The Only Choice is Socialism

 

There is no way out for workers within the framework of capitalism. Struggle as they may to improve their conditions. Poverty is a cancerous growth that has shattered the lives of workers. It is no use looking towards  the capitalist class to solve your problems. If they could abolish poverty, they would lose their privileged position, power and prestige. The result of class ownership of the means of production is but the appropriation of the unpaid labour of the workers. And because every ruling class seeks to further its own class interests the capitalist will never distribute the profits thus made among the workers. This would mean to forego class monopoly and privilege. Humane slave masters cannot abolish slavery.

Capitalism is a system of society in which the majority, the working class, are alienated from ownership and control of the means of production and distribution; a system in which these means of production are used not for the provision of the needs of people but rather for the production of commodities for the market in order to ensure profit, in one form or another, to those owning and/or controlling the means of production. In carrying out its profit-making function capitalism operates through the medium of the money system, imposing on the working class the need to work for wages, which in turn produces their servile status and puts the seal on the permanence of their poverty.

Our class produces all wealth but because the capitalist class, either directly or through the medium of the state, have title to the ownership of the tools of production and the resources of nature, such wealth as we produce has to be left with our employers and we receive in the form of wages more or less sufficient to maintain us in a working class condition of life between pay-days. It is in the fact that the working class are obliged in order to live to sell their physical and mental skills that their exploitation arises and it is from the same condition that all profit, rent and interest, or, as we call it, surplus value, arises to maintain a parasitic class in power and privilege. But the problem doesn’t end there, for in order to maintain this condition we must accept the whole stultifying apparatus of the money system with its organised waste and inability to exploit the abundant potential of the world for the benefit of mankind.

When we speak of socialism we do not mean state capitalism. What, then, do we mean? We mean by socialism a world-wide system of society in which there would be neither an owning class nor a working class. All the means for producing and distributing wealth would be owned in common by all members of society and would be used solely for the purpose of providing the needs of everyone in society. As it is now, wealth would be produced by social labour, except that social labour would no longer be provided by a subject class of producers but by the whole of society and the division of labour peculiar to capitalism, with its market economy, its buying and selling, money and wages structure, would no longer obtain.

All of our class who are presently engaged in occupations made necessary only by capitalism and its money system would be freed from such activities and would be available to apply their skills and energies to the task of producing an abundance of all the things we need to form the material basis of a full and happy life. It is worth considering just how many wasteful and useless functions capitalism and its market economy imposes on us. Sales people in shops and stores, sales representatives — their number can be judged by the fact that they are responsible for burning up almost half the petrol used by private transport — bank clerks, insurance operators, advertising and marketing men, tick men, ticket collectors — if you had the time and plenty of ink in your pen you could continue the list indefinitely.

You could add armies, navies, air and “security” forces, just as you could deduct from humanity’s bill of needs the tremendous wealth in the form of armaments that these grotesque organisations of class society need to maintain them even when they are not engaged in the destructive activities for which they exist.

Obviously, then, in socialism, there will be no shortage of hands with which to perform the work of producing an abundance for all. This is what socialists mean when they say that in socialism “each will contribute in accordance with his or her mental or physical ability.”

We also say that, in socialism, “Each will take in accordance with their needs.” What we mean is just that! Every member of society will have the right to freely avail himself of such things as he may need. Just as each member of society has contributed to the task of producing the things we require so now, without money, checking, or any of capitalism measurements of poverty, each will take what he needs.

This, then, is what we mean by socialism; not the attempt to facilitate the further development and smooth functioning of capitalism by state controls, not the notion that some of the worst features of the system can be curbed by the state and certainly not the patently absurd idea that workers in one country can elect to power a political party — any political party — that can legislate in such a way as to protect workers in that country. Capitalism is a world system and workers in one country cannot create a national oasis of economic sanity in such a world. Indeed, in this latter idea, the nonsense of a “workers’ republic”, there are dangerous pit-falls. Experience has shown that, where the attempt has been made, the state controls made necessary to impose disciplines on workers, frustrated by the limitations of capitalism’s wages system and the continuance within the so-called “workers’ republic” of all the old failed features of capitalism, has only resulted in the further mortgaging of that very freedom of political action that represents the one avenue to socialism and freedom.

Tragically for the working class, most of its alleged friends on the so-called “left” make the struggle for even their limited vision of socialism seem insurmountably difficult. They will point to the tremendous power of the capitalist state with its standing army and sophisticated devices for delivering death. “How can you beat that peacefully?” they cry, and they proceed to tell us that socialism can only be introduced by violence! These ignorant vapourings may sound much more romantic than the hard-plugging and slogging needed to make workers socialists but they are dangerous beyond measure. The absurdity of the proposition stands clear: the state machine has at its disposal these tremendous means of destruction of those who oppose it, so the workers should collect some old weapons, stones, petrol bombs, rifles and machine guns and declare war on the state!

This is further exposed when its exponents develop their case in the light of our rebuttal. Then, it transpires, we will win a majority in arms. The question we must ask is “Win a majority for what”. To introduce socialism or to prosecute a “glorious” struggle. Obviously, if it is to introduce socialism as we understand it, it follows, and logically follows, that that majority will have to be conscious socialists; that is to say, they will have to be people who understand what socialism is and what will be expected of them in the way of effort — and, no doubt in the early stages, self-discipline — in a socialist society.

What then becomes obvious is the fact that the power of the state, with all its means of violence and intimidation, emanates from the overwhelming support of the majority of the working class today. It is the working class who, by voting for political parties whose policies are based on the maintenance of capitalism and its necessarily coercive state apparatus, that keeps the state in being.

If the working class, armed with socialist knowledge, wanted — as of course they would — to elect representatives to the state legislature for the purpose of making the productive resources the common property of all and dismantling all the restrictive and destructive machinery of capitalism’s wages and money system, what power is there to stop them? Certainly violence waged directly by the tiny minority that would have an economic interest in prolonging capitalism is unlikely indeed. But if the question of violence is to be posed hypothetically then we would say that this is the only context in which we could accept it: when the majority of the working class have consciously opted for socialism and an undemocratic minority of capitalists and their hangers-on (and we would have to allow that they had suicidal tendencies) took to arms to frustrate the will of the majority.

Obey (video)

 A scene from John Carpenter’s They Live (1988).  While it’s true John Carpenter was/is against only free-market-capitalism, this film can very easily be interpreted as anti-capitalism. 

Full film at https://youtu.be/KpTlUhvD7Qc

WORKERS, AWAKEN FROM YOUR SLUMBERS

 

Our socialist case, which no one else is putting, is that in a world of plenty there is poverty, that a society which puts ironmongery into space cannot house people decently, that workers are debased and degraded in useless toil, that our species is threatened with extermination because of capitalist economic conflict — and that all this is absolutely unnecessary for a single day longer.

A world social democracy without frontiers, in which work will be voluntary and enjoyable, in which every member of our society will have equal access to all goods and services, in which poverty and war will not exist — this free society is technically feasible now and can be established as soon as the majority of people understand and desire it.

The history of the last hundred years has proved time and time again: reformist programmes do not lead the working class to socialism. They obscure the issue. What is needed is a clear-cut case, uncluttered and uncompromised, for the abolition of wages. The Socialist Party declares that the workers have it in their power to build a society wherein the wealth produced shall be freely available to everyone without the need to buy, sell or exchange everything that is required.

So under the present system money is used to buy and sell commodities. All wealth has a price once it has become a commodity, and people cannot live without wealth. Our access to wealth is determined by our access to money. There are three was of obtaining money under capitalism:

1. Criminal Theft. This embraces illegal acts like robbing banks, mugging, begging on the streets and defrauding the benefits system. The risk involved is that the state is there to ensure that property is defended against suckers like working class criminals and those who defy the defence of capitalist social relations can be locked up, beaten or killed.
2. Legalised Theft. You will run into no trouble with the state here. The theft that is essential to the continuation of capitalism is exploitation (paying the worker less than the value of what he produces) which in polite circles is known as “running a business profitably”. Large fortunes can be made in this way, but before the reader becomes too attracted to this option it should be pointed out that entry to the class of legalised robbers is only available to a small minority of the earth’s inhabitants, usually by inheritance.
3. But if prisons or profits are not for you, there is a third way of getting money. All you have to do is to sell yourself to a capitalist in return for just enough money to keep you coming back the following week in need of more money. This is wage slavery and it is the position of the vast majority of men and women today. 

The money we get in return for producing ail of the wealth in society is enough to buy cheap and shoddy goods. Meanwhile, those who own and control the means of producing and distributing wealth —the ones we are producing surplus value to provide for—are able to live in comfort, security and privilege.

Imagine a money-free society where all goods are available according to individuals’ self-determined needs. Will people take more than they need when they know that wealth will be there for the taking whenever they want it? It would be foolish for someone in a society of free access to take twenty loaves of bread when they need only one the others will soon be stale. Who will want to eat all twenty loaves simply because they are free? When did you last see a person filling their lungs with excess air or his mouth with more water than they could drink because these things are free? And if you did encounter such a person, would you resent the greed or laugh at the stupidity? The wretched theologians and psychologists, their minds contaminated by the conditioned behaviour of property society, ignorantly conclude that always men must act as anti-socially as we are forced to now. It is not “human nature” that stands in the way of a money-free society, but human consent to the continuation of private property.

When the majority class of wage slaves get rid of the institution of property, money will have no more use than tram lines in a tramless city or gas lamps in an age of electricity. Exchange will have no meaning when there are no property rights to pass from one person to another. Just as you cannot sell your coat to yourself, so, when the community commonly owns and democratically controls the means of producing and distributing wealth, there will be no non-owners to buy things from or sell things to, to steal from or to give to. Wages will be replaced by co-operative labour; classes will be replaced by social equality; money will be replaced by free access to all wealth. The richness and beauty of the world is there for the taking; are you ready to claim it?

Where have all the flowers gone (music)

 

We war against capitalism

 

Most people nowadays have some grievance with this or that aspect of society. 

We of the Socialist Party are men and women who belong to the working class; we share the same experiences of exploitation and fear of economic insecurity; we know what all this means because we live the part. But we claim to have studied the problems of the workers' lives at their foundation. As a result, we are able to declare unhesitatingly that the solution has been found. We know, and can prove our case, that the wealth of the world is produced by the workers. We know, and can prove it, that what the workers can do so efficiently for the capitalist class they can do even more effectively for themselves.

It is time to fight against robbery. The battle need not be wasted on those poor wretches who rob in order to feed their kids. Nor need we waste time on those workers whose robbery of other workers is anti-social and foolish, but only a reflection of their poverty and lack of hope. The war against robbery must begin and end with the system which allows the rich to prosper in privilege and affluence by robbing the vast majority of us.

The workers of all lands are wage slaves. They have the same miserable lot, of whatever nationality they may be. They have one common foe—the capitalist class the world over. 

We are out for the abolition of the wage system—the result of the private ownership of the means of life. We want the workers to grip the fact that it is just this— the way in which these means are used against our class by our exploiters—that causes all the misery.

We desire the overthrow of the capitalist system and in its place the establishment of socialism. Then production for the use of all will take the place of the pernicious production for the profit of a few, and a new and splendid era will open up for humankind.

We stand for the working-class capture of political power by the only method available to-day, namely, through democratic election to parliament to abolish capitalism and establish socialism. This is the first and foremost plank in our programme; anything short of this will not do. We neither advocate nor ask capitalist governments for social reforms. The Socialist Party rejects nationalisation as a solution to workers’ problems. We insist on the abolition of wages.

We picture a world free from exploitation and want, free from wars and the power of dictators—in short, a world of our own making in which the guiding principle would be the common interest of “ associated humanity." This is no wild Utopian dream. The material conditions of its realisation are here now, awaiting the understanding and action of the international working class.

We want the abolition of the system causing class division. We desire the speedy overthrow of the bloody system that is built up out working-class slavery and exploitation. A socialist society will do away with commodity production and will produce solely for use. This means that buying and selling will no longer take place and money will be obsolete. In a system based on free access to goods and services, members of the community will not need to purchase from themselves the wealth which they already possess. Along with all other commodities, human labour power will be abolished as an item of sale: the abolition of the wages system will give way to a society of cooperative labour where each will give according to ability and take according to need.

What do we say? Don’t follow anyone, and don’t believe anyone who offers you paradise—plus a wage. Don’t expect us to lead you. Instead, cultivate your self-reliance and organise yourselves democratically (and that means equal participation in decision- and policy-making, with all tasks not assumed by leaders but delegates) for the conquest of political power. When you have political power as a class, you will be the last class in history to be emancipated. There are none below you, none you will need to dominate to maintain your position as free men and women at last.

Voluntary cooperation on a world scale will replace compulsory economic competition between individuals. Social antagonisms will fade into history. With the abolition of the wage system, the interests of the individual will coincide with those of society. Genuine freedom will have dawned.

The Picket Line (music)

 In these times of strikes, this song is appropriate. 

Let’s Face the Future

 “When once the thin end of the opportunist wedge has forced itself into the policy of the party, the thick end soon follow” -Wilhelm Liebknecht (No Compromise)

The working class have trodden many false paths and taken up many unsound ideas in the course of its history. When sections of organised workers engage in sound action by striking for improved wages or conditions, they receive almost unanimous condemnation from the media. This should indicate to them that such action is in their interest. Industrial action on its own is however very limited and has its best chance of success in a boom time when employers need us most. At best, a strike can win the day on a wage issue, but the capitalists still remain in their privileged position as owners of the means of production.

History has proved when organising for socialism, the offering of reforms on the party programme spells ruin. Thousands may flock to the party, but they are most interested in the reform of capitalism, not in its abolition, and these members swamp the socialist element. Socialists inside a reformist organisation cannot convert it and bring it onto the socialist path. The only logical thing they can do is to break with the reformists and organise the clear-cut programme of socialism. 

The working-class cannot hope for Socialism from trade unions, co-operatives or from reform movements.

Trade unions, Rosa Luxemburg, shows, are a part of capitalism itself. They are the workers’ weapons of defence against the capitalist class which aims at increasing its profits. They are useful in that they enable the workers to sell their labour-power under more favourable conditions than would otherwise be the case. However, they are not able to take the offensive against capitalism, to overthrow it, because they are badly handicapped.

Co-operatives are no more able than trade unions to end capitalism. As Rosa Luxemburg points out they can survive within the present system only if they become pure capitalist enterprises. They have to compete with capitalist firms, and to do so successfully they must adopt capitalist methods of production.

Any social reforms that are passed, therefore, will not be harmful to capitalism. Since the struggle for reforms cannot alter the slave position of the working class, it ends by bringing indifference and disillusionment to the workers who look to reforms for emancipation. 

The workers must aim at capturing political power. And they must make use of democracy to that end. The Socialist Party will not barter its support for any promise of reform. For, no matter whether these promises are made sincerely or not, we know that the immediate need of our class is emancipation, which can only be achieved through the establishment of socialism. Our interests are opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class without distinction; whether bankers or industrialists, landlords or commercial magnates, all participate in the fruits of our enslavement. All will unite, in the last resort, in defence of the system by which they live. For the party of the working class, one course alone is open, and that involves unceasing hostility to all parties, no matter what their plea, who lend their aid to the administration of the existing social order and thus contribute, consciously or otherwise, to its maintenance. Our object is its overthrow, and to us, political power is useless for any other purpose. 

The wage system takes away from the workers what they produce, and creates a situation in which money becomes the sole end of human endeavour. The worker is reduced to a creature who seeks a wage packet. Governments running a system concerned above all else to ensure that rent, interest and profit are secured for the capitalist minority are bound to anger and frustrate workers. After all, workers have no real material interest in capitalist prosperity; indeed, the capitalists' privilege is obtained at the expense of our relative poverty. There is a class division arising out of diametrically opposed material interests. Faced with a multitude of problems arising out of the system where production is for profit rather than need, workers become frustrated, angry and determined to do something to change things. Socialists depend on this active desire to change society: every worker who decides to do something to protest against the way things are — however misguided that action might be — is, at least, proof of the fact that workers are discontented and not brainwashed. After all, if workers were wholly contented and totally indoctrinated, there would not be any socialists.  However, wrong solutions to real frustration arising out of real problems will not change society. Socialist understanding starts off with the recognition of the problems and all the anger about them that reformists show. 

The Socialist Party stands in uncompromising opposition to reformism. We reject all attempts to make capitalism run efficiently from the working class's point of view. That does not mean that we have nothing in common with reformist workers — in fact, we have much to agree about. They want change and so do we; they envisage the possibility of eradicating unpleasant features of society which conservatives say are inevitable, and so do we; they are anxious to alert their fellow workers to particular problems and so are we. Where is the big difference, then? Socialists are aware that the changes which reformists want are futile for three reasons: firstly, they are usually directed to just one problem of capitalism, leaving all the others intact and, even in relation to these "single issues”, the reformists are often willing to compromise (abolish nuclear bombs but keep conventional ones, for example); secondly, the reformist is unaware of the fact that capitalism produces social problems as a matter of course, and that therefore it is as idealistic to seek to eradicate mass starvation without ending production for profit as it would be to abolish the spots without curing measles; thirdly, socialists want more than to make capitalism tolerable for the working class — we want to end capitalism and, in so doing, to abolish wage slavery as a permanent social condition for the vast majority of people.

The Vicar of Bray (music)

 

No Masters, No Gods, No Saviours

 

The question of religion is not infrequently raised by socialists. A variety of cases are made ranging from the absolutely irrefutable word of God, as recorded in the  sacred scripture of choice) to attempts to reconcile religious faith with Marxism. The Socialist Party responds to religious entreaties, insisting that atheism expressed as materialism is the only credible way of understanding capitalism and bringing about the conscious change required by the working class, the vast majority, to strive for and achieve socialism. Atheism is limited to merely attacking the symptom, religion, rather than the disease, capitalism.

What is religious faith? In this case, faith is belief, or trust, in a religious system, the head of which is God. In short, faith is belief in God. What is fact? Fact is truth, reality, something that actually happens; something that is made known to us by one, or more, of our five senses; something we can see, or feel, or hear, or smell. Now we cannot know God through our senses. That is to say, he does not show himself to us; we cannot hear him speak or sing; we cannot shake hands with him. We cannot send a letter or a telegram to God, because we do not know his address, nor are there any means of communication with his supposed place of abode. The reason for this negation is, there is “no such being.” The idea of God was born through mankind’s ignorance of the workings of Nature. God did not create man; on the contrary, man created God. God only exists in the imagination and has no external existence. We only hear of God what pleases certain people, for certain reasons, to tell us.

 Religion—and its core belief that only some outside super-being, not humans themselves, by their own collective efforts, can bring about a better world—reflects this lack of power and lack of control over their own lives which most people experience. But most people experience this under capitalism too, which is based, precisely, on their exclusion from the ownership and control of society's productive resources and on the subordination of production to blind and uncontrollable market forces. So, a consistent criticism of religion leads to a criticism of capitalism. As long as capitalism continues—or at least until there is a mass, conscious and self-confident movement for socialism— religion, as the anti-human doctrine that we humans can’t control our lives but need the help of some outside super-being, will continue to survive in one form or another. The form changes—traditional religious beliefs are being replaced by New Age mumbo-jumbo—but as long as humans don’t in fact control their lives then religious beliefs will survive.

Religion is not simply a jumble of confused ideas. It is a powerful weapon in the hands of the capitalist class. It divides us and blinds us to the class action that is required to overcome the menace of capitalism. Religion is the ideological expression of a long-gone world and its ancient social conditions, a world of superstition, slavery and little education. Far from providing an answer to today’s problems, it tells us to put our faith in the supernatural hopes of a past age. Instead of uniting us as a class, we are to become meek and mild and submit to the whims of an ancient god that was dreamt up in the bronze age.

Many people have now largely, for all intents and purposes, given up on religion. For all that religion has been abandoned by the majority of the working class, it still exerts an obviously strong influence in many parts of the world. Where that is the case religion continues to fulfil its role as a reaction to poverty, both economic and philosophic. In extremis, the opiate proves deadly, as with the Taliban.

The Socialist Party alone maintains its hostility to all forms of religion. It considers all religious beliefs to be incorrect and a barrier to the acceptance of the socialist case. Therefore one of the tasks of a socialist is to show the falsity of religious ideas and not to compromise with them. A socialist cannot be religious, and when socialism is established religion will be dead, for the overwhelming majority of the world’s population will have become socialists. If anyone remains who wishes to tell rosary beads or sing hymns will be tolerated. But a world of enlightenment and security will not provide fertile soil for the growth of religious ideas, which flourish in the rubbish heap of misery and ignorance.

The point is not to abolish religion but to transcend it through socialism harnessing the material resources available to humanity and employing them democratically for the commonweal, if not for heaven on earth, then as close as mankind can get to it. Unless people can cast off the superstitious beliefs inculcated by priests, shamans and witch doctors then it is impossible to build a more rational society. The Socialist Party aims at taking from the masters the power they wield and the wealth they have stolen. Its object is to raise the workers from slaves to free men and women. It is therefore opposed to religion. If the workers would cast off the chains of wage slavery, then they must cast off the slavish doctrines of religion which counsel them to love, honour, and obey those who oppress them.

Pie in the Sky (music video)

 

No Time For Gods

 

A frustration shared by socialists and many scientists is the persistence of belief in a god to explain the world. This is partly because ‘god’ is such a quick and easy answer to so many important questions: How did we get here? Why should I behave morally? Why am I here? While science has provided a comprehensive explanation of how and when we got here, and what we are made of, it is less certain when answering the question, why?  Instead, many people have turned to religious or other unfounded explanations.

The reason why the Socialist Party doesn't admit religious people to membership is that we regard their views, on what is after all a key issue (the nature of human existence), as wrong. In the same way, people who want to support the Labour Party or who think that Russia was socialist are not admitted to membership.

Actually, although this is, probably inevitably, how others would classify us, we do not call ourselves “atheists”. The word “Atheism” suggests a concern with opposing religious ideas in particular whereas we are concerned with promoting socialist ideas. (In fact, pointing out the mistaken ideas of religious people only forms a small part of our activity, as you have noticed.) We prefer to describe ourselves as “materialists”, i.e. as people who hold that all we humans know and can know, is derived from the experiences of our senses of the material world that surrounds us and of which we are a part.

The existence of a super-being called god or of an afterlife for humans is theoretically possible, as part of this material world. These can’t be ruled out a priori. However, neither of these hypotheses has been confirmed in accordance with methods and tests of science—the phenomena brought forward to confirm them can be much more plausibly explained in other ways. A rational, logical person ought therefore to dismiss them as disproved hypotheses.

Religious people do not do this. They are therefore thinking illogically. This wouldn’t be so bad (Socialist Party members don’t think logically all the time) if it didn’t concern a key aspect of the socialist case: human nature.

The materialist approach, which socialists take, sees humans as the product of biological and social evolution (not the creation of some super-being), that individual humans have brains and minds which cease to exist when they die (and not souls or a spirit that pre-dates birth and survives death), and that the only way humans can improve their lives is by their own collective efforts (not by relying on some outside intervention from some super-being or beings). This life is the only one we are going to get and we should therefore try to make it the best possible both for individual humans and for the whole human species. Given the present stage of human social evolution, this can only be done within the framework of a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth’s resources.

This is the, if you like, "philosophical’’ basis of the case for socialism. It follows from a scientific approach to human existence and problems. Religious people don't, and can’t share, this view. They can only see this life as some sort of preparation for a better life after death. Since not all of them are committed to the pessimistic and anti-human doctrine of the depraved nature of humans (though they have to be if they are orthodox followers of the world’s two main religions, Christianity and Islam), some unorthodox religious people can find a religious justification for wanting socialism. We know from experience that such people exist (perhaps you are one). What they then do is up to them. Some subscribe to the Socialist Standard or support our work in other ways. They don’t need our permission to do this. It’s their choice made, presumably, in the knowledge of our views on religion. 

 

Workers who are suppressed and exploited under capitalism should keep their attention on the real, material world in which they live; this is the only life we know we have and we must struggle to make it the best of all possible experiences. All religion is a diversion from the workers’ urgent task of abolishing capitalism and establishing socialism. Apart from this, there is no evidence which can stand up to a scientific assessment to indicate that there is a supernatural life or any of the other mumbo jumbo associated with religious beliefs.

We didn’t know (music)