Socialist Decision–making

 

Within the growing movements against war, for social justice, and for an ecologically sustainable society there is an increasing sense of understanding that capitalism can only create a world of war, injustice and environmental destruction.  There is however widespread confusion and most lack a vision of what might replace today’s society.  The World Socialist Movement (WSM)proposes a vision in which socially validated needs form the basis of production and in which democratic bodies resolve conflicts over whether a need is socially validated or harmful. This contrasts with the market vision in which production continues on a commodity basis. 

Such a society provides a framework for coping with any emerging environmental crisis, as it does not require perpetual growth. It offers a different view of what kind of new world to aim for.

No one will need to, nor be able to, sell their labour-power. This is the minimum criterion for a society based on socially validated need, since selling one’s labour-power makes it (and its products) into commodities with exchange value. People will nonetheless work, not out of a need to get pay in order to live, but as part of their expected duty to others and, hopefully to an increasing extent, because we are able to re-design work so we will enjoy much of it. An enormous amount of our lives under capitalism is shaped by the need to save time so we can use it on long commutes to work, on long hours working, and on shopping for clothes and other things we need to get and hold a job. Instead,  we will want to value friendships wherever we work, and in our communities, and having time to think and contemplate our lives. This can give more of us time to enjoy ourselves.  We can reorganise our lives around producing for use rather than producing commodities to exchange, we can get away from a culture of competition and compulsive consumption and start to build a society and culture where we can care for each other and enjoy time talking and playing together.

The WSM proposes that we will establish systems of democratic and widely-participatory workplace councils and neighbourhood councils to make and carry out a wide range of local decisions, likely to involve direct democracy to a large degree. We will need to establish higher-level democratic decision-making bodies based more on delegates.

Production will not be buying and selling. To be clear, the process is neither exchange nor barter but rather a distribution, because those getting the products do not pay, trade or in other ways reimburse those distributing them.

The distribution of products and services will have to be based upon need. This means that if a community, person, or workplace needs steel, rice, a laptop or special tools, they have the right to ask for it from those who can provide it. It also means that those they ask will see themselves as having a duty to provide for this need if they really can do so and if they do not see fulfilling these needs as harmful.  If someone needs something, and it can be provided, it will be unless this will create an undue hardship for the producers or for others with more priority who might have to wait for the product, or if we think the product or need is in itself harmful. In such instances of disagreement, the issue will go to adjudicators for a democratically-based decision. Once in place and up and running, this system of free access and production for use should be able to provide everyone with the decent living standard 

We have always maintained that the spread of socialist ideas does not depend upon the existence of the WSM, but that they arise from the system under which we have to live. It is understandingly disappointing to ourselves that month after month, year after year, our fellow workers appear to be too satisfied with the capitalist system — or too apathetic — to want to put an end to it. They seem to look with an almost fatalistic resignation that they will still continue to live under capitalism and will have to suffer the worries and indignities of that system.  The WSM seeks to cultivate a  world-consciousness, for workers to realise their common position as inhabitants of the planet earth which the capitalists will continue to divide and rule.

It should go without saying, moreover, that there is absolutely no justification in the world today for the many hundreds of millions of hungry and homeless. It’s not only unnecessary, it’s a crime against humanity.  A planned economy would increase productive forces and would permit a swift switch from the capitalist economic system to the socialist mode of production and distribution according to the principle—from each according to ability and to each according to need.

An Alternative Vision

 The socialist revolution will be very much unlike previous revolutions, such as the change from feudalism to capitalism.

The socialist revolution will be crucially different in that ‘All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.’ (Communist Manifesto).

 The objective is common ownership of the means of life, with the consequent abolition of wage labour and free access to the necessities of life, making the use of money redundant.  In collaboration with fellow workers across the world, our aim is to abolish classes and build world socialism. Marxism’s basic starting point is that the working class is capable of overthrowing the capitalist system and establishing a socialist society.

The basic cause of capitalist ills is the right to private property, the right to exploit, the right to rob, the right to, the right to compete, and the right to start wars.  Instead of private property,  common ownership of the means of production so all may enjoy the fruit of their collective labour.

The present structure of society — capitalism — with its pretensions to democracy on the one hand, and its economic rivalries squabbling over the spoils are all based on the exploitation of the working class.

The unity of mankind is an age-old aspiration.  Overcoming the divisions and conflicts among peoples in this world is not Utopian.  Universal harmony cannot become real until there are no rich and no poor within any country and no rich nations draining the lifeblood from the poor ones. Society is not the product of human nature. Human nature, good, bad, or indifferent, is the product of society. The qualities of human beings are endlessly changeable. Society makes people what they are. If society shapes people, people, in turn, can reshape society through their collective efforts. People in the socialist future will be able to recreate anew one's personality thanks to the abolition of all forced labour. Only then, when all our time becomes free, to do with as we please and unstintingly cultivate our distinctively human qualities. We can only dimly surmise what human beings with such highly organised social consciousness and material powers will be like. They will produce wonders.

Socialism is an economic system based upon conscious planning of production by associated producers (nowhere does Marx say: by the state), made possible by the abolition of private property of the means of production. As soon as that private property is completely abolished, goods produced cease to be commodities. Value and exchange value disappear. Production becomes production for use, for the satisfaction of needs, determined by conscious choice of the mass of the associated producers themselves. A reduction of the working day, so that most of humanity can spend three to four hours a day in the production of goods or provision of services and another three to four hours a day in the work of social self-administration, is premised on material abundance and development of the productivity of labour.

The socialist vision of a future society based upon the abolition of material scarcity is objected to by some environmentalists that it would place an unsustainable strain on the resources of the planet and lead to an ecological disaster. The immediate abolition of the arms industry alone would free up tremendous resources for socially useful production (based upon renewable energy sources, environmentally safe technologies, etc.) that could provide an adequate standard of living for the bulk of the world’s population without thrusting new demands upon the finite capacities of the earth. Workers have a direct interest in developing production techniques and manufacturing processes that will not harm health or foul the air and water that all must breathe and drink.

No incentive will be needed anymore to induce people to work. ‘Labour’ will have transformed itself into meaningful many-fold activity, making possible all-around development of each individual’s human personality. The division of labour between manual and intellectual labour, the separation of town and countryside, will wither away. Humankind will be organised into a free federation of producers’ and consumers’ communes.

The Socialist Party is not out to create a bloody revolution. Its understanding of social science teaches it that in the long run, progress can only be attained by changing basic social relations, by a shift in ownership and control from the few to the many, an all-embracing form is socialisation when the whole of society is changed by the elimination of the private ownership of the entire means of production, socialism. The cooperative commonwealth functions without disorder or confusion.

Socialists want to build, not destroy.

 

A look at history will reveal the story of misery, exploitation and oppression, barbarism, cruelty, rebellion and repression. A tiny minority have lived in luxury and splendour while the majority have struggled merely to subsist and survive.

The World Socialist Movement’s fundamental principles are the same in all lands, irrespective of nationality, colour, sex or age. The WSM recognises no national boundary lines. The place in which one lives embraces the working class of the world. Every worker everywhere is brother and sister. Across the borders of all lands, socialists clasp hands as comrades. The Socialist Party is the only party that honestly stands for economic justice. Socialism means that all those things upon which the people in common depend shall by the people in common be owned and administered; that all production shall be for use; that the making of goods for profit shall come to an end; that we shall all be workers together.

The campaign of the Socialist Party is and will be wholly educational. To arouse the consciousness of the workers to their economic interests as a class, to develop their capacity for clear thinking, to achieve their solidarity industrially and politically is to invest the working class with the inherent power it possesses to abolish the wage system and free itself from every form of servitude, and this is the mighty mission of the socialist movement. We shall not compromise, nor shall we be deflected in the least by any consideration from the straight road to the cooperative commonwealth. 

The Socialist Party is the only party that does not want a vote that is not intelligently cast. No vote is wanted on account of the popularity or personality of a candidate.It is the value of the socialist principle that is taught and emphasised, and if this is not understood and approved the vote is not wanted. Mere dislike and disgust with other parties is not sufficient reason for voting for the Socialist Party. Principles are paramount and the personal qualities and qualifications of the candidates are the last and least consideration. Socialists are not seeking some mythical Moses to lead them to a fabled promised land, nor do they expect any so-called “great man” to sacrifice himself upon the altar of the country for their salvation. Socialists have determined to be their own leaders and to save themselves. They put their trust in principles, knowing that these will not betray them.

The Socialist Party addresses itself to the working class, seeking to develop the consciousness of that class, while it appeals to the ballot for the realisation of its cooperative commonwealth. It is the only party that is unequivocally committed to their economic interests, to the abolition of the wage system and the freedom of the worker from exploitation and every other species of servitude. One class is small and rich and the other large and poor. One consists of capitalists and the other of workers. These two classes are at war. Every day of truce is at the expense of labour. There can be no peace between these two essentially antagonistic economic classes. Nor can this class conflict be covered up or smoothed over.

 

The Socialist Party is the party of the workers, who are on the right side of this worldwide struggle, and, although a minority today, it contains all the elements of self-development and will expand to majority proportions to inaugurate the impending change as certain as the forces of industrial evolution is undermining the present system and making that change inevitable. The Socialist Party is the party of the present and of the immediate future. It believes that the competitive system has outlived its usefulness, that it has become an obstruction in the path of progress, that, like feudalism, from which it sprang, it must pass away to make room for its cooperative successor.

 The Socialist Party stands for the abolition of the wage system, for the economic freedom as well as the political equality of the working class, knowing that without the former the latter is impossible. The Socialist Party stands for the common ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution and the operation of industry in the interest of all. The Socialist Party stands for the industry of the people, by the people and for the people, that wealth may be produced for the use of all instead of for the profit of a few. The Socialist Party stands for the full enjoyment of economic freedom, shall have the full opportunity, in the best possible environment, to develop the best there is in people for their own good as well as the good of society at large.

Social Democracy not Social Despotism

 

For as long as anyone can remember, the ruling class have paraded one political representative after another promising peace with prosperity, while subjected hundreds of millions around the world to pillage and plunder. There is no other way to put it but that it has been a whole system of legalised robbery and murder, slavery and suffering. There is another path–the road forward to resistance and the revolutionary overthrow of the oppressors. The sooner the people of the world understand that it is impossible for any government to lay the foundation for peace and prosperity, the sooner will they find the way to do it for themselves. There is but one way to get peace and prosperity. Socialism is the path. This century will see the burial of capitalism and the birth of the world socialist community.

A study of human society shows distinctly different methods of producing and distributing the wealth that maintains such a society. Production is carried on today for the world’s markets, and profit is derived from the unpaid labour of workers who sell their energy in the labour market as a commodity. Socialism stands for the abolition of exploitation, it stands for the abolition of capital. We want the world for the workers.

The working class is the heir of all the defrauded and dispossessed generations of the past. Socialism indicts capitalism as an obstacle to progress and civilisation. The Socialist Party challenges the right of capitalism to exist, and boldly proclaims socialism as the legitimate successor of the present order. Socialism includes among the world’s workers all those who work with hand or brain in the production of life’s necessities and luxuries. The world’s workers have always been and still are the world’s slaves.; they have produced all the world’s wealth. Economic slavery is the world’s greatest curse today. Poverty misery and crime are their inevitable results. The Socialist Party is the one party that stands squarely and uncompromisingly for the abolition of industrial slavery; the one party pledged in every fibre of its being to the economic freedom of all the people. There are no boundaries to separate nationality from nationality, colour from colour, gender from gender in the Socialist Party. Every human being is entitled to what labour produces, and to an equal chance with every other human being to develop mind and soul. So long as the resources and productive and distributive machinery are the private property of a privileged class the people will be at their mercy, poverty will be their lot. The Socialist Party is the only party that declares that the tools of labour belong to labour and that the wealth produced by the working class belongs to the working class.

The Socialist Party make no pretence of attempting to serve both capitalists and workers. With the interests of the owners of the production and distribution, the Socialist Party have no concern, except to abolish that ownership. The Socialist Party calls upon fellow workers to join in the overthrow of capitalism through capturing the powers of government and legally transferring the ownership of the world from capitalism to socialism and end the indescribable corruption of capitalist cant and chicanery. The capitalist class is organized economically and politically to keep the working class in subjection and perpetuate its power as a ruling class. The capitalists can enslave and rob the workers only by the consent of the workers when they cast their ballots on election day. Every vote cast for a capitalist party, whatever its name, is a vote for wage slavery, for poverty and degradation. Every vote cast for the Socialist Party is a vote for emancipation.

“Each for all and all for each” is no utopian dream not the product of imagination, nor a mirage of the desert to allure and vanish. Socialism deals with the possible, with the practical of everyday life.  There is a way out. It takes realism, it takes clear thinking, and it takes courage. It requires the road to a real, socialist, solution. It is written that “hope springs eternal in the human breast,” and it is also written that “hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” The millions of wage-workers do not own themselves, they are wage-slaves, and their masters control their lives and subject them to conditions as degrading as those which existed in times of chattel slavery. True it is that the united forces of labour could make themselves masters of the situation and change conditions to their liking, but divided they have done the bidding of the capitalist class, and have been misled and betrayed by ignorant and dishonest leaders until hope has all but perished.

Socialism offers a remedy for social ills. It strikes at the very root of capitalism by proposing to transfer the means of production and distribution, i.e., the land, mines, factories, transport and communication networks, from capitalists to the whole people to be operated by them in their collective capacity for the good of all, and this it proposes to do by the ballot of a triumphant majority of awakened, class-conscious supporters. The revolution is to be complete, but it is to be achieved by the ballot. 

Socialism’s emancipation programme includes no bloody ordeals. Its banners are those inscribed with solidarity with fellow workers and class war on the masters. Its first great proposition is to educate workers to free themselves from domination by doing their own thinking and being conscious of their common interests in the economic struggle.

Social reorganisation is the demand for the Socialist Party. Its mission is not only to end capitalist despotism but to establish industrial and social democracy. The Socialist Party is the party of progress, the party of the future, and its triumph will signal the birth of a new civilisation and the dawn of a happier day for all humanity.