Ours to own and to control

The Socialist Cooperative Commonwealth

 Mankind is moving towards a showdown with all the forces of the old order. The patches and piecemeal remedies of the reformers have proved to do no good. An affluent society and prosperity for all is a myth. Although some workers may not be as materially impoverished as in the past, they are actually worse off in relation to the affluence surrounding them.

The great socialist thinkers failed to sketch out in any detail the new socialist society. Instead of blueprinting the new society, they analysed the society in which we now live — capitalist society - discovering the laws governing its motion. They saw the class struggle as the lever of social change, and the modern working class, created by capitalism, as the revolutionary force destined to establish the new social conditions necessary for the full development of mankind. These socialist pioneers foresaw the workers, out of the painful experience, overcoming their divisions and their hesitations, and out of necessity, taking the power from the hands of the capitalist class who now possess it, abolishing the whole state structure that they have developed to serve their interests and forming their own organs of workers’ power. With the disappearance of class antagonisms and the release of the capitalist fetters on the productive forces — the least of which is planned obsolescence, they predicted the availability of plenty for all.

The Socialist Party never thought that a socialist society could be built on the foundations of a backward underdeveloped economy. It saw socialism as the next stage of social evolution, where mankind has developed the means of production capable of supplying every human need. There is no doubt that the working people will prove able to build the democratic institutions necessary to their struggle,  building bodies representing every layer of the population — except the employers. 

Not only will the revolution itself be profoundly democratic, but with its success will come almost instantaneous benefits for all. We could therefore immediately cut out the tremendous wealth that has been wasted in the production of military hardware. Thanks to the tremendous productive capacity we have created, we will be quickly able to satisfy all the basic needs of everyone. There will be no real shortages that would require some kind of policeman to supervise who gets what and no bureaucrats with the possibility of providing special favours that would allow them to gather up connections that would frustrate the democratic process.  The administration of all the key and essential industries will be placed in the hands of those who operate them. For the first time, they would know that their skills and knowledge will be applied entirely for the benefit of mankind. We would see our wealth as part of humanity’s common heritage where the planet’s unparalleled natural resources and productivity, would be produced with no other thought than for the well-being of all peoples.

Racist and nationalist prejudice prejudices that deeply rooted fellow workers in the past were fostered and whipped up by the ruling class to divide the workers and pit them against one another and divert them away from their common enemy - the capitalists.

New technology and the use of artificial intelligence can integrate automation and robotics fully into production and we no longer need to dread redundancy and unemployment. Instead, we have a way to distribute goods and services free according to need.  There is no need for exploiters and exploited where the means of production are owned not by rapacious individuals but by society as a whole with workers cooperating to produce and deciding what they produced, and to whom and how it was distributed.

In such a cooperative commonwealth, production can be planned to fit everyone’s needs. Distribution and everything else in society could be organised socially. There would be more than enough for everyone, and it would be distributed not on the basis of who had the most money but on the basis of who needed it the most. The first requisite of socialism is that the wealth of society has to be taken over by the workers. Socialism will replace our hierarchical, bureaucratic and undemocratic society – capitalism – with a genuine democracy in which the working people control their own delegates who act accordingly. Socialism depends upon control from below and control from below can never be brought about from above. These elements – the self-emancipation of the working class through their own struggle and the democratic society which follows such emancipation – is the heart of socialism.

But the socialist revolution will not happen automatically –nor will the capitalist order despite all its failings going to fall on its own. Revolution must be made by working people. We believe the socialist movement at this time should consciously work toward the formation of a world party.

Socialism is the hope of the workers

 

Socialism is the sole solution to what is called the social question, meaning the question of poverty, the question of exploited labour. Workers cannot remain apathetic in the face of a party who tells them: only we bring the cure to the abuses that you suffer in society. The Socialist Party hold that the exploitation of labour will not disappear until the day the means of production –– land, machinery, and in general, all that serves production –– will be transformed from private property into commonly-owned property.

What is the aim of the Socialist Party? It is to establish socialism. The fundamental feature of a socialist society is that all the means of production – transport, the mines and mills, the factories – are owned by the people and the goods that are produced, are produced for use. Under the present system, which we call capitalist, the means of production are owned by private persons or corporations and they operate their industries not because people need the goods that they produce but because they want to make a profit. No one will be permitted to own any productive wealth and thus exploit others. There are no classes under socialism – that is, there is no class that owns the wealth and no class that is exploited. Today a worker has only labour power and  sells that to someone who owns machinery and he or she gets a wage in return and the man who owns the machinery makes a profit out of the labour power. That is what socialists term exploitation of labour.  

Given a society that produces enough to satisfy the needs of all human beings, the struggle for the means of life will be abolished. A society that produces enough to satisfy the reasonable needs of people will do away with all the brutal struggles characterising present-day society. With  socialism people will be educated not to think of profit but of service to society. Great scientists even now do not work in their laboratories because they expect to make millions of dollars; they work because they are interested in science. We want a socialist society where all the productive wealth is owned in common and there is no exploitation. We want a social revolution. A new social system gives birth to new ideas. Society cannot be changed by the mere desire of a small group to change it. It must, in the first instance, be ripe for a change and in the second instance the majority must understand the necessity for a change.

 “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.”

If we are expecting the majority to accept our ideas, we cannot conceal those ideas. Our task is to inform our fellow workers of our ideas and that our solution to the problems of mankind are correct and so it is impossible to use force against the masses. We can use only the power of persuasion and no other power. You can realise how absurd it is to accuse the Socialist Party of advocating violence. One thing that convinced us to join the socialist movement, it is a hatred of the violence that exists in society – the violence of war– the violence which condemns working people to hunger because of the poverty. Everywhere in society there is violence of one sort or another, culminating in the dreadful violence which sacrifices millions of human beings. It is this violence that drives us into a movement which has as its aim the creation of a world free from violence, where human beings will cooperate in the production of goods to satisfy their needs, where peace and security will prevail.

Mankind must take control of social forces and determine the operation of those social forces. We want a majority of the people to accept our ideas, why should we advocate a violent change from capitalism to socialism? The fact that we want a majority of the people to accept our ideas proves beyond all doubt that we want a peaceful transformation. The Socialist Party desires to have a majority of the people on its side.  If we want a majority of the people, as we do, to accept our ideas, then we must be in favour of a peaceful dismantling of the State. The existence of bourgeois political democracy offers a chance to achieve socialism in a peaceful manner. We want to take over the means of production peacefully. We are not pacifists. But to accuse us of wanting and advocating violence is to accuse us of something that is against our very principles.

For the Socialist Party internationalism is the very heart of socialism. We conceive of the world as an economic unit. No nation, no matter how wealthy or powerful, can separate itself from the rest of the world. We are not isolationists. We do not believe that it is possible to isolate this country from the rest of the world.  socialism is a world system under which all lands  and all peoples will cooperate to produce enough goods to satisfy the reasonable needs of every human being. Every country will produce that which it is best fitted to produce. If a region  can produce good machinery then let it not busy itself with producing agricultural products. Let some other country best fitted for the production of agricultural products produce those products and exchange its products for the machines produced by another country. Peace will come to a world cooperating in this way, which will be made possible only by socialism, which will do away with colonies and markets. The Socialist Party rejects the idea that one nation or one people is superior to any other nation or any other people. To us all human beings are equal. The prejudices that exist are a product of the social system and not inherent in human nature. The unity of mankind will be made possible and real under a socialist society which will do away with economic conflicts. Our party belongs to the World Socialist Movement.

The senseless suffering and death of millions of human beings are not abstractions to ourselves.  We feel the pain of our fellow workers and we react by trying to create a world where destruction and war and poverty and disease will not be the fate of humanity. We proclaim to the world that it is possible to build a new social system guaranteeing every human being a decent livelihood and a chance to develop ones individuality, free from economic worries, free from the dangers of war. We say mankind must go forward to socialism or else back to barbarism. we try to stir up the people. We try to bring them a message of hope that a new world is possible and can easily be created if only they take their future into their own hands, a new world where hunger, war and the destruction of the environment will be unknown. There is no road other than socialism that will bring for mankind a peaceful prosperous planet. If the capitalist system is permitted to endure, the inevitable result will be continuous agony, sobbing and wailing amid tears and blood.

The Socialist Party still holds hope that the people will come to accept the ideas of socialism.

Common Ownership and Community - Not Capitalism and Competition

 

Socialism is a  society in which all the members of the community collectively determine their conditions of life and their way of living. In order to do so, they must control, collectively, the use to which machines, factories, raw materials – all the means of production – are put. Unless the means of production are effectively in the hands of the whole society, not where 1 per cent of the population owns most of the wealth, there can be no question of the collective control of the conditions of life.

 Every capitalist competes with every other one for a market. When they sell similar goods, their competition is obvious. Even when they sell altogether different goods, like TV sets and houses, they still compete for the limited wage packet of the worker. If one capitalist does not compete, he is lost. To grow the Capitalist must first squeeze out his weaker competitors and add their capital to his – centralisation of capital – or make as much profit as possible from his current sales and reinvest it – accumulation of capital. The first method is of no direct interest to the worker as it matters very little who the boss is. If the capitalists want to fight things out amongst themselves, it is their business. It is of little interest for another reason: it adds nothing to the productive powers of society; the national wealth does not grow as a result of it. In fact, all it leads to is the concentration of the same amount of wealth in fewer and fewer hands.

The accumulation of capital has made capitalist society the dominant form of society in the world. This is what affects the worker most directly. How do capitalist firms accumulate? Where does the money which they reinvest come from?

In order to produce commodities for the market, every capitalist must buy other commodities which he uses in production. The things he buys are mainly: machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods, and labour-power. Machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods, although an item of expenditure on the part of one capitalist, are commodities sold by other capitalists and appear as part of their incomes. Those capitalists also spend money on machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods and labour-power, the money spent on machines, raw materials and semi-finished goods being the income of yet another group of capitalists who spend money on ... and so on indefinitely. Whenever one capitalist spends money on machines, etc., that money is part of the income of other capitalists who then hand it over to yet other capitalists for machines, etc. If all the capitalists belonged to one great trust these transactions would not take place and the only buying and selling that there would be is the buying of labour-power by the capitalists and the selling of it by the workers and technicians in exchange for wages and salaries. Taken all in all, the capitalist class (not the individual capitalist) has only one expense – buying labour-power. Whatever remains to that class after its purchase of labour-power is profit (surplus value).

Part of the capitalist’s expenditure which is spent on machines, raw materials and unfinished goods goes the rounds from one capitalist to another in a perpetual circle – this is the social wealth that has already been created. If the productive forces of capitalism were to remain static and not increase, this expenditure would appear like a constant, fixed fund thrown from hand to hand in an endless relay race of production, each capitalist handing on to the next the exact amount required to renew his stock of machines and raw materials. No profit would be made on such sales as each capitalist would swap exactly that amount of machines, etc., for an equivalent amount, and, when all the exchanges were done with, everyone would be where he started.

There is, however, one item of expenditure which makes all the difference, namely, wages and salaries – the expenditure on labour-power. This expenditure is the only one that is not a transfer of goods already produced from one capitalist to another. It is the only item of expenditure that is productive in the dual sense of producing the wealth of society and in the sense of producing profits for the capitalist. Labour alone produces wealth.

The capitalist controls the physical means of production; the workers control nothing but themselves, the capacity to work. They are driven to work, to sell their labour-power to the capitalist, in order to keep themselves and their families. When they sell, they demand a ‘living wage’ for their labour-power, and, if unions are strong and there is not much unemployment, they usually get it. Of course, there are exceptions, but by and large, for the working class as a whole, this is true.

If the worker produced exactly that amount of products which he could buy for his weekly wage plus what would replace the raw materials and machinery used up in its production, the capitalist would clearly not make a profit. Profit can only be made when the workers produce more than their wage bill and the depreciation of machinery and the depletion of stocks of raw materials put together, i.e. when they produce surplus value, value over and above the wages necessary to maintain themselves and their families.

The existence of these profits makes the world the Hell it is.

Socialist Standard No. 1404 August 2021

 

SS AUGUST 2021 PDF

• Editorial

• Pathfinders

• Letter

• Cooking the Books 1

• Material World

• Where is Labour going?

• George Galloway: would-be Populist Leader

• Countdown to COP26

• What is Marxism?

• Capitalism ‘bad’, socialism ‘good’

• The Beef Chain

• Cooking the Books 2

• Proper Gander

• Book Reviews

• 50 Years Ago

• Obituary – Robert Vallar

• Meetings

• Rear View