The chief strength of capitalism lies not in the amount of wealth accumulated, not in the large
military at its command but its long history and experience in exploitation. Capitalist power rests upon convincing the working class that there is no choice but the treadmill. Socialists indict capitalism at the barrier to progress. The capitalist regime is but a passing phase of civilization. Capitalism is founded upon production for profit. Socialism is based upon production for use. Capitalism has become an obsolete oppressive system that ought to be got rid off.
The truth of the matter is that this is a rich person’s world. The State is there to act on behalf of capital and to protect its interests against the people. The government is the executive committee of business. The State is an instrument of power in the hands of the big industrialists, bankers and landlords, who by this token are the ruling class. The State is there to effect the exploitation and oppression of the workers and the poor. The government, its laws, its agencies: it’s military the police, the courts, the jails, — all are there to effect the exploitation and oppression of you and millions like you. The State may change its appearance. It may use the parliamentary system, with a limited freedom of speech to opponents — as long as this opposition is not too dangerous. It tightens the screws and tries to silence the opposition when the situation becomes disturbing for big capital. The forms change. The language differs according to time and place. The essence remains. The essence of the capitalist State is service in the employ of capitalism for the preservation of capitalism.
We know many deny they are “exploited” and “oppressed.” You have been taught to refuse to admit that you are exploited rather than refusing to be exploited. A relatively small group are consciously anti-capitalist, but themajority continue trying to satisfy their needs within the system rather than by overthrowing it. So there is no real possibility of overthrowing the system and attempts to do so degenerate into futile reformism and/or terrorism, whatever the “revolutionary” rhetoric.
In boom conditions, capitalism develops the productive forces at its maximum rate. Openings and opportunities for people who want to better their own situation are available. Most workers can expect better jobs, with a higher standard of living and better conditions. Capitalists can find markets for profitable investment. International trade grows and although the different nations, classes and sectional interests are fighting over their share of an expanding “cake” there is always room for compromise about who benefits more, when nobody is actually asked to accept being worse off than they are already. Reforms may be fought bitterly, but there is scope for reform without shaking the whole system apart.
When the bubble bursts and the recession arrives s all this is put into reverse. The share of cake is shrinking and the fight is over who is to bear the greater loss. Among capitalists the fight is one of dog-eat-dog over who is to survive and who is to eaten . Between capitalists and workers there is no room for any more compromise or concessions. Reforms become impossible and even past achievements are be rolled back. Within the working class too, there is less unity as people find themselves in “hard times” where it is “everyone for themselves”. The “social fabric” unravels. Capitalist society stands revealed as based on sharply antagonistic interests.
A future society to deserve the name socialism has to exclude the capitalist relationship, wage slavery. We are also talking about the workers making the revolution themselves and not just about some self-appointed vanguard seizing the State and then guiding the proles to the classless society. Indeed, we grant that workers would need to change dramatically in order to become fit to take political power. They will need to develop a lot of collective confidence, organisational habits, and political skill, grow in many senses, increase what has been referred to as their "class consciousness" to assault ruling class power. Socialists appeal to the world’s workers upon the lines of their class interests. The Socialist Party make no pretense of attempting to serve both employers and employees. We leave that type of political sophistry to the propagandists of capitalism. Socialists count among the world’s workers all those who labor with hand or brain in the production of life’s necessities and luxuries - white collar or blue caller, suits or overalls.
These days people are rightly cynical about the “policies” and “programmes” of political parties, whether “revolutionary” or not. Leninist ideas are widely discredited by the sterility of their apparent supporters who have employed and repeated Marxist concepts that once summed up important truths so often they now sound like banalities. One hesitates therefore to use the word “socialist party”, for fear of being taken for yet another leftist with pat simplistic answers. Reformists will make half-baked proposals as to how the present political parties should deal with problems. So-called revolutionaries will make proposals about a “workers’ state” or “dictatorship of the proletariat”. The real alternative is to change to a system that is based on satisfying our needs. That is truly a revolutionary demand.
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