Something Is Wrong with the World

 

Prices have continued to go up higher and higher. There hangs the terrible nightmare of the coming recession. People hoard their money. They do not buy anything new. They watch and wait.  Workers have an uneasy feeling that despite all the claims of great employment, jobs that pay a decent wage are scarce. Capitalist economists vie with one another in predicting the exact date of the coming recession. Wherever there is a conflict the U.S. and the U.K. are embroiled.

The whole social system, economy and politics, have outlived itself. It is rotting from the inside. No one person, no government can remove, or even permanently remedy, unemployment. The problem is an indication of the underlying poverty and insecurity of the whole working-class. That is why everything is wrong and there is no solution in obvious sight. Working people can and will have no peace as long as capitalism exists. The struggle between capital and labour is on a world scale. Capitalism is responsible for poverty. The purpose of this system is to provide the bosses with profit.

Capitalist apologists are never tired of telling us to-day of the blessings and comforts that capitalism has bestowed—but on whom? Capitalists are not concerned with production as such, their concern is primarily with the effective exploitation of the working class for profit. No reform that could be introduced will prevent the present system from proceeding according to the laws of its own development. From the workers’ point of view, capitalism renders all reform futile to solve the main poverty problem. Their conditions worsen faster than palliatives can be introduced and take effect. The very advocacy of reforms presupposes the continuance of the present system whether those reforms are presented as sugar-coated pills or the frothy soundbites. It is the capitalist system itself that enslaves the worker. The remedy is the removal of the cause and no “meantime” patchwork can do that. Only a socialist working-class will ever be able to undertake the removal of capitalism and the establishment of common ownership of the means of life. Such ownership will place the powers and the results of production at the disposal of the whole of society; consequently, leisure and comfort could be available for all if the workers had the knowledge and the desire to bring the change. Until then, through political ignorance, they will continue to keep in existence the present system.

The need is great. It is for a working-class movement, intelligent, organised, and conscious that the means of life may be owned by the people and controlled by them. 

We struggle because we must and in the course of that struggle we learn that the root of all social evil is a system which has no other use for the great majority of men and women than to grind profit out of them. It is that system workers must sweep it away, and reconstruct society on a new foundation.

An individual of any standing cannot with impunity set out criticism of a subject such as physics, biology, or chemistry, without the necessary qualifications for the task. Among the defenders of capitalism, this same disqualification does not appear to matter, providing the subject to be criticised is socialism. Wages are the price of labour-power, whether that labour-power is employed by the capitalist state or by a private employer. The working class are compelled to sell that labour-power, their only possession, to a non-producing class that owns society’s means of life, and who consequently can retain much of the product of the workers’ labour. Socialism means the abolition of classes, wage payers, wage receivers, nations, states and tyrannies. It means, in short, a system of society in which the commonly-owned and commonly-controlled means of social living would make such things absurd and unnecessary. 

Socialism means a system of society in which goods are produced for the use of the members of society, not for the profit of a privileged class. There will, inside socialism, be no buying and selling, and therefore no need for any currency system. That is socialism and that is what we work for. 

 The Socialist Party is called Marxist – and we are proud to bear that name. Socialism is a worldwide movement which unites working people of all nationalities, of all colours, in a common world organisation. Full economic, political and social equality can be attained only through mass action. Let the capitalist apologists proclaim the death of socialism. When the workers in any number become acquainted with socialist principles efforts to rebut socialist teachings will be impotent.

Socialism is Love (music)

 

Ours is an unequal world

That the joyless nature of existence which the working class are forced to lead under capitalism should make them so regardless of murdering one another in capitalist wars, is also to be regretted. Such conduct, however, is explained by the conditions of capitalist society, with its permanent unemployment, its poverty, its monotonous drudgery and insecurity of life. To many workers, war appeared almost as a relief. It could not, they thought, be much worse than the ills they knew.

The part which the capitalist media plays in times of war is too well known. For them no act is too low in vile cunning; no scheme too diabolical and murderous to secure the approval of those whose business it is to line up heroes for their death. We in the Socialist Party do not support mad, murderous slaughter. We do not ask that the world should be made a graveyard to satisfy the money lusts of the owning class that the media champions. Instead, we appeal to you to catch the inspiration of our message. At present men and women are hardened and embittered by the needless competition for employment which is an essential feature of capitalism. They are, moreover, when capitalist interests demand it, perfect in the arts of mass murder. In contrast with the preaching of the media consistent only in the respect that it always serves capitalism, we offer the message that you should organise with us for socialism, a system of society in which production would be carried on co-operatively in the interests of the whole of society, not for the profit of a few, as it is today.

International, national or local politics, of which these three fronts should the revolutionary party of the workers concentrate their efforts? This question is a common one at Socialist Party meetings.

Our reply is, that conditions must always determine policy. The Socialist Party can go no faster than the desires and understanding of the workers. Our mission is to extend that understanding along all three fronts. But which should be given preference? comes the follow-up question. The answer is that our activities will be guided by the resources at our disposal. At present these resources are small. There are hardly any places, for example, where the Socialist Party is in sufficient numbers to make possible at present the election of socialists at local council elections.

Certainly, if it were now the case that any district or locality displayed a sufficient desire for socialism and candidates were elected, our propaganda would be broadcasted from a louder sounding-board.

This in itself is of considerable value in making more widely known the general principles of socialism. It is to propaganda on a wide and scattered front—here and abroad, wherever our word penetrates, that our energies are devoted.

Unlike the left-wing we do not think that the workers will rally to our side merely because we call upon them to do so. If in the future history of socialist politics one geographical area becomes stronger than another in its desire for socialism, Socialist policy would depend upon the forces of the Socialist Party in other countries.

The revolutionary workers’ party will not try to go faster than its abilities to travel —those abilities are dependent on an understanding of our class and their organisation.

Our policy will be, as in the past, to continue to proclaim the principles of socialism. Our ability to do this is determined by the support we receive from those who want socialism.

Should these lines meet the eye of any of those many friends that we are continually meeting, who tell us, “I have been a socialist for — years,” whilst still remaining outside the ranks of the Socialist Party—may we once again ask them to consider the desirability of enjoying the unique pleasure—in these days when docile placidity appears to reign supreme—of exercising the courage of their convictions. Activity in a socialist organisation gives such an opportunity. What resources does a person need to be well? It is the question that any society should be asking itself.

Pirates and Emperors (video)

 

The Trouble with Capitalism.

 

Capitalism is a social system that produces all sorts of contradictions. Tremendous technical advances should mean a better society but inside capitalism, it leads to better ways to maim, kill and destroy. Improvements in the production of food should lead to a happier world but it produces exactly the opposite. 

“According to Marx, capitalism is a system of accumulation. Profits are made but can’t all be consumed by owners. Extra profits need to be recycled through the market. ‘The only way you can successfully recycle them is to either expand your existing business or diversify into another business,’ says Shutt. ‘It all depends on the ultimate consumer, consuming more and more. It has to grow, growth is built in.’ The problem is that as profits are invested into the market, generating more profits that in turn have to be reinvested, production expands until it reaches a level that can no longer be absorbed by consumers. The market is glutted, and recession results. But the destruction of capital and jobs creates pent-up demand for the whole process to begin again in time. That, in brief, is the business cycle.” (www.redpepper.org.uk/Prophet-of-doom)

Banking, hedge funds and the myriad financial off-shoots that make up Wall St and the City of London are central to the running of modern capitalism. They produce nothing of course but then neither does the industrial capitalist class. It is probably a bit unfair to say they produce nothing. They certainly produce nothing useful, but it certainly produces hypocrisy in large doses.  Speed the day when banks and other financial institutes are part of the unlamented history of capitalism along with all its apologists, both religious and secular.

The Party’s pamphlet Socialism as a Practical Alternative predicts millions of socialists preparing “programmes of action for immediate implementation once the movement has gained control of the powers and machinery of governments.”

When today we join the Socialist Party we join the world socialist movement; we withdraw support for capitalism even though we have to live in it for the time being; we take the first few faltering steps towards building the socialist future. A few hundred of us make no impression on the dominance of capitalism; a few thousand of us will begin to make an impression. As our numbers grow we will infiltrate and revolutionise the media, the educational bodies, the workplaces, the arts, cultural, scientific, leisure and other worlds.

The hard part is to get from here to the beginning of there…

  The main thing is that as more of us give up supporting capitalism and start building a socialist world we shall put some flesh on the bones of common ownership, democratic control, production for use and free access.

 

Capitalism’s continued existence does not require a conspiracy or a conspiracy theory. All it requires is the support, or more likely acquiescence, of the overwhelming majority in their own exploitation.

The conflicting interests of sections of the capitalist class do not affect the workers’ interests. They are robbed by the whole capitalist class and the way in which the capitalists divide the spoils between themselves makes no difference whatever to the workers.

The working-class forms the great bulk of society. They produce all wealth. Instead of owning the wealth themselves, they allow the capitalist class to own and market it. Born and educated in a capitalist world, it is hard for them to conceive of any method of distributing wealth other than by exchange.

The capitalist method is ownership of the means of wealth production by the capitalist class; enslavement of the working-class by compelling them to sell their energy for wages, and setting them to the production of commodities to be sold on the world’s markets. It is this method, this system, that causes unemployment and poverty, not the high cost of production and Trade Union restrictions, and the only cure is the removal of the cause; the abolition of capitalism.

All workers organised in the mad competitive struggle for markets, as well as the millions of unemployed should learn the truth about capitalism. They should organise with the Socialist Party for its overthrow, and for the establishment of a system where production and distribution will be carried on for the people by the people themselves.

Class ownership of the means of life is the cause of working-class misery. Substitute ownership by the people, production and distribution by the people—leaving out the cash basis—and unemployment will no longer be the name with which we shall designate the long periods when our labour is not required. Modern methods of production can satisfy all our needs and leave us with ample leisure for enjoyment.

Union Maid (music)

 

The Socialist Catalyst

 We know that socialism is necessary to the emancipation of working people. Capitalism has reduced the workers to a condition of wage slavery. The capitalists get the profit, grow rich, live in mansions and penthouses, own yachts and private planes, choose judges, buy up the media and bribe polititians. To speak of democracy is a mockery. In every land capitalism rules. Freedom in socialism is the only thing worth striving for. To work for wages, no matter how high, or how short the work-day, is to acknowledge a master. Without socialist freedom civilisation will crumble and die. Socialists will work together to build a new world out of the rubble of the old. Poverty is civilisation’s greatest crime. And this crime cannot be atoned for by charity or philanthopy. It is not “charity” we want. It is justice

The capitalists claim to riches is fraud, hypocrisy, and false pretenses.  The capitalist’s income is simply pure robbery. Not a penny of it does he produce. It is all taken from those in whose sweat and suffer in the fields and factories. There is a cause for poverty, and that cause can be removed. As long as the few own the sources of wealth, the many will be condemned to work for them and the the few will accumulate up millions and billions more. Capitalism dooms the world to more inequality.  Religion and race, national independence and patriotism, are now, from the worker’s point of view, just so many ruling-class devices useful for the purpose, among others, of stirring up hatred when and where they may want it.   Socialism alone is worth struggling for. That is the message of the Socialist to all the working-class dupes of the closely-allied superstitions of religious, racial and patriotic rivalries.

Socialist ideas are developing and in due time the cooperative commonwealth will arise. Working people are mustering their mighty forces for political and economic change. Liberation from the chains of wage slavery is our aim. Organisation is the demand of the day. Working men and women, this is the day for you to realize that your interests are the same, that divided you are helpless.

United political action will place the working class in control of the State, and the abolition of capitalism will inevitably follow. In the socialist future workers will be their own masters and enjoy all the fruit of their toil. Resolve this day to  abolish the wage system. The Socialist Party is the party of the working class, the party that stands for economic equality and industrial freedom, the party of progress and civiliSation. This is the day to hold aloft its banner and proclaim its principles. The future is for socialism and humanity. when the exploitation of man by man ceases and society is organized upon enlightened mutual interests of all, democracy will dawn, war will cease, poverty will be in the past, and the dawn of a new civilisation will light the world.

Work is necessary, but it need not be a burden on our backs. We can organise it so that it it transformed into free cooperation. Automation can reshape workplaces and play a key role in ending the degradation of wage slavery and returning the dignity of work. Robots can replace drudgery. Technology can usher in a post-scarcity age of abundance.

We point out first that the working class are poor and a subject class because the capitalist class have political power and own and control the machinery of production and distribution. The cause of working class poverty is not the existence of certain defects in the political machinery by which capitalism is administered. Therefore, no political reform (proportional representation, for example),no social reform, and no accumulation of such reforms will remedy the problem. If the whole of the reforms advocated by all the reform parties, from Conservative to Communist, were put on the statute book, the working class would still be a subject class and still poor. Therefore, the Socialist Party advocates socialism, and seeks to organise the working class on a socialist basis.

We point out that the only method of achieving socialism is for a socialist working class to gain political control. Anyone who urges the working class to put political power into the hands of persons and parties seeking election on a non-socialist programme, and therefore unable, even if willing, to use their power for any other purpose than the administration of capitalism, is acting directly contrary to the interests of the working class. All the reform parties have in this way acted contrary to working class interests.

The development of capitalist industry constantly produces new social problems for the workers and aggravates old ones, and in the interests of the capitalists themselves these evils, which are merely the effects of capitalism, have to be palliated by various reform measures. The capitalists have to pass these reforms for two main reasons: loss of efficiency and loss of political support. If allowed to work unchecked, capitalism would produce such worsening in the conditions of the workers that they would, on the one hand, lose efficiency as profit-producers, and would perhaps, so the capitalist thinks, on the other hand, show their discontent with intolerable conditions by interesting themselves in socialism or by riot and revolt which, though suicidal for the workers, would be troublesome and costly for the employing class. Incidentally, common sense suggests that the development of a strong socialist movement would cause the capitalist to fall over each other in their anxiety to make concessions in order to persuade the workers that socialism is unnecessary and capitalism not so bad after all.

In short, the Socialist Party opposes the parties which preach reform because there is no way of achieving socialism except through the making of socialists and their organisation into a political party which will gain political power for the purpose ot introducing socialism.

Trade unions are chiefly concerned with the defence of the workers in their direct relations with the employers. They can, when market conditions are favourable, bring a certain organised pressure to bear on the employers to resist a decrease or secure an increase in wages. This is a definite, if limited, gain to the workers concerned.

Therefore, we support workers in their efforts in this direction, at the same time drawing their attention to the limits which capitalism imposes on all such activities.

 

 We point out in particular that every increase in wages or reduction in hours or curtailment of output gives the employers an added inducement to introduce more labour-saving machinery, thus in creasing the number of unemployed and the consequent competition for jobs.

We point out also that the workers should always keep the control of policy in their own hands and not give power to their leaders to negotiate in secret and settle on their own terms. But emphasising once more that no action of this kind, however well organised, can solve the real working class problem of abolishing capitalism, and, further, that the employing class always have it in their power to starve striking or locked-out workers into submission if they deem it worth while to do so..

The Rebel Girl (music)

 

Class war will only end with socialism

The many problems of capitalism can only be solved by a universal remedy. The workers who produce all wealth are poor in the midst of plenty. We say that the only remedy suggested, so far, that has stood every sort of criticism, is socialism.

All our means of livelihood are privately owned, and all of us workers are liable to be sent packing whenever our hirers can find a cheaper substitute. How long are we going to stand it? Why should we not own our own means of livelihood? Why should a relatively small and parasite class dictate to the vast mass of people when they shall work and when not? Let us take possession of the things that are vital to our very existence. We make them, we operate them, we repair them and renew them. We do everything but own them. Without us the whole of the machinery in the world, beautiful as it is, clever as it is, ingenious as it undoubtedly is, is so much junk. Let us make the land, the factories, the machines and the tools of production, common property, and then perhaps, instead of new technology making men and women into paupers, we shall welcome every machine that lightens labour, for it will bring us ewer working hours and increased leisure. The system where the means on how all live are commonly owned and administered, is called socialism. That is what we are aiming at, and we want fellow workers workers to say definitely they want it, and are prepared to help get it. Will you be one?

Capitalism, administered by workers, differs in little from capitalism administered by capitalists. Fellow workers must learn that it is not the individuals, it is the system that is at fault. They must grasp this fact and hold on to it, that changing the name and not the thing achieves nothing.

In nature parasitism on the part of certain organisms is known to possess what is termed “survival value,” that is, this feature plays a successful part in the struggle for existence. Not so in human society. Parasitism in human society owes its success to the fact that those who practise it control the means of enslaving their victims while at the same time permitting them sufficient to keep them from dying and so ensure an abundance of material to serve their needs. Though there are two classes in society—a slave class and a parasitic class—and though one class occupies what is termed a higher social rank, it is not because of its biological fitness to survive, measured by nature’s laws, but merely because in the course of the development of society certain individuals have seen their opportunity to relieve themselves from the necessity of providing a living by their own efforts, and in the course of time to improve the opportunity by introducing the necessary legal sanction in accordance with the degree of development.

Mankind’s conquest of its environment has made possible a remarkable increase in the productivity of every kind of material wealth. But hand in hand with this development has gone an appalling increase in the differences of prosperity and well-being. This concentration of wealth into the hands of a relatively small section of the human race has meant the demoralisation and degradation of literally millions. It is quite true, as history will testify, that the emphasis upon luxury, idleness and extravagance has been just as demoralising to those who hold the wealth, but such an outcome is only in keeping with a system where slavery is practised. Degeneration is the natural corollary of a parasitic mode of life.

 

The Socialist Party has consistently maintained that the Russia Revolution accomplished the overthrow of the absolute monarchy, and was a revolution only in the sense that the power of the landowners was shattered, and the obstacles to development along capitalist lines were swept away. In the early days of the Bolshevik regime, the “Communist” Parties in this and other countries claimed that Russia was the first country to achieve socialism. Whilst due credit should be given the Bolsheviks for their intentions and some of their actual achievements, we explained this mistaken assertion —even at the risk of antagonising would-be supporters who failed to grasp the real significance of Russian events.

Our standpoint has been amply justified by the evidence  and the “Communist” Parties do not as often make this untenable assertion, realising, perhaps, that conditions in Russia could not be cited as an advertisement for socialism. There is, however, one erroneous and harmful assertion that is still being spread about, namely, that in Russia the working class was supreme, or, in their own vague phraseology, that there was a “Dictatorship of the Proletariat.”

SPGB on GB News