under which we live, is the production of commodities for profit instead of for use for the private gain of those who own and control the means of production and distribution. Out of this system of production and sale for profit spring all monopolies (arising from and following competition) and out of it, naturally, grow an overwhelming percentage of moral evils, and the entire problem of misery, want, and poverty that, as a deadly menace, now confronts civilisation.

Socialism is human association reduced to a practical program. It recognises that life in society is constantly passing through a process of evolution. It declares that labour is the sole creator of value and that the laborer is entitled to the full social value of the things he produces. It teaches that the only way to attain the just distribution of wealth to those who produce it is through the common ownership, control, and operation of the means of production and distribution, such as lands, mines, factories, transport, communications, etc. It asserts that this production should be for use and not for sale or profit, thus doing away with all private monopoly of the means of subsistence, and all forms of graft, corruption, and extortion in every department of society, and with a vast amount of unproductive labour and an immense number of useless and harmful occupations. Socialism would conserve and not abolish private possessions. Thus homes and all personal belongings not used to produce more wealth would remain individually owned.

The cooperative commonwealth is our goal. In order to be understood socialist philosophy must be studied. If you wish to oppose its ideas, study it. No person has a right to be a socialist or to criticise it without understanding the subject.  The problem before us is how are the land and the tools of production to be removed from private ownership to social ownership, while at the same time distribution (at first of the necessaries of life, and later on of the full products of wealth) is secured on an equable basis for all wealth producers?

The Socialist Party aims at the complete emancipation of labour from the yoke of capital. This emancipation can be achieved by the transfer to social ownership of all the means and objects of production, a transfer which will entail:

a) the abolition of the present commodity production (i.e., the purchase and sale of products on the market) and

b) its replacement by a new system of social production according to a previously drawn-up plan with a view to satisfying the requirements both of society as a whole and of each one of its members. 

This socialist revolution will give rise to the most radical changes in all social relationships. It will introduce consciousness where there now reigns blind economic necessity by simplifying and giving purpose to all social relationships. it will at the same time provide each citizen with the real economic possibility of participating directly in the discussion and decision of all social matters.

This direct participation of citizens in the management of social affairs presupposes the abolition of the present system of political representation and its replacement by direct popular decision making. The emancipation of the workers must be the matter of the workers themselves, as the interests of labour in general are diametrically opposed to the interests of the exploiters, and as, therefore, the higher classes will always hinder the above described re-organisation of the social relationships, the necessary preliminary condition for this reorganisation is the capture of political power by the working class in each of the countries concerned. Only this temporary domination of the working class can paralyse the efforts of counter-revolution and put an end to the existence of classes and their struggle.

CAPITALISM IS THE ROOT OF OUR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS.

Democratic control over the means of production and the establishment of socialism is the only solution to unending war and the destruction of our environment. The profit motive is incompatible with safeguarding the world’s resources. So long as it is profitable, environmental destruction is perfectly ’logical’ under capitalism which forces governments to exploit their resources dangerously for short term gain. Humanity’s problem is not limited resources but the waste of resources which is an essential part of the process of capital accumulation. There is destruction of indigenous people and their sustainable ways of life; hijacking of fertile land for cash cropping and clearance of forest for cattle ranching. The diverse environment movement has been valuable in highlighting and researching many of these specific problems. They are advancing the view that sustainable life systems living in harmony with nature are a real alternative but fail to place the blame upon the exploitative system of capitalism.

And it is the only road to the reversal of the possible descent into barbarism. Common ownership and democratic control over society is the goal of the Socialist Party and, practically speaking, the only thing that will save the world. This cannot be reformed into being. Supporting radical sounding or so-called socialist candidates of capitalist parties muddies the truth that the system of capitalism itself is the real enemy of the working class. Socialism is not about fighting for reforms or demands. Reformism is not socialism. Capitalism is no longer expanding and progressive. It is a retreating and increasingly reactionary social system. 

The workers who produce the wealth have no decisive voice in operating the economy. They do not have the most elementary of all rights—democratic control over their means of livelihood. We are living under a system which is more and more clearly revealed as the enemy of humanity. It has vast productive potential, but only means poverty and oppression for the masses. It brings deprivation to working people. It imposes draconian cuts in living standards on the already poor, simply in the interest of still greater profits for the capitalist class. Capitalism is responsible for the damage to the environment.  Its armaments industry cynically profits from a series of local wars of unparalleled destructiveness. The root cause of all this is capitalism’s quest for profit, which takes precedence over any human well-being. Capitalism threatens the future of humanity. Capitalism cannot be reformed. It has undergone many changes in its history, but these have simply meant finding new ways to exploit working people. The only solution is to end it and build a new social system. 

Socialism aims at controlling the means of wealth production on behalf of working people. Only they fully know the needs and demands of the processes of wealth production. Socialism is the only democratic solution to the many problems humanity faces. It has been the custom for people to be told that they must look to the State for salvation that their hope lay in government  regulation. Socialism was often seen as economic growth minus capitalist crises, and state control was seen as a definition of socialism. The laws of capitalist expansion was thus taken on board, rather than seeing socialism as a qualitatively different.

Working people must speak and act like one. In this lies its future.

We have nothing but we should have everything

As long as capitalist production remains, wages will not rise much above what is needed for the maintenance of labour power. The capitalists, the masters of the governments, will grant reforms when they see that it is the only way to hang on, when they think they can survive through concessions, and as long as they stay the workers will remain slaves. However much the workers win, it will only mean that the chains of slavery are coated in velvet or silk, yet still chains. Without suppressing the cause, you will never suppress poverty and slavery. The conflict between capital and labour can only be resolved by the abolition of wage labour and its replacement by cooperation. As long as private property remains the base of our society, poverty, slavery, misery and all their consequences will continue for the workers. Improving the lot of the workers can never succeed without leaving the framework of private property as basis of society, and that our aim is and remains the conversion of private property into social property.

Socialists are convinced that, a system for transforming the world’s natural resources to provide benefit for world’s people, capitalism no longer fit for purpose; that the capitalist system not only fails to find solutions to basic human problems, but now presents an obstacle to the solution of those problems.

This conviction does not arise from an irrational hatred of capitalism. Socialists have acknowledged the progressive phase of capitalism in many ways. It was definitely more productive, for example, than the static stagnant feudal system it replaced.

So why do socialists argue that it is categorically not the best possible mode of production for the modern world?

One reason is that certain anomalies arise out of the very nature of capitalism whereby the system is unable fully to utilize the forces of production it has helped to create. Goods are produced in the expectation of profit; when profit is realised it attracts more investment leading to increased production, competition and falling prices. At or before the point where goods cannot be sold at a profit, production will cease, regardless of all other considerations.

To take the argument out of the realms of theory we have only to look at the examples of food and housing; the lack of these is killing people in large numbers on a daily basis; the materials and labour to satisfy those needs are lying idle. The best that can be said for the system is that it is unable to connect these two facts (in practice action is taken to prevent the connection being made).

Reformism

Some entertain the idea that either you can deal with the evidently unattractive features of the system so that it works better for everyone or that you can modify it bit by bit until it becomes a different and better system. These reformists seem to think that capitalism is a game: that one day long ago somebody picked two sides, marked out the pitch and wrote a rule-book which could be amended if the same side kept winning all the time.

Of course, within the system there are various administrations and multitudinous laws but the idea that these can be used to make the system work counter to its natural tendency is sadly mistaken. Even aspects of capitalism which don’t seem to benefit anybody at all can’t be artificially controlled by those charged with administering it.

The point is that, in capitalist society, truly significant policies are implemented, rather than decided, by those we are pleased to call our elected representatives. Some administrations, of course, are aesthetically more pleasant than others or, if you like making moral judgements, morally better than others, but if we look behind the surface appearances, they are all running the same system.

There are no answers in capitalism for the working class because you won't get satisfactory answers by asking irrelevant questions. For the vast majority of the world’s population the answer is neither left-wing government nor right-wing government — it’s no government: not private, state or mixed ownership of the world’s resources, rather the common ownership which amounts to no ownership. And whether capitalist ownership is administered on a local, regional, national or international level will, on the whole, make no difference to the working class. By the very fact of this ownership, we will remain the subject class.

Two classes

At present there are only two classes: the minority ruling class of capitalists who determine the course of most peoples lives through their monopoly of the means of wealth production, and the majority subject class—the working class which is unable, in society as presently constituted, to stake any claim to the means of life except by selling its labour power to the owners of capital.

This does not mean that no capitalist ever does any useful work; for many reasons, not least the basic human need for stimulation, many capitalists work quite hard. But neither their privileged position in society nor their claim on the world's resources depends on any work they do, but on their exploitation of the working class. Neither does it mean that all workers work all the time; but it does mean that to ensure their survival workers must strive to sell their labour power.

In Britain not so long ago. and in some parts of the world today, if you were unable or unwilling to sell your labour power you would quite literally be left to die of poverty-related causes. In most developed countries today you will be kept alive in return for a promise to work when you are needed. But whether you have or haven’t got a job you will be left in no doubt about your class status. The media are full of stories of evictions, disconnections, people living on inferior diets, etc. The superficial message is usually “This type of thing shouldn’t be happening in 20th century Britain and your fearless reporters will expose this type of scandal wherever we find it!” The real message is "Just in case you were thinking of arguing with the boss, skipping the rent or mortgage, etc. remember this could be you”.

That, in a nutshell, is the negative side of the class division in capitalist society. The positive side is that the forces of production have grown so huge and complex that the ruling class is no longer able even to organise the exploitation of the workers; it has to employ workers to administer the system which exploits us so that for some time now the entire capitalist system is run from top to bottom by the working class on behalf of the capitalist class.

This is of crucial importance as it means the capitalist class would be totally powerless should the only other class in society identify the conflict of interests and act in its own best interest instead of finding common cause with its oppressors. Because the ruling class not only lives on wealth produced by the workers but is protected by armies consisting of workers and served by administrations staffed by, and largely elected by, workers, the only thing required for the working class to end its subjugation is that it recognises its interest and acts on it.

One reason this does not happen is that the working class is fragmented and encouraged to recognise a variety of pseudo-interests and even pseudo-classes which cannot be defined in any meaningful way. Black people are told that white people can’t be trusted and vice-versa. People are brainwashed into believing they belong to nations whose boundaries are determined by their masters. Women are told that male oppression is responsible for their subjugation. Gods with various names, personalities and agendas are pressed into service. Any differences between people, whether they are as real as gender or as artificial as national boundaries, as deeply rooted as folk culture or as superficial as skin colour, will be exploited to prevent the working class from recognising its unity.

All we have to do is take control of the resources and the machinery of administration we already run for the capitalists and run it for ourselves: the potential is there to improve the world and. if we acted as a class, the capitalists could not stop us doing this.

Socialism

There is no convincing evidence from history or science to suggest that, released from artificial constraints, humanity will act irresponsibly—indeed there is much to suggest that such irresponsibility as exists now is largely due to insecurity, frustration, alienation and other products of property society.

What socialists can say, because of our understanding of the limiting features of capitalism, is that after the abolition of capitalism social production will be directly for the satisfaction of human needs, that distribution will involve free access to available wealth according to self-assessed needs; that buying, selling and money will play no part, thus preventing the accumulation of wealth; and that things will be administered by a participatory democracy far in advance of the political system we have at present. Socialists are convinced that humanity is capable of this.

The Planetary Cure: Socialism

The State is an instrument of power in the hands of the big industrialists, bankers and landlords, who by this token are the ruling class. The State is there to effect the exploitation and oppression of the workers and the poor by the ruling class. Many hate to be called “exploited” and “oppressed.” They have been taught false pride, not the pride of refusing to be exploited, but the pride of refusing to admit that you are slaves. However, it does not change the fact that the employers squeeze the last drop of your life blood for the sake of their profits and that when you go out on strike the State crush your resistance. You can easily recognize the State as the executive committee and the strong arm of entrenched wealth. the expression, “industrial dispute” suggests a disagreement among people on an equal basis. It infers a friendly bickering of parties to an agreement who happen to disagree on a certain point. It suggests an amicable and perfectly lovely settlement of mutual grievances. What a false and misleading notion! There are no industrial disputes. There is only the desire of the capitalist to extract even more sweat and blood out of the workers, and there is the wish of the workers to fight their enemy, who feeds on them. 

There is war. This is the class war. It is waged by one class, the oppressors, against another class, the oppressed. In this war, the State is always and invariably on the side of the oppressors. Some of its representatives may try to achieve the ends of capital by cajoling and wheedling. But they always keep the big stick ready. The State — that is the big stick of the owners of wealth, the big stick of the big corporations. Anyone who tries to persuade you that the State is your friend, your defender, that the State is impartial and only regulatory is deceiving you. They will tell you that the State is there to protect both industry and labor. But under capitalism you cannot protect both “industry” (meaning the capitalists) and labour (meaning the workers)! When you protect “industry” you give it freedom to exploit “labour”. When you protect labour you make it possible for labour to get more out of industry. Oil and water cannot be mixed. In reality the State is a more efficient instrument at the service of big capital.  Under the pretext of regulating industry it has made it possible for the big corporations to gain additional power at the expense of the worker. Socialists are the only group in present day society who recognize the basic nature of the capitalist State. The forms change, differing according to time and place but the essence remains. The essence of the capitalist State is service in the employ of capitalism for the preservation of capitalism.

The liberals and progressives are unhappy with the functions of the State. They point out its short-comings. They do not close their eyes to the fact that there is inequality. They know the war-breeding nature of the capitalist State. But what do they propose to do? They propose a little tinkering here and there.  But do nothing about the very nature of the State as a bulwark of private property and capitalist exploitation.  Improvements to electoral laws no matter how important for the working class, does not touch upon the fundamentals of the capitalist State, namely, its being an instrument of power in the hands of the big owners of wealth. Reform the State and you have made it more flexible, more capable of adapting itself to circumstances; you have made it a better instrument of oppression. Progressives  are not opposed to the capitalist system even in words. They propose to support such representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties as are willing to introduce reforms on behalf of labour.  The Republican and Democratic parties are the parties of big capital. They may fight one another at the elections for the control of the administration, but they differ little from each other and they do the bidding of the corporations. Their campaign funds are filled from the coffers of the industrialists and bankers. To expect these parties will help the workers achieve their end is to expect that the leopard will change its spots.

The World Socialist Party, on the other hand, is opposed to the capitalist system, denouncing the evils of the capitalist system. We do not  propose to “improve” capitalism by the power of prayer. The Socialist Party say there is a need of a revolution to achieve the cooperative commonwealth.  In a class-free society there is nobody to suppress or keep in check. Highly cultured men and women, bred in a spirit of collective life, masters of their own society, do not need the big stick of the State. They manage their affairs without the State force. Mankind is free, forever.

Does Capitalism Work? (1972)

From the July 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Professor Champions Capitalism” ran the gleeful headline in the Financial and Business supplement of The Scotsman (24 May). The story which followed told us that Professor H. B. Acton, who holds the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University, has written a paper for the Foundation of Business Responsibilities titled “The Ethics of Capitalism” in which he glorifies the capitalist system and its beneficiaries, the capitalist class.

The Professor’s paper contains a statement on the historical contribution of the early capitalists:

  The bourgeoisie, more scrupulous and pacific than the aristocracy and less deferential than the peasantry, so improved the arts of production that the system of warrior lords and dependent serfs was replaced by one in which large populations of free citizens enjoy a scope of living which goes beyond what the aristocracy formerly disposed of.

Then follows a list of benefits which the capitalist mode of production brought in its wake:

  Free speech, free movement of trade, free thought, exploration of the earth and oceans, an ideal of peaceful domesticity, etc.

There can be no question that the Professor’s summary is more or less correct. Capitalism was a definite step forward for humanity. Capitalism did abolish the productive methods of feudalism, took away the power of the aristocracy, decimated the peasantry and replaced it by a class of wage-slaves to operate the technology which makes possible modern living, standards – and more.

So, preceding any of capitalism’s benefits, was the forcible removal of millions of these “free citizens” and their children from their means of living to be herded into the industrial hells and slums of the towns and cities. There is no indication that the Professor mentioned this in his paper but possibly the study of Moral Philosophy doesn’t include a reading’ of, say, Gibbins’ Industrial History of England or Engels’ Condition of the Working Class in England, and whatever the benefits of capitalism they were most definitely not what motivated the bourgeoisie when they set about carrying through their revolution.

Certainly the Professor could claim that all this was yesterday. Nowadays the children have been banished from the mills, mines and factories while in the same issue of The Scotsman Mr. Julian Amery, the Housing Minister, did state that the slum problem could at long last be solved within the next ten years. A likely story, for whatever excesses of the system capitalism does manage to curb it can never eliminate the glaring contradictions and divisions it has given birth to in society. Capitalist is ranged against capitalist over the share-out of the spoils; the workers are periodically at one another’s throats over the available jobs and cheap housing. More important, the workers are at constant war with the capitalists over wages and conditions of work. Indeed The Scotsman carried other reports on such conflicts as the war in Vietnam, a 1,000 lb. bomb explosion in Belfast, a possible strike of BEA pilots, a strike by 200 workers at Rosyth Dockyard, and a squabble between Roxburgh County Council  and Scottish Omnibuses over subsidies for 26 uneconomic bus services’

Even more pointed was the story concerning the discovery that Ford Motor company in Detroit have conducted faulty anti-pollution tests on its entire engine line for all l973 passenger models. Should the Environmental Protection Agency insist on the letter of the law then Ford would be forced  to carry out new lengthy tests, or be barred from selling their 1973 cars as scheduled. Officials of the EPA have hinted, however, that the law might be bent to avoid such a disaster, for the article says:

  The situation brings into sharp focus the potential conflict between government safety and pollution regulations and the practical alternatives when big industry says it cannot meet these standards; the usual approach has been to change the rules.

So in order that capitalism’s day to day functioning isn’t interfered with too much the atmospheric poisoning (and Ford’s profits) may continue. Truly an excellent example of the “ethics of capitalism”.

Presumably all this strife and turmoil has eluded the professor’s notice. He is far too busy currying the capitalists’ favour by telling them to be proud of their role and to have confidence in fulfilling their prime function:

  to see that the things people need for life and civilisation are produced, modified, multiplied, protected,  stored, moved and delivered.

Do bombs, napalm, defoliant and pollutants come into the category of “things people need for life and civilisation”? Certainly the capitalists see to it that these are “produced, modified, multiplied, protected”. And do they see to it that the necessary food is “stored, moved and delivered” for the starving and ill-fed millions throughout the world? No, Professor, the “prime function” of the capitalist is to increase his capital and everything else including human need must take a back seat.

Undoubtedly the coming of capitalism was a progression in social development since it provided the technical impetus for solving the problem of production. Now it stands as a barrier between man and his product and has split humanity from top to bottom. We now need to abolish the private (including state) ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution and introduce instead a new society based on their common ownership and democratic control. The Professor’s defence of capitalism is, in the light of all this, as justified as advocating horse-drawn transport in the jet age because it’s an improvement over walking.

Vic Vanni