Socialism is for ourselves

Capitalism produces and perpetuates poverty and hatred.  Wherever capital rules it constitutes an instrument of domination over the vast majority of the population. 

Malthusians believe that the meagre resources of the earth would be insufficient for the needs of an ever-increasing population. As a result the vast majority of mankind would always be condemned to exist at the lowest level. Marx utterly repudiated this notion and showed that the evils of Capitalism flowed from the way it produced and distributed wealth. Marx denied that there was some abstract law of population. Different societies he contended would have different laws. Over-population, said Marx, was intimately connected with the growth of capital accumulation and took the form of relative over population i.e. an industrial reserve army.

That capitalism did regulate levels of wages, Marx did not deny; wages could not, he thought, proceed to levels which seriously threatened surplus-value, or eliminated it, but this had nothing to do with the Malthusian doctrine of an iron law of wages. Marx did not believe in an iron law of wages which maintains wages at a mere physical subsistence level. In fact, he devoted much time against Lassalle and others to show the falsity of such views.

There are many politicians appealing for your support to-day. Some of them do so with the claim that they are socialists, but you have no touch-stone to guide your judgment. You are bewildered by the multitude of political parties who all claim that their object is to help you. In fact, there is only one way out of your dilemma—to help yourself by gaining a little knowledge of the society you are living in; its basis, its capacities, and its contradictions, the Socialist Party.

A society is a group of individuals bound together by a common principle. The larger sense in which the word society is generally used refers to the common principle of obtaining a living. Whatever is referred to as “social" concerns a person in connection with others. Thus when we say a thing is socially produced we mean that a number of people produce different parts of an article and their combined efforts produce the finished article. That is the way almost all we eat, drink and wear, is produced to-day, and workers from all over the world produce different parts of the final product. No capitalist need spend an hour in this work, and very rarely does. But by reason of their ownership of the means of production the capitalists, as a class, own the products. Thus the products are socially produced but privately owned.

You are living in a society today in which the things produced, and the tools by means of which they are produced, are privately owned: that is, owned by one individual or by a relatively small group of individuals—either a single capitalist a small group of capitalists, or the capitalist investors in a State concern. The aim of the Socialist Party is to make these things social property; to convert these privately owned goods and tools into goods and tools commonly owned by the whole of society. One  who acts in such a way as to bring this state of affairs into being is a socialist: one who acts in a way that hinders progress to this end is evidently not a socialist, no matter what he may call himself.

Owing to the private ownership of the means of production the majority of the people of this country are unable to obtain the things they need except by working for those that own them; the capitalist class. These two types, owners and non-owners, masters and workers, broadly speaking make up modern society. They form two distinct classes, one of whom depends for a living upon working and the other upon owning what is produced.

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You, to whom we address these lines, belong to the working class. Whether you are paid wages or a salary, you depend for your living upon selling your mental and physical energies to an employer. Between you and your employers there exists a constant struggle over the destination of the wealth you produce. By wage-claims, strikes, or threatened strikes, you struggle to obtain as large a share of the wealth you produce as possible. It is a share you think of, you don*t think of obtaining the whole, because you think of and argue about a “high” or a “low" wage. Your thoughts are bound up with the wages system. The employers on their side resist your wage claims and try to pay you as low wages as possible. This struggle over the division of the wealth you produce is an expression of what the Socialist Party calls the class war.

As long as you accept the present class ownership basis of society there is no hope of a fundamental improvement in your conditions. Wars, recessions, bad housing and the other evils that are a permanent feature of your lives will continue, no matter what political party is in power. There is only one road to salvation—the establishment of socialism. When the wealth produced, and the tools by which it has been produced, have been made into the common property of society there will be no more war, nor will anyone lack either food or shelter. Each will give to society the best and receive in return the best society can give, regardless of age, sex or occupation.

We are members of the working class, and we want you to join us and help us to carry on the struggle for socialism. Why are we anxious for your help? We are in the same mess as you are, and we cannot get out of the mess except in the same way as you. We want socialism because it offers us the only means of leading secure, healthy and comfortable lives; but we cannot get socialism until we want it. Therefore we want you to want socialism and to join with us in the struggle to obtain it: then we will all have an equal opportunity of enjoying the best that life can offer.

What Being A Socialist Means

 

SOCIALIST EDUCATION

Capitalism, twist and turn how it may, is dogged and thwarted by inherent contradictions. The establishment of socialism alone can ensure the utter and complete annihilation of poverty. Progress towards socialism is not helped but hindered by propaganda which represents as socialism what is no more than Labour Party administration of capitalism. We do not argue that Labour Governments fail in their task of administering capitalism through want of will or bad faith. They may be well-intentioned but the road to capitalist crises and capitalist war is paved with the good intentions of social reformers.

We live in a society wherein a comparatively small section, by virtue of its ownership of the mines, mills, factories, railways, warehouses, etc., is able to acquire a mass of commodities by exploiting the larger non-possessing section of society—i.e., the working class.

 

But unless each competing section of the capitalist class can ensure a large and ready sale of their commodities by keeping down, and even lowering, their commodity prices, they will find themselves ousted by other competitors. Capitalists, therefore, to keep up the sales that will ensure large profits, must undercut their rivals.

 

This can be done in two ways—by lowering wages, or by reducing the amount of labour spent on the production of their commodities. The lowering of wages, however, has, from the capitalist viewpoint, this disadvantage—wages cannot profitably be lowered below the level that will maintain a standard of satisfactory working fitness.

 

Therefore, in order to reduce the prices of their commodities, capitalists find themselves mainly reliant upon reducing the amount of labour embodied in commodity production. The only means of doing this is by displacing human labour by machinery.

 

Thus we find sections of the capitalist class competing keenly against each other in the introduction of new technology, by which means alone they can appreciably lower their commodity prices and thus capture the trade of their rivals.

 

Only the introduction of such machinery will assist in retaining that essential in capitalist competition—a rate of profit that will prevent being ousted from the competitive field.

 

Only such machinery, therefore, will be in great demand by the capitalist class, and the competition to secure this machinery will send up its price and bring a rich reward to the owner of the invention. On the other hand, machinery that will bring benefits to mankind will not be in great demand unless it also aids the raising or maintaining of profits. Inventors and scientists, therefore, faced by the fact that only the ideas that will fill a capitalist need will bring ample payment, are, in the main, compelled to concentrate on such ideas. When the competition for trade, fields of exploitation, etc., can be divided by the border-lines of the competing countries, you will find the capitalists of each country uniting against the menace of being ousted by a capitalism from outside.

 

So urgent is the need for capitalist countries to expand their markets, and secure new fields for trade that the strings of diplomacy are overstrained, and finally break, throwing the people of the opposing nations into the blood-drenched arenas of modern war. When this happens the most urgent need of sectional capitalism is for its own nationalistic entity to survive against the nations that threaten it. Thus the individualistic competition within the opposing countries is, temporarily, almost abandoned, and every muscle is strained to achieve a greater task for national capitalism—i.e., winning the war. In this manner the demand for labour-saving machinery is almost entirely displaced by the demand for machinery most effective in the prosecution of the war; machinery, in short, that would be most destructive against the opposing country. Thus, although certain machinery will certainly throw many men out of work, or bring new horror into warfare, scientists, in order to live, are compelled by capitalism to create such machinery.

 

Not until capitalism is ended and replaced by socialism will there be a welcome for all mechanisation beneficial to society. Only then will inventors and scientists be unrestricted by the question, “Will it be profitable to the capitalist class?”

 

Some of those who use the technique of setting one body of worker against another know exactly what they are doing. They know that capitalism will be safe enough while workers can be divided by nationality, colour, religion, sex, skill, craft or any other side-tracking characteristic. Others are the muddle-headed dupes who cannot see the use that is being made of them. They might start by asking themselves exactly what principle they think should underlie the claim they make. Is it the principle of equality for all? If so, they will find our masters their bitter enemies. Or is it the principle that while it is most important to have equality between disabled men and disabled women, between men wage-earners and women wage-earners, there is nothing wrong with a system which breeds vast inequality between the classes, between the wealthy property owners and the poverty-stricken workers? 

Clarifying the Socialist Concept

 

The Socialist Party desires a new social system. That is to say,  a world-wide social order egalitarian  in character, where the means of living are the common possession of all, and freedom of access to all that society can produce, and where full participation in all that society does is the norm: Of necessity it will be a society where free co-operation and organisation has been taken to its logical conclusion, and where coercion has died a natural death. For obviously in a world where one can help oneself freely to the needs of life there can be no economic domination of one  over another  and all organisation must be of the free kind.

As socialism will be a world-wide affair; it can only be brought about by socialists throughout the world organising on a world-wide scale. In other words, a socialist is not only someone who desires socialism, but also a person who understands capitalism in a general sense, and sees the need for working in an organised fashion to get rid of it, to replace the system with a socialist one. What is even more to the point, is that a socialist is one who not only works in an organised fashion to bring about socialism, but who expects to work in an organised fashion within socialist society.

Too often members of the Socialist Party have heard it said, “ I am all for a world where I can help myself freely to whatever is produced, as I would be able to lie around all day.”

Apart from the fact that no human being is naturally lazy, if a majority of people wanted socialism and were in the above category it could not be established. Socialism is a society where all people's needs will be satisfied; this can only take place if there is a majority of people throughout the world who understand that they must co-operate together to produce enough to satisfy all people’s needs. In other words FREE ACCESS. This state of affairs could not be brought about by a bunch of people who only want to laze around.

To recapitulate, socialism can only be brought about throughout the world by a majority of people who understand the system under which they live. Understand what it is they are going to put in its place; desire it and are prepared to co-operate in an organised fashion to establish such a system, and work within it, once it is established.

The Socialist Party has consistently pointed out that nationalisation is no more than capitalism run by the State or its nominees. It has nothing to do with socialism. The worker is propertyless; therefore he or she is forced to sell their ability to work to the “owners of capital": and if the owners of capital cannot make a profit out of that work, they will not employ them. Instead, it is the dole. And this is the case whether he works in an industry run by private or by State capitalism. And yet the left-wing political parties demand further doses of nationalisation! Will they never learn?

The aim of the Socialist Party is to see socialism established everywhere but our campaigning for socialism is hampered by the belief, held by some people, that socialism existed in Russia. There is no truth in this whatsoever. There was never socialism (or communism) in Russia. What Russia had was a regime of dictatorship, administering what can best be described as a largely State Capitalist social system. The State apparatus was controlled by the Communist Party of Russia, the only political party that is allowed to exist in that country. Farcical so-called elections are held, but, as the workers of Russia were not allowed to form political parties of their own choice, only members of the Communist Party and those approved by them were permitted to stand at election and be elected.

The Disappearing Peasant: Agriculture in EEC (1973)

 From the June 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard 

So you think you’ve got problems! Undoubtedly many workers are worried about Britain’s entry into the Common Market (EEC) and the effect this may have on jobs and prices, but whatever the problems may be they will be chickenfeed compared to those which the EEC capitalists and their political representatives have had to, and will continue to, grapple with.

Although the current monetary crisis and the fallout with the United States have provided the recent headlines there can be absolutely no doubt that the biggest headache for the EEC is that of agriculture. The root cause is the existence of too many farmers producing too dearly. The various governments, especially those in France and West Germany, would love to drastically reduce the number but the snag is that the farmers have votes so governments must handle the whole affair with kid gloves.

This is why the member nations are paying these farmers inflated prices. What happens is that each year prices for most agricultural products are fixed in advance, but should the market price fall below the agreed level then national agencies step in to buy the produce at a slightly lower or “fall back” price. Of course the EEC farmers haven’t been slow to take advantage of this and the effect has been to encourage increased production which they know will be taken off their hands whether it can be sold or not.

Expensive Independence

In France alone the government had to pay its farmers £390 millions for surplus products in 1969 and the other five EEC nations had to provide them with another £115 millions from the fund which The Six have set up for such a purpose. This fund is provided out of taxation and also from the duties collected from food imports from countries outside the EEC, and this second source was one of the points which the British government was haggling over during the negotiations to join. After all, Britain is a large food importer and will have to watch all that lovely duty vanishing into the pockets of continental farmers. To aggravate matters Britain’s small but highly developed agriculture industry is unlikely to qualify for very much back from the fund so what is happening is that the nations which have rationalized their agriculture are subsidizing those which have not.

But even France’s own pay-out of £390 millions came out of taxation and since this derives mostly from industry which could be doing with the money itself for modernization to make it more competitive with, say, America and Japan, then there is a big impetus to cut this burden by getting rid of surplus farmers and their produce.

In Britain the rural population was decimated by the land enclosure of the 14th, 16th, and 18th centuries while the period of free-trade in the 19th century completed the rout by enabling cheap foreign food imports to all but ruin British agriculture. In Europe enclosures didn’t happen to anywhere near the same extent and there was no similar era of free-trade so the rural population remained extremely large. In Britain the percentage of the working population engaged in 1970 was only 3 per cent.

The situation is worsened by the tradition of inheritance. In Britain the system of primogeniture (eldest takes all) was long the rule but in France and West Germany the tendency was for the land to be divided up among all the sons. This has created smaller, more numerous farms which simply aren’t economic. In Britain the average farm in 1970 comprised 91.3 acres while in France it was 51.9, 28.9 in West Germany and only 19 in Italy, so the drive is on to consolidate the smaller farms into fewer, enlarged farms to make use of modem methods and machinery. As France’s premier, Chaban Delmas, said in 1969, “agriculture should be run competitively like an industry”.

Naturally the smaller farmers don’t like this since it will mean many of them losing their independence as owners of their own means of life. The alternative for them is to become wage-slaves and they aren’t exactly keen to sample factory life so they cling stubbornly to the land.

Even so, there is a significant decline in the numbers who live by agriculture. In 1958 about 22 per cent, of the working population of The Six lived this way but by 1970 this figure had dwindled to around 13 per cent. So the land is being cleared. This is being accomplished partly by bribing some farmers into early retirement and through a natural drift to the towns caused by the fact that despite guaranteed prices, hard work and long hours, farm incomes lag far behind those of industry.

Liquidate the Rest

But even this is not enough if farming is to cease being a drain on the pockets of the industrial capitalists of the EEC. Dr. Mansholt, recently resigned president of the EEC Commision, who recently rocked the boat by claiming in a speech at Hampton Court that the EEC had failed to improve conditions generally for the great mass of its population, produced a plan to have one in every three farmers off the land by 1980. Just how this was going to improve the conditions of the redundant one-third Dr. Mansholt didn’t say, but Professor Vedel of France proposes something even more drastic. He insists that five out of every six French farmers must retire or find other jobs. Mansholt’s plan also calls for the withdrawal of 12½ million acres from production while Vedel suggests 26 million acres be withdrawn. And yet there are still some people around who tell us that the world cannot produce enough food to feed us all!

These modern clearances are only a continuation of the process described by Marx in The Communist Manifesto when he demolished the argument that socialists wished to abolish the private property of the small peasants:

There is no need to abolish that, the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it and is still destroying it daily.

And although Engels in 1894 was trying to win the support of the small peasants for the reforming French and German Social Democrats he nevertheless warned them that they were “hopelessly doomed” and that capitalist production would sweep them away “as a railway train would sweep over a push cart”.

Now that capitalism in the EEC has made up its mind to bring agriculture into line with its needs (the right food in the right quantity and at the right cost) then the remnants of small peasantry whose productivity falls far short of what industrialized farming can provide will be progressively driven from the land into the ranks of wage-slavery. This is the only possible ending to the story.

Vic Vanni

Glasgow Branch

Change The World

 

There can be no peace in the global capitalist system that feeds on wars of acquisition. Earth has a limited amount of territory, forcing capitalists to war over who will dominate what patch of it. The stakes are high. Domination means profit, and profit becomes the power to dominate and acquire even more profit. The wealthy rarely die in wars. Working people in all nations pay the price. They suffer and die as combatants, as bystanders, as refugees, and as victims of the economic disruption and environmental destruction caused by war. They suffer and die as wealth that could be used to end poverty, prevent disease, restore the environment, and address climate change is lavished on the military instead. It is dishonest and hypocritical to call for an end to war while taking sides in that war, especially the side of your own rulers. War insanity has taken hold, turning normally peace-loving people into war-mongers. War is a horrible thing that always harms citizens. No matter who wins wars, workers always lose.

Class inequality increases over time because employers pay workers less than the value of what they produce. However, this exploitative relationship is hidden by the lies that a) employers create jobs and b) workers are lucky to have them. In fact, labour creates all wealth, and capitalists are lucky that workers keep producing it for them. Only employers benefit when workers are divided. The differences in wages and benefits between various sections of the working class go to the employers. When workers unite, they raise the living standards of all workers.

The purpose of pitting workers against one another is to prevent that unity. Lies are also used to divide workers. We are taught that workers who are better off have benefited at the expense of workers who are worse off — that men benefit from the oppression of women, that Whites benefit from the oppression of Blacks, that straights benefit from the oppression of gays, that workers in richer nations benefit from the exploitation of workers in poorer nations, and so on.  If this were true, then class solidarity would be impossible. Fortunately, it is not true at all. Workers join unions to put more bread on the table. 

The power of every union lies in the collective strength of its members. Workers need unions. Unionised workers are more likely to have medical coverage, pension benefits, and protection from sexual harassment and wrongful dismissal. Unions also raise living standards. Areas with more unions offer higher wages, higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality, better education, and less poverty.

The Socialist Party approach every problem from the perspective that there are two social classes, and what benefits the one harms the other. For capitalists to accumulate capital, they must deny ordinary people any meaningful control over their work, their lives, or the direction of society. It’s a huge challenge to trap a highly social species in such a dehumanising social arrangement. Capitalists must block workers from taking collective control, insist that their suffering is their own fault, promote ineffective solutions, and treat all protest as criminal or pathological. Force alone is insufficient. Workers vastly outnumber capitalists, are intelligent problem-solvers, and run the machinery of society. They must be systematically bamboozled into resigning themselves to capitalist rule.

Psychology serves to solicit and police this resignation with the message, “Accept what is, and we will help you build a bubble in which you can function.” Socialism examines society from a class-struggle perspective. Psychology examines society from an individual perspective. Socialism aims to transform human experience through social revolution. Psychology strives to adapt individuals to capitalism as an alternative to social revolution.

Capitalists understand reality. They know there are two classes, and what benefits the one hurts the other. If they allowed the majority to share that understanding, then workers would have no reason to tolerate capitalist rule and every reason to replace it with international cooperation.