Common Work for the Common Pot

 

Every aspect of society is undergoing upheaval. Everything that seemed “normal” yesterday is coming apart today. It is fashionable to claim that humans are innately aggressive, and that warfare is inevitable and unavoidable. To provide ideological aid to the capitalist subjugation of the worker, a large group of economists, psychologists, sociologists and journalists have been propounding a theory that the human character contains unique elements which make it especially susceptible to totalitarian movements. People are supposed to be  prone to militarism; they are said to be inherently submissive and their greatest joy is found, we are told, in blind devotion to a leader and adherence to barbarous acts of brutality. It  is a deliberate  distortion of the evolutionary historical picture of human society. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that anything contrary to the rules and ethics of capitalism is utopian or visionary. What’s absurd is to think this madhouse society is permanent and for all time. When we see the possibility of a new world that’s within our grasp, we will find the means to take the decisive action to make that new world our own.

 

We live in a highly competitive society founded upon the institution of private property. Marriage laws and family relationships reflect this basic concept of private ownership and a tremendous social pressure is transmitted through the parents. At an early age a child feels that he has to achieve something, to acquire status and to own a lot of things. Parents naturally urge children to go after the things they themselves wanted and frequently did not get. Unfortunately a great many people have no realistic prospect of getting all this stuff. In face of the continuous pressure to acquire some of these products of American culture, they may look for shortcuts – crime. It’s because they feel that they have no choice and there’s no way out that they wind uip in the blind alley of narcotic addiction or waging war with the law.

 

Marxism aims to discover and set forth the laws of evolution in social life from the earliest form of social organization to the contemporary world contest between capitalism and socialism. 

 

The Socialist Party’s vision of a future Co-operative Commonwealth, is rather too vague an idea in the minds of many of our fellow-workers who, living under present society and needing to functioning within it to survive, require to deal constantly with the concrete and the immediate. They have neither time nor inclination for speculation, and the usual cry of the Socialist Party, "Vote the Co-operative Commonwealth" lacks for them any practicality. So far as they can see, those who seek that world commonwealth, are, sadly, in a small minority at the polls. The future society comes only at the desire and with the consent of the proletariat.

 

Marxism comprises of a recognition of the class struggle, the materialistic conception of history, and the labour theory of value and surplus value. We stand uncompromisingly against capitalism and all of its institutions that prop up, apologise for, or buttress in any manner the present system, whether frankly capitalistic enterprises or cloaked as municipal or government ownership. We shall unite all our energies to destroy the present capitalist system and establish the cooperative commonwealth. We are thus headed towards happiness. Loving care must take the place of the spoliation and destruction of mankind’s environment. This is the inescapable task and responsibility of the World Socialist Movement. We know how to produce but capitalism can not produce without criminal waste. It is frightening the socially irresponsible ownership bent exclusively on profits. In the face of dogmas, of despots, and of charlatans, the socialist future belongs to reason. Our cause today is a vision of humanity crossing into a new world, a world free of exploitation, ignorance and strife. Our  vision is a vision of a country free forever from want, from race and national hatred and from sexual oppression and human exploitation. That vision is a vision of a country where the ever-expanding material and cultural needs of the people are satisfied by an ever-new technology that has freed humanity from toil. The vision is one of peace and social harmony. Today, the level of the means of production makes realising this cause possible. 

“I got no flag. I got no country.”

 

Many people think that no matter what the geographic and social conditions, “human nature” is always greedy and aggressive. The Socialist Party, however, concludes that a basic aspect of “human nature” is the drive, and the never-ending struggle to be free and to live in solidarity and harmony with one another, in other words, to be happy.

Many will argue that greed and selfishness are essential parts of “human nature” that any socialist sharing of the wealth is impossible. Obviously being greedy and selfish  runs rampant within present-day society, but it has not always been that way. Greed (like human nature) has a history. For generations we lived in a “primitive communist” sharing society. In many societies private ownership of land was unknown. Later when we were existing in a class-divided society, people were continually and constantly trying to throw off the yoke of exploitation and oppression. Greed emerges with the onset of class divided society, with enough economic surplus that one person can produce enough to support others (slavery). With the development of exchange value mediated by money, accumulating money became an end in itself.

Capitalism, which has become the epitome of greed and aggression, has created the conditions for potential economic surplus which is so extensive that a true sharing of the wealth (never before seen in history) is possible. Today unheard-of productivity, via automation can potentially free us all from the drudgery of wage-slavery. But. of course. capitalism is only after more and more profits, so liberating mankind from sweat and toil is the furthest away of its aim. In capitalist society a worker is not, in fact, a person at all; but is simply apiece merchandise to be bought in the open market the same a any other form of item merchandise.

Nevertheless, humanity has the ability to to imagine something better, to develop once again a vision of happiness, a sense of fairness and connectedness, loving and living out of enlightened self-interest, enjoying a better world. We need social control over our tremendous means of production and destruction to turn our swords and spears into ploughshares so that we shall experience war no more.

 Nothing is eternal and unchangeable. Human nature is in flux and is variable, and it is socialists who explain the differing forms and varying directions of its change. By showing that the struggle of the classes is at the base of history, Marxism unveils the historical mechanism and shows that every given social form is entirely relative, entirely conditional. Mankind by definition is a social animal who unlike other animals in that he doesn’t merely use nature, but tries to master and control it. Such activity is necessarily social. Not only does labour change man, not only is it a necessary condition of human existence, but labour created man himself. It is literally impossible to think of a human being outside of some labor relationship, apart from some social context, how we lives, loves, dreams, thinks, “projects,” and idealises – is determined basically by the kind of society in which we live in. Classes and social systems succeed each other and differ from each other. 

Humanity has the capacity for love, solidarity, compassion AND the capacity for great aggression and cruelty. Which capacity dominates depends on certain geographic and social conditions. In “primitive” pre-literate clans where there is virtually no economic surplus, there is always sharing of land, resources, products, labor. By necessity (for the clan could not survive with a dog-eat-dog outlook and practice) the capacity for love and solidarity is dominant within the clan – a family of extended families.

This proves the human capacity for love and sharing; the capacity for aggression and cruelty shows up when there is some economic surplus, but not enough for the whole tribe or nation to share the wealth. Here we find tribal wars over limited hunting grounds, cannibalism, and slavery. This is class society, the beginning of so-called civilization.

This class-divided aggressive society has been with us for many centuries, perhaps seven thousand years (roughly 210 generations). But what we see during this long period of class domination and severe cruelty and greed is a constant periodic struggle of those who are the oppressed and exploited—a struggle for freedom and justice. We can conclude that a basic aspect of human nature is the drive, the never-ending struggle to be free and to live in solidarity and harmony with one another.

In other words, humans have a drive to live AND a drive to be happy, to live in peace, love and freedom. Is the drive for happiness doomed to be forever frustrated, leaving us stuck indefinitely in the situation of dominant cruelty and aggression? Many people think it is so basic that no matter what the geographic and social conditions, “human nature” is always greedy and aggressive. Many  Christians believe that human nature is “fallen” and cannot extricate itself from “Original Sin.” Thus any historical progress is dependent on divine intervention. 

 Marxists shows not only that socialist society is possible, but also that it is necessary. Collective organisation of labour is possible because it exists. It circles the world. Individual ownership and exploitation is in flagrant contradiction with this collective organisation. From this come crises – catastrophes which demonstrate more and more that the capitalist system is becoming impossible. 

Soon it will be no longer for us to show the possibility of socialism. It will be the task of the partisans of the present tottering capitalist system to prove the possibility of its continuation by any normal and progressive development. Socialists will only expropriate the expropriators. They will restore to society the property which has been stolen from society. We struggle against capitalist property, against the oligarchy of property – the monopoly of the means of production.

WE FIGHT FOR A SOCIETY WITHOUT A BOSS CLASS.

 

WHERE there’s a will, there’s a way. When there is a general will to establish socialism a way will be found. 

Bosses make their profit by taking it out of the labour and sweat of their workers. Classes exist because some men  own the factories and mines and machines, and most of us have to go to work for them. The boss tries to squeeze as much profit out of the worker as he can. The workers tries to gain as close to a living wage out of the boss as we can. And if the workers stopped struggling, they’d just be squeezed more. That’s why there’s a class struggle. There are kind bosses and tough bosses. There were kind slave-masters and cruel ones. The working class wants NO slave-masters and NO bosses. The workers wanted to take end the PROFIT SYSTEM. Wherever a wage worker confronts an employer conflict is born. It’s the old story: you can’t run with the hare and the hounds at the same time. You just can’t reconcile the interests of the workers and the interests of the bosses.

The Socialist Party faces the fact so that society is to be changed that wealth is produced not for money-sale but for the direct satisfaction of the ascertained needs of the whole co-operating community of owning-workers involves a complete change in every detail of social life. We socialists are not a party of deception. We will tell the workers the truth and organise for the destruction of this horrible system and the introduction of a socialist system of society. We say that the working people can make for themselves a better world – if they stop supporting capitalist candidates and capitalist parties.

The idle lives of a minority ruling class can only be maintained by a class-divided society where human labour-power is exploited. Capitalism represents an historical era in which human labor-power is commodified. In the case of the exploitation of slave labour things are exceedingly clear. Slaves, who exist as a sort of animal owned by another human being, have no freedom. Like a dog, a slave is unable to exercise any degree of physical or mental freedom. The products of a slave's labour belong in their entirety to the slave owner. All that is received in return is food.

A peasant, meanwhile, is a sort of half-person. Firmly tied to the land, a peasant cannot choose what to grow or which land to grow it on, nor is he free to choose a profession. To the extent that peasants cultivate the plot of land they are provided, they are able to obtain food, clothing and lodging. But the fruit of their labour on the lord's fields entirely belong to this master, some of the products from the land the peasants themselves cultivate must be paid as a tribute to this lord in-kind.

Under capitalism, however, things are different. Labour-power is commodified and thus sold according to its value. The means of production are also purchased and owned by the capitalist class. Capitalists come into possession of the means of production and labour-power through the process of circulation, as well as the resulting products that likewise flow back to them via the circulation process to meet their needs. Even if everything is bought and sold at its value, capitalists are able to obtain the surplus-labour that forms surplus-value. Granted, for their labour workers make use of raw materials, machinery, and factories owned by the capitalist. These could not be created without the use of the means of production, which were not created by the labour of a particular factory’s workers themselves. But still, workers in a factory somewhere produced them, using whatever machinery and raw materials were necessary. Apart from land, all of the means of production are things that are produced. And since land is not the product of labour, here we will set it aside as a factor. The means of production are also the product of labour. However, they do not represent newly expended labour. Only workers labour anew and expend labour. A company's products can thus be said to contain the labour from the machinery, factories, raw materials, etc. which used prior, and the labour newly expended by the workers.old labor and the new labour -- i.e. dead labour and living labour.

The notion that the country is “our” country – i.e. everybody’s alike, that there is such a thing as nation or community, a mystic something to which we belong and which protects us, is cultivated by the ruling class for the purpose of hiding the fact of class cleavage, of exploitation for the purpose of making the worker patriotic that he believes his interests are the same as for “his” country, instead of the capitalists. Revolutionary actions are directed against the system as a whole – for its overthrow. Revolution must involve a majority of the active population. 

The Socialist Party seeks to build socialism, not on the ruins of civilisation, but on the framework of science and technology placed at the service of all mankind.