The Crisis and Reformism

With the system’s profits declining, some corporations moved to take advantage of cheaper labour abroad, re-locating a great deal of their own industrial production. Other capitalists turned to speculative financial deals that boosted their income on paper without significantly expanding production or productivity. The long-term result of speculation and unprecedented state and corporate borrowing was the bubble of fictitious capital (as Marx termed it) which inevitably had to pop at some time or other. Working-class people have no cause to take joy in such an event. We have to prepare for the worse, which is no sustained capitalist recovery is possible without pay cuts and increased productivity.

Capitalism has historically made use of recessions to rescue profits—by pushing down workers’ wages and forcing weaker capitalists to sell their assets at bargain prices. When the bottom dropped out of the stock exchange in 2007, the capitalist class felt a paralysing shock. The working class may have lost confidence in the often unquestioned expertise of the financial advisers, but, more strikingly, the businessmen themselves suddenly became anxious to take political and economic direction from someone, somewhere, who somehow could save their system. The President and the Federal Reserve promised a “bail-out” but criticised Wall St for excessive speculation and extravagant bonuses. A large proportion of the capitalist class decided that Washington might be the savior, even if it meant submitting to new codes of “fair” business practices. Some capitalists, however, resent the interference of government in their businesses, fearing the thin edge of the wedge which may eventually impact upon their treatment of worker and profit margins. They decline to acknowledge that central government served the interests of capitalism by saving their system. The capitalists today have thousands of laws on paper regulating and legislating the operation of capitalism, but still the corporate corruption thrives and even worsens. This is because they have a greater law in command – the law of maximising profit – and it is under this law all of society is maintained.

Many describe the crisis in terms of workers suffering from low wages and austerity cuts on their benefits are unable to purchase the very goods they themselves have produced. This is called the “under-consumptionist” theory of crisis. This then leads to the advocacy of government policies to boost spending power of consumers.
Mary Lyn Cramer writes:
"Bourgeois theorists will insist that consumer demand of the working population is what drives Capitalist production. It is clear that many of these well intentioned spokespersons actually believe what they are saying...
If a feudal lord were to have told his serf, that the sole purpose of his exploitation was to enable his lord to provide the serf with the material goods necessary to maintain an acceptable level of poverty, the serf would have thought the lord insane. Likewise, if an African slave had been told by the American plantation owner that his enslavement and low standard of living was necessary so that the plantation could produce what the slave needed for survival, she would have thought her master crazy.
But for some reason, laborers exploited by Capitalists are suppose to believe that the accumulation of vast resources, enormous factories, state-of-the art ports, refineries, etc., etc., owned by the Capitalists are necessary for, and simply serve the purpose of producing what working people need to survive and maintain an acceptable standard of living. It is all done for us, and it all comes back to us working people. If that sounds absurd to you, maybe the following will more clearly reflect your reality:
Yes, under the Capitalist system of production and distribution, "consumer goods" sufficient for the the employed labor force to survive (at a more or less acceptable standard of living), is necessary. However, Capital expansion and production of real, material "producer goods"--- such as industrial machinery, factories, infrastructure, technology, planes, company limos, corporate cars, trucks, freight trains, ships, docks, commercial ports and transport of all kinds, along with the communications centers, security apparatus, administrative compounds, together with the pipelines, refineries, natural resources, raw materials and fuel to operate this enormous, global empire---make up the larger part of material production and privately-owned accumulated wealth in this nation and globally; and these tremendous means of production are neither consumed by nor owned by the workers who produce them. Under a system of Capitalist production, exploitation of a labor force that produces much more than it consumes is the essential source of real profits. It is production and expansion of the enormous, modern industrial Capitalist empire that is the aim of Capitalism (and all those who identify as successful competitive players in this deadly game), not increased consumption of goods and services for working people. The latter is the necessary "spin-off" so to speak, until those workers themselves are no longer deemed "necessary."

This is also reflected by the position as advanced by Greg Sharzer:
“First, wages don't create all demand: they're just one way for capitalists to realize the capital invested in commodities (…) Most people encounter the market when they shop, so it seems natural to believe that capitalism exists to satisfy our consumer needs. But while the market in consumer goods is constantly on display, exploitation is hidden. Workers matter as workers, the source of surplus value: they're only able to receive and spend a wage if their employer makes a profit first. Moreover, capitalist production creates capital goods that only business buys: the machinery and building materials that go into factories, offices and other sites of exploitation. Capital has to consume materials at all stages of the production process. Machines increase production, making more machines necessary and increasing the importance of industries producing the means of production. There are huge areas of the economy off-limits to workers' spending power. (…) Even if localist missionaries convinced all workers that local consumption could change the world, workers could, at best, change the conditions of production for their own housing and durable goods, a small portion of the capital circuit.” (Greg Sharzer, "No Local. Why Small-Scale Alternatives Won’t Change the World".)

Marx pointed out in Volume 2 of Theories of Surplus Value:
“The word over-production in itself leads to error. So long as the most urgent needs of a large part of society are not satisfied, or only the most immediate needs are satisfied, there can of course be absolutely no talk of an over-production of products— in the sense that the amount of products is excessive in relation to the need for them. On the contrary, it must be said that on the basis of capitalist production, there is constant under-production in this sense. The limits to production are set by the profit of the capitalist and in no way by the needs of the producers. But over-production of products and over-production of commodities are two entirely different things."

Marx himself noticed:
“It is sheer tautology to say that crises are caused by the scarcity of effective consumption, or of effective consumers. The capitalist system does not know any other modes of consumption than effective ones, except that of sub forma pauperis or of the swindler. That commodities are unsaleable means only that no effective purchasers have been found for them, i.e., consumers (since commodities are bought in the final analysis for productive or individual consumption). But if one were to attempt to give this tautology the semblance of a profounder justification by saying that the working-class receives too small a portion of its own product and the evil would be remedied as soon as it receives a larger share of it and its wages increase in consequence, one could only remark that crises are always prepared by precisely a period in which wages rise generally and the working-class actually gets a larger share of that part of the annual product which is intended for consumption. From the point of view of these advocates of sound and “simple” (!) common sense, such a period should rather remove the crisis. It appears, then, that capitalist production comprises conditions independent of good or bad will, conditions which permit the working-class to enjoy that relative prosperity only momentarily, and at that always only as the harbinger of a coming crisis.”

The SPGB crisis position is based upon the "anarchy of production" which if you wish to take a swipe at them this can be simplistically described as "supply and demand" - producers not knowing that there is a buyer for their commodities until after they have been put on the market and giving rise to disproportionate growth. (This is, of course, not defence for some form of central planning!!)

 Economic crises are due to the basic features of the capitalist system. One feature is the anarchy of production. Businessmen decide what kind of things to produce and how many to produce either individually or in small groups. Production is not planned. Over time, disproportions between the activities of various firms and different industries eventually occur. The effect of this unplanned method of production under capitalism causes either too many products or too few products on the market. Disproportions in the economy affect the capitalists’ profits. When business do not make the expected level of profits, they shut down production. Shutdowns, order cancellations, and bankruptcies can cause a chain reaction leading to economic paralysis, which is called a crisis. Part of the chain reaction of the economic contraction is a falling level of working-class consumption. Another reaction is growing unemployment. However, it is the economic contraction which causes a decline in wages and working-class consumption and growing unemployment, not under-consumption by the working class that causes capitalist economic crises.

Again, why is the question important? For the reason that if an organisation supports the line that underconsumption is the reason for capitalist economic crises then there is no need for revolution. All the working class has to do to solve its problems is to demand some tax relief and extra spending on the part of the capitalist state. The under-consumptionist line channels the working class away from militant class struggle and into dead-end reformism. Struggle is confined to making appeals through the system to this or that politician.  The under-consumptionist line, helps the capitalists to foster reformist illusions in the working class.

 As long as the capitalists are in control, production is based on profits not social needs. The level of production allowed by the capitalists is determined by how much profit is to be made, not by the needs of the people who live under the capitalist system. If an employer determines that he can produce a smaller amount of some product and sell each item for a higher individual price, making higher profits, he will do so. No matter what the level of technology, how high the unemployment level, or how gorged the stocks of raw materials, the capitalist will sabotage production in order to make a higher profit.  Food, for example, from milk to wheat, are regulated to profits rather than social needs.

It is not an era of social reforms that we hope for, but for a great epoch of social revolution! Reformism is capitalist trickery used to keep the working class under wage slavery. Reformists maintain that we can arrive at “socialism” by winning reforms one after the other. What they don’t say is that whatever the employers has to give up with one hand after a hard struggle, they always take back with the other.

 Socialists make no compromises with the capitalist class but fight them relentlessly. But those on the Left reproach the Socialist Party and tell us “no idealism, comrades, the working class are not socialist – on the contrary, they are still dominated by bourgeois ideology, so let’s sit back and wait.” The Socialist Party does not hide its positions out of fear of cutting themselves off from workers  but rather carry out their educational work in order to persuade them. Reformism provides no ultimate solution to the problems of capitalism. Reformists, on the other hand, are people and people change all the time.

With God On Whose Side?

There is a wildly-held fallacy that religions are not concerned about worldly issues and their only concern is about spiritual matters. The recent conflict between Russia and Ukraine illustrates that this is not the case. '"An end to the designs of those who want to destroy Holy Russia", said by Patriarch Kirill 1 of Moscow, Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church. "Against our peace-loving nation .... there has been injustice.", said by Patriarch Filaret, of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.' (Times, 21 April) In conflicts between different sections of the owning class they rely on nationalism and religion to motivate their working class to take up arms. RD  

Earth Day

April 22 is Earth Day, a time that people around the world officially celebrate the planet we all call home. It’s also the anniversary of the birth of what is believed to be the modern day environmental movement, with the first Earth Day taking place in 1970. The impact of climate change on food production figured prominently in the many speeches and articles.

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva referred to a report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which forecasts serious disruptions to agriculture due to shifting weather patterns. “We need to step up our efforts to mitigate, to adapt and, most importantly, to shift to more sustainable food systems,” he said. “This is one of our core responsibilities.” The world’s poorest are particularly vulnerable to climate change, he said, because the impact on agricultural production will be felt harder in the already marginal production areas in which they live.
On April 22, 1970, when Earth Day was born, it generated more than 12,000 Earth Day events all across the country. Two-thirds of the members of Congress made speeches at Earth Day events as millions upon millions of people participated in a celebration of the environment, including liberal Republicans, and most active members of environmental groups were hunters and fishermen. Earth Day bolstered Congress to pass: (1) the Clean Air Act of 1970 (2) the Clean Water Act of 1972 (3) Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 (4) Fisheries Conservation and Management Act of 1976 (5) Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 (6) National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 (7) Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 (8) Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (9) Endangered Species Act of 1973, most of which became the law of the land under Republican administrations.

Fast forward....

Today, it is embarrassing to even mention Earth Day in the context of a celebration because it is so hypocritical. Everybody knows all about how dangerous excessive CO2 is to the planet. The entire world has buried its head in the sand regarding the issue of life-threatening self-destruction.

 The power of capitalist society to destroy has reached an unprecedented scale in the history of humanity. Everywhere, air is befouled, waterways polluted, soil washed away, the land poisoned, and wildlife decimated. More significantly, basic biological cycles  upon which all living things  depend for the maintenance and renewal of life, are at the point of irreversible damage. This environmental destruction is literally undoing the work of evolution. It is a truism to say that humanity is part of the rich tapestry of life.  Human beings depends  upon the complexity and variety of life,our well-being and survival rest upon a long evolution of organisms into complex and interdependent forms. The development of life into a web, the elaboration of animals and plants into highly varied forms, has been the precondition for the evolution and survival of humanity itself and for a harmonized relationship between humanity and nature.

We now witness the despoilation of the planet that exceeds all the damage inflicted by earlier generations. Time is running out and the next decade or two may well be the last opportunity we will have to restore the balance between humanity and nature.

Technology has become a convenient target for bypassing the deep-seated social conditions that make machines and technical processes harmful. It is convenient to forget that technology has served not only to subvert the environment but also to improve it. True there are techniques and technological attitudes that are entirely destructive of the balance between humanity and nature. Our responsibilities are to separate the promise of technology - its creative potential - from the capacity of technology to destroy. There are different technologies and attitudes toward technology, some of which are indispensable to restoring the balance, others of which have contributed profoundly to its destruction. What humanity needs is not a wholesale discarding of advanced technologies, but a sifting, indeed a further development of technology along ecological principles that will contribute to a new harmonization of society and the natural world.

The basic conception that humanity must dominate and exploit nature stems from the domination and exploitation of man by man. Indeed, this conception goes back earlier to a time when men began to dominate and exploit women in the patriarchal family. From that point onward, human beings were increasingly regarded as mere resources, as objects instead of subjects. Humans are not only turned into objects; they are turned into commodities; into objects explicitly designed for sale on the market place. Competition between human beings becomes an end in itself, together with the production of utterly useless goods. Quality is turned into quantity, individual culture into mass culture, personal communication into mass communication. The natural environment is turned into a gigantic factory, the city into an immense market place; everything from a redwood forest to a woman's body has "a price."

Is it surprising, then, that this exploitative, degrading, quantified society pits humanity against itself and against nature on a more awesome scale than any other in the past? The hierarchies, classes, propertied forms, and statist institutions that emerged with social domination were carried over conceptually into humanity's relationship with nature. Nature too became increasingly regarded as a mere resource, an object, a raw material to be exploited ruthlessly. Man should subdue the Earth, Genesis dictated, ''and have dominion ... over every living thing.''

 The enormous productivity of modern technology has opened a new vision: the possibility of material abundance, an end to scarcity, and an era of free time (so-called "leisure time") with minimum toil. Our society has the choice between "what-is" and "what-could-be,"  irrational, inhuman exploitation and destruction of the earth and its inhabitants or a new world of harmony. we need change, but change fundamental and far-reaching. We must treat the Earth communally,  without the trammels of private property that have distorted humanity's vision of life and nature since the break-up of tribal society.

 The environmental movement’s most conscious elements are involved in a creative movement to totally revolutionize the social relations of humans to each other and of humanity to nature The require  to increase the awareness that the most destructive and pressing consequences of our alienating, exploitative society is the environmental crisis, and that a truly revolutionary society must be built upon ecological precepts, to create, in the minds of the millions  who are concerned with the destruction of our environment, the consciousness that the principles of the environment’s protection demand radical changes in our society and our way of looking at the world. Socialism will produce politically independent communities whose boundaries and populations will be defined by a new consciousness; communities whose inhabitants will determine for themselves within the framework of this new consciousness the nature and level of their technologies, the forms taken by their social structures, world views, life styles, expressive arts, and all other aspects of their daily lives.  An effective Earth Day celebration today would involve global massive street protests demanding renewable energy sources to be made freely available. Earth Day would be demanding a socialist world.

What’s Left of Reformism?

From the Countercurrents website

If there is one thing the employing class is more afraid of than anything else it is the possibility of the workers accepting the idea embodied in the term “social revolution”. Revolutionaries are described as wild visionaries, utopia builders, and so on. In the not-so-distant past, the labour and social-democrat parties did talk in terms of changing society. True, this was only as a long-term prospect, but the idea of an alternative society was there as was a wide consensus among those calling themselves socialists as to what socialism was. Dissent among socialists was mostly not about the nature of socialism but about the best way of achieving it. At that time socialist organisations did not offer reform policies as an end in themselves but rather as strategies that would lead to the eventual overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. Now this has gone and those of us who are still proposing this are denounced as "unrealistic" for continuing to advocate a "big solution" when supposedly there is none. The real casualty of the errors and internecine disputes of the past has been socialism itself. Unfortunately, this has created a graveyard of broken hopes.

The working-class movement has vacillated between different roads:

1) The armed conquest of power by a small determined group which would hold on to power until the majority were converted – Blanquism
2) The seizure of the means of production and distribution by some form of industrial action – Syndicalism
3)The accomplishment of ever more sweeping reforms until capitalism had been reformed out of existence and society had “glided” into socialism – Reformism

In the history of the working class movement a variety of different parties have been formed; some following one or other of the above roads or a combination of them. Trying to change capitalism, or "reformism", is the one that has been taken by most people who have wanted to improve society. There can be no questioning of the principle of fighting for reforms, no exploration as to their efficacy or need. Politicians' logic prevails:

1. Capitalism is terrible.
2. We must do something.
3. Reforms are something.
4. Therefore we must enact reforms.

We do not deny that certain reforms won by the working class have helped to improve our general living and working conditions. Indeed, we see little wrong with people campaigning for reforms that bring essential improvements and enhance the quality of their lives. Some reforms do indeed make a difference to the lives of millions and can be viewed as “successful”. There are examples of this in such fields as education, housing, child labour, work conditions and social security. Socialists have to acknowledge that the "welfare" state and healthcare made living standards for the working class better than they had been under rampant capitalism's earlier ideology of laissez-faire. However, it also has to be recognised that many "successes" have in reality done little more than to keep workers and their families in efficient working order and, while it has taken the edge of the problem, it has rarely managed to remove the problem completely.

Socialists do not oppose reformism because it is against improvements in workers' lives lest it dampens revolutionary ardour; nor, because we think that decadent capitalism simply cannot deliver on any reforms; but because our continued existence as propertyless wage slaves undermines whatever attempts we make to control and better our lives through reforms. Our objection to reformism is that by ignoring the essence of class, it throws blood, sweat and tears into battles that will be undermined by the workings of the wages system. All that effort, skill, energy, all those tools could be turned against class society, to create a society of common interest where we can make changes for our common mutual benefit. So long as class exists, any gains will be partial and fleeting, subject to the ongoing struggle. What we are opposed to is the whole culture of reformism, the idea that capitalism can be tamed and made palatable with the right menu of reforms.

We oppose those organisations that promise to deliver a programme of reforms on behalf of the working class, often in order to gain a position of power. Many of the Left are going to put before the working class only what they think will be understood by the workers - proposals to improve and reform the present capitalist system- and, of course they are going to try to assume the leadership of such struggles as a way of achieving support for their vanguard party. These Left parties may try to initiate such struggles themselves and they will try to muscle in on any struggles of this sort that groups of workers have started off themselves. But it's all very cynical because they know that reformism ultimately leads nowhere (as they readily admit in their theoretical journals meant for circulation amongst their members, although not in their populist, agitational journals). The purpose in telling workers to engage in such struggles is to teach them a lesson, the hard way which is the only way some on the Left think they can learn i.e. by experiencing failure. The expectation is that when, these reformist struggles fail the workers will then turn against capitalism, under the Party Leadership. It is the old argument, advanced by Trotsky in his founding manifesto for the "Fourth International" in 1938, that socialist consciousness will develop out of the struggle for reforms within capitalism: when workers realise that they can’t get the reforms they have been campaigning for they will, Trotsky pontificated, turn to the "cadres" of the Fourth International for leadership. In fact it never ever happens so all that's achieved is to encourage reformist illusions amongst workers. The ultimate result of this is disillusionment with the possibility of radical change.

Its flawed because it shows no reason why, due to the failure of reform, the workers should turn to socialism. Why, since it was people calling themselves socialists who advocated that reform, don't they turn against it, or even to fascism? Under the model of revolution presented by the Left-wing the only way the working class could come to socialist consciousness is through a revolution is made by the minority with themselves as its leaders. This, then, explains their dubious point about needing to "be" where the mass of the working class is. It is the reason why a supposedly revolutionary party should change its mind to be with the masses, rather than trying to get the masses to change their minds and be with it. They do not want workers to change their minds, merely to become followers. Their efforts are not geared towards changing minds, or raising revolutionary class consciousness.

But what about the mainstream, “realistic” reformers? What of all the labour and social-democratic parties? They did at one time seek to reform capitalism in the hope that capitalism could prove to be a fair and fulfilling society for all its members. Now, they are even more dedicated than ever to running with optimal efficiency the very system that creates poverty, misery, homelessness and war. Keeping the system and trying to make it work against its logic is not a viable option. Such reformism has been tried over the years and has failed. Those who set out to change society through winning political power and reforms have had to accept what was always inevitable, that reformism is a graveyard for such hopes. For anyone wishing to bring about a new and better world, reformism requires a pact with the Devil, where the forming of a government means being sucked into running the system. Over decades, millions of workers all ver the world have invested their hopes in so-called ‘practical’, ‘possibilist’ organisations , hoping against hope that they would be able to neuter the market economy when, in reality, the market economy has successfully neutered them. They turned out to be the real ‘impossibilists’ – demanding an unattainable humanised capitalism – is one of the greatest tragedies of the last century, made all the greater because it was so predictable. They held the idea that capitalism could be reformed into something kindly and user-friendly. It couldn't and it can't.

Socialists understand well the urge to do something in the here and now, to make a change. That makes us all the more determined, however, to get the message across, to clear away the barrier of the wages system, so that we can begin to build a truly human society. Why waste time fighting for half measures? We would better spend our time, energies, and resources educating people to establish socialism rather than waste time in the false belief that our present system can be made to work in everyone's interest. We do not claim capitalist reforms stand in the way of achieving socialism. If we did we'd logically have to oppose them; which we don't. We encourage workers to fight back against employers and, although we don't propose or advocate reforms, we don't oppose them if they genuinely do improve workers' lives under capitalism. What we say is not that they are obstacles to socialism but merely that they are irrelevant to socialism and that a socialist party should not advocate reforms.

If you are convinced, however, that groups or parties promising reforms deserve your support, we would urge you to consider the following points. The campaign will often only succeed if it can be reconciled with the profit-making needs of the system. In other words, the reform will often be turned to the benefit of the capitalist class at the expense of any working class gain. Any reform can be reversed and eroded later if a government finds it necessary. Reforms rarely, if ever, actually solve the problem they were intended to solve. One can pick any single problem and find that improvements have taken place, usually only after a very long period of agitation. But rarely, if ever, has the problem actually disappeared, and usually other related problems have arisen to fill the vacuum of left by the "solution".

If your view remains that the struggle for reforms is still worthwhile then imagine just how many more palliatives and ameliorations will be offered and conceded by a besieged capitalist class in a desperate attempt to retain their ownership rights if the working class were demanding the maximum programme of full and complete appropriation and nothing less. To stem the socialist tide the capitalist parties will sink their differences and draw closer together, much as religions do today in the face of the world avalanche of atheism. Reforms they now deride as utopian will be two-a-penny - in an attempt to fob off the workers. Perhaps, for example, capitalism will provide a batch of free services, on the understanding that this is "the beginning" of a free society. They’ll maybe offer the universal basic income but socialists will not be taken in.

The lure of unity proposed by the reformer to the revolutionary is always a poisoned chalice: “Join us today to promote such and such [some reform or other] and tomorrow we can start the revolution together.” But of course tomorrow never comes. Another line of thinking that presents itself as friendly to revolution but is really calculated to frustrate it, is “The time is not yet ripe” argument. Many people have sympathy with the socialist idea but say that such a transformation is a long way off and that in the meantime we must still aim for improvements within the framework of the existing system. They point to the changes that have taken place in peoples lives since the nineteenth century. It is worth trying to get more of these improvements, they say, and the best way to do it is to press governments for reforms. But yet again, the time is found to be never ripe for fundamental changes to the system.

It may at first sight seem that certain reforms are motivated by humanitarian concern as in education, sanitation and housing. Yet it is clear that the schooling received by the children of most wage and salary earners merely fits them for their role as workers. Improved sanitation reduces the threat of epidemics which do not spare the wealthy, while subsidised housing is intended to lessen the pressure by workers for higher wages. These measures have the purpose of raising the standard of efficiency of the workers, thus making them more productive for their masters' benefit. The more astute and far-sighted members of the ruling class have long realised this.

Any socialists in parliament should consistently expose reformism for its inability to solve the problems of capitalism but he or she will be prepared to consider on their merits particular, individual reforms that clearly benefited the working class or the socialist movement, but always under democratic direction from the wider movement and without ever giving support to reformist parties. A blanket opposition to everything that does and can happen in capitalism, in the guise of being true to socialist principles, would involve actions (or inaction) that was expressly contrary to the interests of the working class. That would be ridiculous and taken to its ultimate, logical conclusion would lead to the situation whereby socialists in parliament would be inadvertently allying themselves with the forces of reaction to keep wars going, or oppose factory legislation that might benefit the safety and health of workers. The men and women who founded the Socialist Party realised the absurdity of this tactic a long time ago.

It is economic theory that underlies our case against reformism. A revolution is the work of a class which has gained political power in order to transform society to suit its interests; a reform is carried out only within the framework of the social system. Reforms cannot end capitalism; they can modify it to some extent, but they leave its basis untouched. To establish socialism, a revolution - a complete transformation of private property into social property - is necessary.

Further Reading
The Market System Must Go, Socialist Party of Great Britain, 1997
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/market-system-must-go

Alan Johnstone 

"Our" Socialism

Capitalism is barbaric. It has out-lasted its time. It must go. That is the task of our Party. It is your job too, all of you, wherever you are, to struggle for the emancipation of your class. There is no easy road, there is not a gradual road. The whole conception of gradualism is to introduce one “good” law after another; and one fine day the workers will wake up pleasantly surprised to find themselves in the midst of a socialist world. It isn’t going to happen.

The capitalist class and the working-class stand opposed to each other. The class lines are clearly defined. There is no mistaking who is a capitalist and who is a worker. The capitalist class has at disposal all the power of the State. These forces comprise, a well-organised bureaucracy, a strong judiciary, a powerful police and military. The capitalist class has at its beck and call an extensive and potent media reaching out to millions, colouring their views on life, determining largely their political opinions, fashioning their thoughts, moulding their minds into a servile acceptance of things as they are or as the controllers of these mouthpieces of capitalism wish us to believe they are. As soon as there is rumour of discontent in the factories or a strike, employers use their power to ensure the smooth running of the industrial machine. The duty of the Socialist Party is to expose and resist this by every means possible. Workers are becoming more conscious of the nature of the struggle  and more determined. Revolution is no longer some utopian fantasy but is now being forced upon us as the only practical solution. Those who saw socialism as an ideal, now try to translate it into a social reality.

Two lines of conduct are possible for a political party representing the working class. Reform capitalism, making the lot of the working class tolerable under that system. Another method to educate people and gain support for the socialism. Our manifesto has nothing to do with reformist programmes, which are like shopping lists, including all sorts of demands for various reforms. These party platforms aren’t the basis on which members join a party. Rather, they’re a hodge-podge collection in which everybody can find something which satisfies them, while rejecting those parts he or she disagrees with. The question of creating reformist illusions in the minds of the workers is an important one. Goodness knows they have been too many such illusions as it is and the function of our party is not to add to them but to attempt to destroy them. If we fail to educate, to organise and to prepare the working class for a clear understanding of, and for the attainment of the revolutionary objectives, temporary concessions gained can, instead of becoming partial victories on the way, be turned into retardation of the struggle.

The Socialist Party declares unhesitatingly to all the workers that the various protest movements cannot realise their full power so long as they remain sectional, separate and limited in their scope and character. The many streams of the rising forces of the workers must be gathered together in one powerful mass movement. The Socialist Party does not reject the policy of struggle for reforms in the immediate condition of the workers. But not as ends in themselves.

A socialist is not the ordinary man-in-the-street who is saturated with ignorance and prejudices pumped into him every day from a hundred sources. The socialist endeavours to think about social problems scientifically. The first question to ask about any problem that needs tackling, is this: How has this problem arisen? Only if this question is answered as ably as social science permits, is it possible to tackle intelligently and effectively.

Every student of politics bursts his seams when he hears this: “There are many socialisms, and which of the 57 varieties are you referring to?”

Socialism has been a long time on its journey from the past to the present. When Marx came on the intellectual scene there were any number of socialisms; and there were socialisms before Marx was born; and there were socialisms promoted after he died. There were the “True Socialists”, the Christian socialists, the reformer socialists, cooperative socialists, bourgeois socialists, feudal socialists, agrarian socialists, Bismarckian state-socialists. They existed and continue to exist under different names. We had “National-Socialists”; we have had “Stalinist socialism”, the socialism of the Labour Party and of Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book. Usually members of the Socialist Party in support of our ideas will  counter by describing them  as “real socialism”, “genuine” socialism not fake socialism, and perhaps term it “scientific socialism” or the “socialism of Marx.”

Perhaps we should simply say “Our” Socialism - and we are the working class. That is the essence, that is the durable characteristic as distinct from all other varieties of socialisms - our socialism is working class socialism.

When speaking of socialism and socialist revolution we seek “no saviours from high to deliver", as our workers anthem, the International, so ably puts it. We do not believe that reforms will solve the problems of society, let alone bring socialism. We trust that task to the working class alone, that the emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class itself. No leaders. No vanguard parties. There can be no socialism without the working class of the world. Socialism cannot be built without the working class and against the working class. Socialism represents the declaration of independence of the working class. It runs through everything we say and everything we do and everything we want others to do. The working class, themselves,  are the masters not only of their own fate but the masters of the fate of all society if they but take control of society into their own hands! That is the hope of us all. It will remain our hope in the greatest hours of adversity, even while everywhere lies in deepest pessimism.

Our role in the Socialist Party is to teach Marxism and working class socialism. Our idea of politics boil down to this basic revolutionary idea – to teach the working class to rely upon itself, upon its own organisation, upon its own democracy and  upon its own ideas rather than  to subordinate itself at any time to the interest, the needs, the leadership or the ideas of any other class. We regret that for the other “socialisms” that proposition does not dominate their thought.

Socialism was born of the class antagonisms of capitalist society, without which it would never have been heard of; and in the present state of its development it is a struggle of the working class to free themselves from their capitalist exploiters by wresting from them the tools with which modern work is done. This conflict for mastery of the tools is necessarily a class conflict. It can be nothing else, and only the socialist who perceives clearly the nature of the struggle and takes a stand squarely and uncompromisingly with the working class in the struggle which can end only with the utter annihilation of the capitalist system and the total abolition of class rule. All others are “socialisms” are for no other purpose than to emasculate working class socialism.

 We are proud that “Our” socialism  starts by teaching workers to rely upon themselves,  that there is no socialism and no progress to socialism without the working class, without the working class revolution, without the working class in power, without the working class having been lifted to “political supremacy” (as Marx called it) to their “victory of democracy” (as Marx also called it). No socialism and no advance to socialism without it! That is our rock. That is what we build the fight for the socialist future on. That is what we’re unshakably committed to. For the Socialist Party, we have nothing in common with any of their 57 varieties of “socialisms”.

If we, as socialists, do not impress into our audience’s minds the truth that we are working and fighting for a complete social revolution, which shall abolish the present State and establish a free society in its place, we mislead our readers and listeners, and induce them to think we, too, are merely tinkerers with present system. Words still count largely in the formation of ideas.

The make-up of a State is through departments and ministries dominated by bureaucrats and civil servants, who therefore dominate the people. The arrangement of administration in a cooperative society is by delegates nominated by the community, who act as functionaries, not as controllers of the society. Socialists argue that organisation is possible without a State, and that the State appears only in societies divided into classes.

Some societies without States have continued to exist down to our own times among the Indians of South America. Harmony in these communities is admirably maintained spontaneously without any system or apparatus of coercion, despite the number of common affairs to be arranged, because their way of life do not give rise to any antagonism between categories of individuals, for all are free and equal. As soon as there are in a society a possessing class and a dispossessed class, there exists in that society a constant source of collisions and conflicts which the social organization would not long resist, if there was not a power charged with maintaining the “established order,” charged, in other words, with the protection of the economic situation of the possessing party, and therefore with the duty of ensuring the submission of the dispossessed party. Now, from its very birth, this has been the role of the State. The State has evolved with the development of that division, i. e., in short, with the economic relations which form the basis of that division; but, under the various appearances it has worn, its object has remained the same because, ever since the appearance of classes, it has always had a privileged economic situation to defend and conflicts to repress. We know what the State - a class-instrument.

As soon as it is understood that the State is not an independent organism, having its own existence outside the  interlinked economic relations of men, but that it is necessarily subordinate to the division of society into classes, and so no party whatever can have as its immediate goal the abolition of the State. The State cannot disappear before the disappearance of the social conditions of which it is the necessary result. A party can abolish the State only after having suppressed classes, and one cannot modify the economic relations of which classes are merely the personification, without acting first upon the State. The only practical line for socialists is the conquest of political power, the conquest of the State. 

Discussion meetings

Lothian Discussion Group 

Wednesday, 23 April 2014 - 7:30pm - 9:00pm

Venue: The Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh,
17 West Montgomery Place, Edinburgh

Directions: ACE is situated on the corner of West Montgomery Place and Brunswick Road opposite the old Royal Mail sorting office.



Kilmarnock Discussion Group

Thursday, 24 April 2014 - 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Venue: The Wheatsheaf Inn,
70 Portland Street, Kilmarnock 

Increasing Pauperism

Despite recent claims that the capitalist system is making a steady recovery from economic crisis the number of people given "pauper's funerals" has risen by more than a third in the last five years. 'About 4,100 were cremated anonymously or buried in mass graves with no headstone in 2013, against about 3,000 in 2009. .... A spokeswoman for Age UK, which represents the elderly, described the figures as "deeply worrying". "It's a stark reminder that 1.6m older people are living in poverty and and many more are struggling to make ends meet," she said.' (Sunday Times, 20 April) It speaks volumes for the wonderful, progressive nature of  the capitalism  system that the press has to use Dickensian terms like "paupers" to describe some workers in the 21st century. RD

The Uncaring Society

Capitalism is an uncaring, harsh society but probably nothing sums up better how alienated workers have become than this news item. 'The corpse of a 66-year-old German woman who died more than six months ago was found in her apartment in front of a television set that was still on. The woman, in the town of Oberursel near Frankfurt, died of natural causes in a nightgown while watching TV on the sofa.' (Daily Mail, 27 March) Chief Inspector Ulrich Demmer of Hesse police department is reported as saying "Someone should have noticed. Unfortunately, societal and demographic changes mean that such cases are increasing." Dead for six months without anybody noticing - can capitalism get any more awful? RD

Our Interests Alone

How often have we heard something like this,  “Marx was a splendid man for his time. But he is now out-of-date.” Karl must be turning in his grave.

The thoughts of people are much troubled about the future and many seem doubtful where the world is headed. It is impossible to look around and see that something is seriously amiss;  the inequalities, the wasted wealth and excessive luxury of the rich compared to the misery and deprivation of the poor. Political reforms have done very little for people. Periods of prosperity, speedily followed by recession. Private enterprise has been tried and found wanting and laissez-faire has had its day.

The creators of all wealth, we, the workers, obtain in wages only what isnecessary to live on and keep a family (so that capitalism has a steady supply of labour-power). All means of production, whether factories, machines or mines, are owned by the capitalist class. Workers possess only their own labour-power which they must sell in order to live. The system of capitalist relations of production is in sharp contradiction with the highly-developed means of production leading to economic crises, bringing the miseries of unemployment and falling wages on the working class.

The class interest of the proletariat is to eliminate capitalism entirely and to build a socialist society, the classless society free from exploitation and from racial, sexual and all other forms of inequality. No party represents the class interests of the working class unless it strives to awaken the workers to a po1itical consciousness that will give them class power. Various political parties and trends claim to represent workers and working class interests. They attempt to win support among workers but their political ideas and aims are pro-capitalist.

The Labour Party, particularly its ‘left’ wing, claims to stand for the workers’ interests and for socialism.  Labour claims that socialism can be introduced gradually through a series of reforms. In the early years of the Labour Party many workers voted for Labour, believing that they could vote in socialism, but the experience of various Labour governments has brought disillusion. Today no-one believes that Labour will establish a new and better political and economic system. Even Labour politicians themselves ask for votes with the claim that they can make capitalism work better than the Tories. Certain industries could no longer be run at a profit by individual capitalists but were still necessary for the whole capitalist economy. Measures presented as ‘socialist’ such as ‘nationalisation’ were introduced but these industries remain controlled and run entirely in capitalism’s interests. Economic policies as advocated by Keynes, such as heavy state deficit financing, the payment of social security benefits and so, in order to keep spending going and the market for goods developing and to escape recession in the economy.  Such measures have been represented by Labour as the triumph of socialism and of the ‘welfare state’ . This is coupled with the line that capital and labour must unite behind the ’national interest’. But the ‘national interest’ is always capitalism’s interest. The Labour Party represents capitalism and no other class. The mass of the working–class no longer holds any illusion that the Labour Party represents its interests or will bring about any real change in the system. At best, the Labour Party is seen as a ‘lesser evil’ than the Conservative Party.  If so-called ‘Left revolutionaries’ support Labour in election campaigns, even as a ‘lesser evil’ or with all sorts of qualifications to their support, they are betraying the working class. This support amounts to an attempt to preserve, or re-establish, workers’ illusions that if Labour had a more left-wing, a more radicl leadership leadership things would be different. No party, no matter how ‘left’ its leadership, can effect important changes to the capitalist system. The Left spread the illusion that the Labour Party can be ‘pressurised’ more than the Conservatives, into making concessions to workers. In practice, efforts to shift the the Labour Party left-ward lead workers’ organisations into compromise and sell-out policies again and again. Today, to advocate support for Labour is to hinder and thwart the fundamental task of presenting the working class with a clear alternative to all pro-capitalist parties and to the whole system of capitalism.

The exploitation and oppression of the working class has never ceased, the need for socialism has never disappeared and the working class remains the revolutionary class. Under capitalism, the exploitation and oppression of the workers forces collective struggles to defend their standard of living to arise. Such struggles are necessary and arise, spontaneously. They are limited in their essential nature to defensive struggles, but are schools for the basic lessons of the collective strength of the working class. Only limited gains are possible even with victories in such defensive struggles.

With the present crisis, the problems of the workers are growing more intense. Dogmatists asserts that all our answers have already been given by Marx and Engels and that we simply have to parrot their words, no real effort at analysis or application of theory being required. Such attitudes repudiate the most fundamental essence of Marxism, its absolute dependence, in originating and testing ideas, on material reality. Our theory is drawn from the lessons of world history and the experience of mankind and the specific experience of class struggle. We certainly cannot neglect research, reading and discussing books, publishing our views and so on. All ideas emerge from practice, from material reality, and must be tested in practice. We certainly must draw on the practice of others. Political agitation is the struggle to raise class consciousness through commenting on specific issues or events. Through such specific issues, aspects of capitalist society can be exposed, the workers’ spirit of resistance sharpened and working class unity consolidated. Such agitation must be directed by a general understanding of capitalism and how to fight it. Unless such educational and agitational work is conducted, we shall not connect our ideas to the actual political and economic struggles going on around us. The socialist case will remain nothing but empty platitudes. To make people understand our main standpoint of anti-capitalist revolution is by linking up every discussion with it. Our party must constantly discuss and thoroughly comprehend the main issues about the political foundation and spirit of anti-capitalist revolution to overthrow the capitalists from political power, and not just give emotional speeches against oppression. Because in a general way the people have a realization about oppression and hunger and they want to fight against oppression. But he who wants to fight against capitalism, at the very next moment on another question he is seen to display an attitude of protecting capitalism. So we need to develop a spirit of all-out fight to destroy capitalism, we need the endeavour to build up a firm anti-capitalist bent of mind embracing the entire mental world, and accordingly prepare ourselves so that each of our discussions becomes effective.

Our task as a socialist party is to uphold our correct politics exposing the wrong politics, the opportunist politics of others, to dispel confusion; but is the work in running our party going the right way to serve this purpose? It is true that we are not in a position politically or organisationally to integrate trade union and community struggles with the world socialist movement. And it is also true that we are not indispensable to such struggles. However, while we can do much useful work, involvement in such struggles is more indispensable to us, to our development as socialists and to our struggle to build a mass socialist party. There is no organisational formula for party-building. However, it is useless unless there exists political unity. We believe also in the open,’frank, discussion. We are against unprincipled ‘take-overs’ of workers organisations and  attempts to claim a leading role in them.

Merely talking against capitalism, giving a list of the capitalist parties misdeeds is not enough.  We are obliged to show why it is necessary to overthrow capitalism by relating it with all the problems of workers. Today we know that our interests are identical as workers. We  hold that an organisation which maintains that the workers have interests in common with their employers—the parasites—is serving the masters’ interests, as opposed to the workers’ interests.

Fight for tomorrow's world today

Some people refuse to learn. Others refuse to remember. And yet others remember what they have learned only up to the moment when events call upon them to put it into practice, whereupon they begin to forget. Socialism is based upon the organisation of production for use by means of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, and is the abolition of all classes.

 “It would be nice to have socialism but it cannot happen" runs the argument by many people. Socialism is not a utopian ideal, a blueprint for society that exists in the minds of some people. It is a social necessity; it is a practical necessity. It is the direction that the masses of the people must take in order to save society from disintegration. To be a socialist, merely means to be conscious of this necessity, to make others conscious of it, and to work for the realisation of the goal.

How is the goal of a socialist society to be realised? Is it really impossible to realise it? One of the consequences of capitalism is that production is already carried on socially. Labour has been socialised. The only important thing that has not been socialised is the ownership and the appropriation of the products of industry. They remain private or under state control. And therein lies the root of capitalist exploitation and oppression, of the anarchy of production, of crises and wars. The seeds of socialism, sown by capitalism itself, will bloom and flourish.

 Of all the people in society, the workers suffer most intensely from the rule of capitalism. Their interests are diametrically opposed to those of the capitalists. The workers cannot rid themselves of their sufferings without abolishing the domination that the machine has over them. They can do this only if they gain control of the machine itself. In doing so, they must destroy capitalism and proceed with the complete re-organisation of society. Man would no longer be the slave of the machine. The machine would be the slave of man. Every increase in productivity would bring with it two things: an increase in the things required for the need, comfort and even luxury of all; and an increase in everyone’s leisure time, to devote to the free cultural and intellectual development of humankind. Mankind will not live primarily to work, instead we will work primarily to live.

The abolition of private ownership would remove the last barrier to the development of production. Production would be organised and aimed at satisfying the needs of society. Once the profit barrier is removed, and the huge waste of capitalism eliminated, productivity and production would reach undreamed-of peaks. All the unnatural differences between town and country would be eliminated. Even today, with all the restrictions that capitalism places upon production, there are capitalist experts who declare that industry, properly organised, can produce the necessities of life for all in a working day of four hours or less. Organised on a socialist basis, even this figure could be cut down. The State would no longer exist and be the instrument of an exploiting minority for the domination of the exploited majority. The State itself will die out for lack of any social need or function. There will be the simple administration of things, but no longer the rule of man over man.

As the necessities and comforts of life become increasingly abundant, and the differences between physical and mental work, between town and country are eliminated – the last vestiges of inequality will disappear as a matter of course. This may seem incredible to a mind thoroughly poisoned with capitalist prejudices. But why should it be incredible? Thirsty men will fight tooth and nail for a drink at a desert oasis. But if they are up to their waist in water they may have a thousand differences among themselves, but they will not even dream of fighting for a drink. A dozen men in a prison cell with only one tiny window may trample over each other in the fight to get to that tiny source of light. But outside, who would ever think of fighting for more sunshine than the next man? Announce a shortage of bread, and immediately a long line will form, with everyone racing to get there first, and a policeman on hand to “keep order.” But if everyone knew that there is an ample supply of bread today, and there will be just as large a supply tomorrow and the next day, there would be no line, no race, no conflict; nobody would try to hoard an extra loaf in order to make sure of eating the next day; and there would be no need of a policeman to back up his orders by force. If society could assure everyone of as ample and constant a supply of bread as there is of air, why would anyone need or want a greater right to buy bread than his neighbor? Bread is used here only as the simplest illustration. But the same applies to all other foods, to clothing, to shelter, to means of transportation and so on.

Efficiently using our present technology we could easily assure abundance to all. In return, society could confidently expect every citizen to contribute his or her best voluntarily. Capitalism strictly enforces the principle, “Who does not work, shall not eat.” In the midst of abundance for all and of the high cultural development that will accompany it, there is no reason to believe that  this principle will still stand. Working  to the best of one’s ability will be as natural an act as breathing, eating, clothing and sheltering oneself. Under those circumstances, it would be an mental aberration to draw on the public storehouse without contributing. What need is there for compulsion, for a machinery of force? What will there be to steal in the midst of abundance? The important thing is that there will be no need of a public coercive force to maintain the power of one class over another, to protect the property of one from the assaults of the other, to assure the continuation of oppression and exploitation.

Where there is abundance for all, there will also be  ample opportunity for the intellectual development of all. Abundance for all? Freedom for all? A society without a state?
“Impossible! It can never happen. It is a utopian ideal.” our Doubting Thomases once again declare. A socialist society will show that abundance, freedom and equality are not only possible but the natural condition for the new history of the human race.

Suppose our sceptic does not join in the fight for socialism or organise and work for its victory. Will the society we live in remain just as it is, will it move forward, or will it slip backward?

 Every time the barrel weakens, a new hoop, or set of hoops, is desperately pressed around it. The capitalists complain bitterly, but actually they cannot do without this growing bureaucracy of government interference. If banking breaks down as it did in the last recession, it can no longer be restored by the “normal course of the market”; legislation and regulations are decreed. Alongside this parasitic bureaucracy grows regimentation of all sorts. The concentration of economic power has brought with it the concentration of political power. The concentration of political power is indispensable to the concentration of economic power in the hands of monopoly capitalism. Representative democratic government, even in the most democratic capitalist countries, has become more and more meaningless, more and more ineffectual. The sharper the crisis, the more urgent the problem, the less capitalism can wait for the government to intervene by the process of slow, lumbering deliberations in large representative assemblies like congress or the House of Commons or the Chamber of Deputies. In some countries, such democratic bodies never even existed. In other countries where they did exist, they are now tolerated only as formalities, their real rights and powers eliminated or reduced to zero, their actual powers being only “advisory to the executive.” In still other countries, they have been wiped out altogether. Hence, the rise of totalitarian government, of authoritarian government, of capitalist dictatorships everywhere. Hence, the decline of capitalist democracy and of democratic representative government. “Wait for Congress? Wait for parliament? No, it will be too late! The situation is urgent and desperate!” That is why we see, even in the most democratic capitalist governments, the decline in the power and activity of the representative assemblies and the rise in the power of the executive – the President or the Prime Minister; the decline of government by legislation and the rise of government by executive decree.

The growing regimentation and oppression, the violation and elimination of democratic rights and institutions affects the workers most heavily and adversely. The workers are simply reduced to the level of a new kind of slavery. In every country, the basic crisis of capitalism makes life harder for the workers to endure. The crisis therefore generates the workers’ resistance to the unendurable conditions of life. The greater this resistance, the more it disrupts the already precarious stability of capitalist production and capitalist rule. The capitalist state intervenes on the side of capitalism. To an increasing extent, wages and working conditions are determined by the government. Silent obedience to its decisions is made a “patriotic” duty not only in wartime but in peacetime.  The right to work has been converted into compulsory work under government orders or direction. The unemployed, “maintained” by the government, are at the government’s mercy; they are ordered to take any job, regardless of wages or working conditions. The unions’s power resembles Samson shorn of the long locks of his hair, weakened and impotent. By anti-union laws, government restricts  the most powerful weapon workers has in their possession, the right to strike. By all sorts of intimidation and blackmail,  the unions are induced to abandon the right to strike “voluntarily” through no-strike clauses in pay-rise or redundancy negotiations. Capitalism’s crises has reduced the wage worker to an even lower abysmal level of wage-slave.

Still the story of the alternative to socialism is not told.

Capitalism long ago took over a world divided between slaves and slave-owners. The race among the Big Powers for mastery devours more and more of the peoples and wealth of the world. The period of peace between wars becomes shorter every time. During the period of peace, to say nothing of the period of war itself, more and more of the energies, the wealth of every country are devoted to preparing for the outbreak of the coming war which capitalism makes inevitable. Capitalism devotes an ever-increasing part of its capacity to producing the means of destruction. Science and scientists are not allowed to perform the task of lightening the burdens of humanity and advancing the welfare of society; instead they are harnessed to the wagons of war. At the orders of the state, science develops weaponry that will destroy hundreds where one was killed before, bombs and missiles that will destroy whole cities where only a building was damaged before. The atomic bomb is the horrible symbol of capitalism and of what its further existence means to the existence of civilisation and humanity. Security is a memory. Peace is fleeting and war is an ever-present threat or an actual monstrous reality.

And still there remain those who say this is all inevitable. That it cannot be ended. That this is all there is to expect in life and from the future. The Socialist Party says this is not so. Things can be different. The people of the world have a viable feasible alternative to choose. Another world is indeed possible.

Our Purpose

We live in capitalism where the world has been divided and the working class is oppressed and exploited. There is no escape from the problems of our time. We cannot remain inactive about issues which affect our daily lives.

 The creators of all wealth, workers; obtain in wages only the minimum necessary to live and raise children so that capitalism has a steady supply of labour-power. All means of production, whether factories, machines or mines, are owned by the capitalist class. Workers possess only their own labour-power which they must sell in order to live. Capitalist society is characterised by production for profit. Profit is derived from unpaid labour time. Workers’ labour power is purchased on the market by the owners of capital. Put to work on average in half the working week, it produces values sufficient to cover wages to maintain a worker and family. The value produced in the remainder of the working week constitutes surplus value, the source of profit. The commodities produced by workers’ socialised labour are privately appropriated by capitalists. They will continue to be produced so long as they can be sold for profit on the market. This factor is the cause of the alternating cycle of boom or crisis of capitalism.

Simply stated, the working class (or proletariat) is defined as all those who:
1) Do not own the means of production;
2) Have to sell their labour-power to the capitalist class to make a living;
3) Directly, or indirectly, create surplus value...

Which is expropriated by the capitalist class and this exploitation, or expropriation of surplus value, creates a struggle for supremacy. The working class is not a small, narrow class. They  constitute the majority of the population. The working class is composed of the industrial workers, agricultural workers, and non-production workers such as clerical, transportation and service workers.

It is inevitable that sooner or later these social conditions will impel people to organise to end the conflict between the socialised labour process and private ownership of the decisive means of production, the big factories, mines and corporate farms by the establishment of socialism. With socialism, production takes place for people’s use. The class interest of the workers is to eliminate capitalism entirely and to build a socialist society. We live in a world dominated by capitalism, a system which allows a small minority of capitalists to oppress and exploit the great majority of mankind. Either we get rid of this decrepit system or it will devastate humanity.

The only viable way forward is  to achieve socialism, a classless and stateless society on a world scale where people do not oppress and exploit each other and where we live in harmony with our natural environment.  To create a socialist world it is necessary to overthrow the rule of capitalism and this can be done only through revolution and establish socialism, a system of real, popular democracy that sets about the reconstruction of society. People know that capitalism is no good but few can see a way forward to a better type of society. It is essential to generate interest in this aim. It is through political action that we reach out with our message which is as Marx and Engels conceived: that the advent of classless society will be as the result of the real movement of self-organisation and self-emancipation of the vast majority. “The emancipation of the working class must be conquered by the working class themselves; proletarians of all countries unite!”

The Labour Party is committed to make capitalism work indefinitely. The great majority of its leaders don’t believe socialism is coming and cling with blind faith to capitalism, hoping against hope that something is just round the corner waiting. “Let us not talk about the socialist revolution–the working class is not ready for socialism”. “Let us not act or talk in a manner that is revolutionary; above all, let us not provoke. Let us become respectable.” “Resurrect the Labour Party of 1945!” Labour leaders because they lack faith in their own cause spread their pessimism like a poison into the workers themselves. They do not see a revolutionary transformation of society as the way to solve the problems capitalism has shown itself incapable of solving. They do not want power to pass from the existing state to the workers to dispossess the capitalist class and create a classless society.

 Described in a variety of ways, the Labour politician advocates some form or other of “people’s capitalism” (before we were all share-holders, now we are stake-holders). With such reasoning accepted, the socialist struggle of the working class for the abolition of the capitalist system can be postponed until “tomorrow and tomorrow”. Yet, whatever version of “peoples capitalism" is on offer, capitalism remains essentially what it has been from birth: a system of exploitation of the many for the enrichment and aggrandisement of the few. The fact, also, is that the exploited and the oppressed have rebelled, are rebelling and will rebel against their unbearable conditions, whatever the politicians might think and predict about their chances of success. The duty of every socialist, of every man and woman who loves humanity, is to fight with them and try and increase to the utmost their lucidity and chances of success. Calls for unity of the Left ignores the fundamental conflict between capitalism and socialism, obscure the difference between reformist politics and class struggle and has led to abandonment of a Marxist standpoint as the price of winning recognition and becoming respectable.

A workers’ party is either a pro-capitalist party or it is a socialist party. It is the one or the other. It cannot be both. We all know that the division of society, and that today it consists mainly of two economic classes, the capitalist class upon the one hand and upon the other, the working class; and these two classes, whether you admit it or not, are pitted against each other. These two classes can never be permanently harmonized or reconciled. It is called the class struggle. Political parties are the product of the class struggle. In a classless society which has rid itself of the remnants of class interests  there will be no political parties. They will be unnecessary. But we have not yet reached the classless society.

If workers find it necessary to unite upon the industrial field, to unite and strike together, how can they consistently fight each other at the ballot box? Politics is simply the expression in political terms of the economic interests of certain groups or classes. The bosses realise this fact and they are in politics to protect their interests. They are deeply involved in the stinking depths of “practical” politics. The efforts of their retainers to appease and placate their pay-masters resulted in the main burden of the economic recession being placed upon the working class.

 The disillusioned and now often rebellious mass of the population had lost all faith in reforms but unfortunately have not so far progressed to call for the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. Nationalism or religion has instead been substituted for the united socialist struggle against the capitalist class. Rather than submit to the chauvinistic campaigns and seek scapegoats we shouldn’t view the world as a “have-not” world, but recognise the reality that natural resources and productive capacity flood the world with the products making it entirely self-sufficient. We shouldn’t accept racial prejudice and religious bigotry who scream about the menace of foreign immigration or the idle scroungers on welfare. In good times the capacity of reformist measures to give some relief to the miserable conditions of workers may have been  insufficient to solve the basic economic and social ills afflicting the great mass of the population but suffice to allay unrest and discontent. Accompanying a recession is the reduction of profits which prompts the political machines of the capitalist parties to withdraw patronage and protection and having made workers more vulnerable to their austerity policies, the blame has to be allotted elsewhere, those who are without an effective voice to protest and lack organisation to resist.

A Socialist Future

Human society has always consisted of masters and slaves, and the slaves have always been and are today, the foundation stones of the society. Socialists did not invent human aspirations for a just, egalitarian and free society; men and women have cherished this dream for a very long time. The lash of hunger compels the poor to submit and in order to live we must sell - “voluntarily"- ourselves every day. To perpetuate this state of affairs is the aim of the ruling classes. Though seeking to gain advantage over the other by tricks of trade, cunning in speculation and competition  - but in opposition to the workers they stand united. The life of the poor is valued as nothing by the rich.

If the poor are unable to sell himself to an exploiter, then he or she is pilloried by the press as undeserving, a scrounger. And dare he or she steals, in order to live – our “betters” are filled with  moral indignation and repugnance, demanding punishment and prison and from that lesson some poor people learn that prison cells are healthier than the pest-holes they come from.

When the workers actually combine in trade unions to obtain a higher wage, shorter hours , or improved conditions, the employers immediately decry it as unfair competition which must be prevented. When the workers organise politically, they are denounced as defying tradition and custom.

When the worker is out of employment, he or she at the mercy of hordes of profiteers ready to pounce  to complete their ruin. Payday lenders advance small sums at high interest, their contracts so carefully written that they repayments terms can hardly be kept. Unfortunate out of work women with families to feed are driven into prostitution, shamelessly plundered by keepers of brothels disguised as massage parlours and saunas.

This is the lot of the poor from the cradle to the grave, surrounded by vampires and leeches thirsty for every drop of blood. Capitalism cannot be tamed, nor made useful to mankind.

Wealth is not only a generator of more wealth, it is also a political power. Under the present capitalist system rule is a mere matter of price which will buy over who may be of service, whether political leader or press baron. The “sovereignty of the people” turns to dust before the influence of these money magnates and they ensure the “voice of the people” is silenced. Whoever uses “free" speech will be accused of disturbing the peace or a threat to the security of the state by the government officials (Assange and Snowdon being prime examples).

Free society consists of autonomous, i.e., independent communities but networked into federations, the result of freely made social contracts, and not of authoritarian government. Common affairs are attended to in accordance with free deliberation and judgment by the interested communities or producers associations. The people, without distinction of sex, meet to decide from case to case in all matters touching public affairs, or for appointing individuals to execute their wishes, and hear their reports.  There is little doubt that the new communities will be entirely different from that of the present cities and villages. Traffic-filled streets have vanished, tenement are torn down, and spacious, well-fitted abodes surrounded by gardens and parks, erected in their places, with communal, civic  buildings  brought together by identical interests.

 In the country the people will be more connected. There will be agricultural commune with city conveniences. Interlinked farms will no longer be separate, sharing the general application and constant improvement of agricultural implements and fertilizers, with  the growing perfection of the means of communication and transportation simplifying the process of serving consumers. The former contrast between city and country disappears.

Private property exists no more. All wealth is held in common by the people themselves. Everybody, whether able to work or not can obtain from them such articles of necessity as he or she may desire. The sum total of necessities and comforts demanded regulates the quantity of production. Working hours for the individual is limited to a few hours a day, because all those able to work, regardless of sex, take part in production, because useless, injurious, or similar work will not be done, and because the technological means of production has grown highly developed and universally applied. By far the greater part of the day can be spent in the enjoyment of life. The highest gratification will be found in freely chosen intellectual employment. Some spend their leisure time in the service of their fellows, and are busy for the common weal. Others apply themselves to educational pursuits. Others again devote themselves to the exploration and experimentation of science. Academies of the arts will be available for the creators of literature,   painting, sculpture, or music. Theatres and concert halls will offer seats to all. Teaching will be done for the equal development of mind and body.

These are our aspirations and we hold that achieving them is a viable option and a feasible practicability for the world’s people. This is the re-organisation of society we espouse and it need not be an impossible task.  Those in the Socialist Party are not “believers”.  We do not bow down before Marx or Engels. We debate their ideas, we accept them when they are in accord with our experience and knowledge of the world, but we reject them when they don’t strike a chord within us. We are far from possessing blind faith, trusting in something just because someone said it had to be so and it would be too sacrilegious to dispute.

We want to replace private property system with socialism. We don’t claim that all men and women are equal, have the same brain, the same physical attributes. We know that there will always be the greatest diversity in mental and physical abilities. It is precisely this variety of capacities that will bring into being the production of all that is necessary for humanity, and we count on this as well to maintain emulation in a socialist society. There will be engineers and labourers: this is obvious. But one will not be considered superior to the other, since the work of the engineer is useless without the collaboration of the labourer, and vice versa.

Will everyone want to work? We answer yes and here is why.

Workers are kept busy in occupations that are absolutely useless to society, the armaments industry. Add to this a considerable number of able-bodied men and women who produce nothing.  Many are also unemployed. We can thus say, without being accused of exaggeration, that of a hundred capable of producing some kind of labour, only twenty furnish an effort truly useful to society. It is these twenty who produce all of society’s riches. From this flows the deduction that if everyone worked, instead of ten hours the workday would decrease to only two. We can draw the following conclusion: A society where all would work together, and which would be satisfied with productivity far beyond its consumer needs (the excess would constitute a small reserve) is feasible and would have to ask of each of its able-bodied members an effort of only two or three hours, perhaps less. Who would then refuse to give such a small quantity of work? Who would want to live with the shame of being held in contempt by all and being considered a parasite?

A seemingly better-founded objection is the following: If there is no more authority, how would we stop the criminals? Crimes committed today in two principal categories; crimes of interest and crimes of passion. The first group will disappear on its own, since there can be no attacks on property in a society which has done away with property. As for the second group, no law can stop them, as they are irrational acts.  A socialist lifestyle, however  would raise the level of humanity. Individuals will understand that they has no rights over another. Consequently crimes, in a future society, will become increasingly rare, until they disappear completely.

Many other questions arise, but they are of a secondary nature, the most important thing being to establish that the suppression of private property would not cause a cessation of production due to the development of laziness, and that socialism would know how to feed itself and satisfy all of its needs. All the other objections that can be raised will be easily refuted by taking inspiration from the idea that a socialist society would cause to grow in each of its members mutual solidarity. No more nationalisms and no more religions pitting one people against another. Science unmasking the charlatans and illuminating the truths. The free blossoming of humanity.

May Day School

Edinburgh and Glasgow Branches are holding a May Day School on the 10th May in the Maryhill Community Halls . Anyone interested in the subjects and speakers can click on to this link where all the times and arrangements can be read.

 

 

http://www.meetup.com/The-Socialist-Party-of-Great-Britain/photos/21306072/#353373792 

 

http://www.meetup.com/The-Socialist-Party-of-Great-Britain/photos/21306072/#353373812 

 

 

 

A Strange Recovery

It is popular amongst supporters of capitalism to claim that Britain has made a recovery from the recent economic crisis but the following statistics seem to contradict that view. 'A food bank charity says it has handed out 913,000 food parcels in the last year, up from 347,000 the year before. The Trussell Trust said a third were given to repeat visitors but that there was a "shocking" 51% rise in clients to established food banks. It said benefit payment delays were the main cause.' (BBC News, 16 April) Workers forced by economic necessity to rely on charity for food is hardly indicative of a recovery. RD

A Heartless System

A year after after the terrible tragedy in Bangladesh that led to  over 1,100 people dying and 2,500 injured the New York Times reviewed the circumstances of the Rana Plaza factory collapse and made an observant comment. 'While Americans are fond of low prices for clothing, some are possible only because workers in Bangladesh (among other countries) toil in sweatshops for meagre wages, in dangerous conditions.' (New York Times, 14 April)    They went on to remark that many well known brands like Joe Fresh, Mango, Walmart, J.C. Penney and The Children's Place that can be found in Manhattan stores are the products of such sweat shops. Capitalism is a heartless system when it comes to making a profit. RD

Free Ourselves Now

Marx began his political activity as a philosopher that became steadily more social in content. He came to view the right of private property, the right of a few to own and control the means by which all must live, the right of the owners of the means of production to utilise it to exploit the rest of the community in the interest of their personal profit, the right to determine what shall be produced and how, regardless of the misery and wretchedness of those who produce it as wage-slavery, the right to maintain the multitude in chains that a few masters might live in luxury. In the Middle Ages, a handful of nobles feasted and wallowed in idleness on the enforced labour of his serfs. In the 19th Century, the masses were herded into factories, to obtain the necessities to live, while the product of their labour was appropriated by the new lords - capitalists. The right to private property, the right to exploit, the right to rob, the right to over-produce and cause crises, the right to compete, and cause wars became enscribed in the constitution. Marx diagnosed the cause of capitalist ills, and offered the basic answer.  The abolition of the right of private property, and, instead, its replacement by the common ownership of the means of production, so that all may enjoy the fruit of their labour. Marx offered a choice, a very simple choice between two worlds, a world of exploitation, social injustice, chronic insecurity, economic crisis, and recurring wars ... and a world of rational and  sustainable economic planning, control over your lives and a comfortable living standard,plus the end of nationalism and a durable peace. A choice where a tiny few rule and the vast mass are dispossessed or a cooperative commonwealth.

Since the manifesto of Marx and Engels, socialists have disdained to hide our aims. We want to see society changed. We want to see it transformed from a thing of wars and recessions, to a real brotherhood of mankind; but powerful, wealthy people don’t want it changed, because they have a vested interest in it, and the closer the inevitable change comes, the more desperate they become, and the more vicious their attacks on the most active in the labour movement which is going to change it.

 We live in a world rife with misery and oppression. Today the whole world is in the grip of a deep economic crisis of capitalism. Capitalism has become a fetter on production itself. So the destruction of surplus goods, goods that starving people need, the waste of human labour, the sabotaging of new inventions, the tipping of food into land-fills, the feeding of wheat to pigs – the whole productive system jammed, and the capitalists seek a way out in war.  In Asia, Africa and America general living standards are falling sharply and a growing proportion of the people of these countries are underfed and actually starving. It is an astonishing paradox that, in a world where science and technology have advanced to the stage where there could be plenty for all, there is a growing amount of want and hunger. People are reaching a point where it is no longer possible to live, they see the limitations of the trade union struggle in the persistence of insecurity. Private ownership must go and social ownership must take its place. There is no other way. It is capitalism, with its economic crises and wars – or socialism, the only chance for economic freedom and peace.

Today the human species stands at a turning point: either we develop further by means of the  socialist transformation of society or we  are eventually destroyed by the increasingly antagonistic contradictions of capitalism and the environment. There is nothing inevitable about the further advancement of the human species. Truth be told , the only real, lasting way forward is socialism but whether or not this road is taken is a matter of decision for human beings and one class in particular: the working class. Only the working class has sufficient objective interest in the overthrow of capitalism and the strength to carry out this task. The working class has it within its power to overthrow decaying, crisis-ridden moribund capitalist society and in so doing to pave the way for the liberation of the whole of humanity. The Socialist Party shall do everything within our power to agitate for the working class to overthrow its capitalist masters. The Socialist Party support the concept of the rational, free and completely co-operative society.

Life always moves and always changes. Old traditions are forgotten. Accepted truths are challenged and repudiated. Ideas clash. People had been promised a new and everlasting prosperity, a new world, now millions hope merely for a job, any sort of job and any sort of income to ward off poverty. Millions must accept support, whether direct from the State or from  the “relief work” of charities and churches.  Aroused hopes have been cruelly dashed. Capitalist civilisation introduced want in the midst of abundance. The situation is idiotic. What has come of the colossal and wonderful development of science and technology? Has it made humanity stronger, healthier, happier? Has it given leisure to the producers? Has it brought comfort and contentment to the people? A few hours’ daily work would produce enough to satisfy the material and intellectual needs of all. Never has work been so prolonged, so exhausting, so injurious to people’s and deadens their intelligence. Men and women are under the yoke of the soulless machine world, alienation is their reward for working, poverty when they have no job.

The media has always sought to deny the claims of Marx but, nevertheless, it has been obliged over and over again to concede that wealth is actually concentrated in very few hands and that the vast majority is excluded from ownership.  Intent upon killing Marx, the pro-capitalist commentators  keep resurrecting his conclusions. When they report the research they are obliged to admit that this wealthy elite itself is the tiny Wall Street oligarchy that dominates the corporate wealth of the nation; that oligarchy is a still smaller group contained within this small segment of the population. Financial interest groups representing only a few dozens of individuals can and do dominate giant corporations or whole groups of such corporations.

Socialism is not a reform, it is a revolution. This is the position held by all  socialists.We are not reformers we are revolutionaries. Let it be understood everywhere that by revolution socialists do not mean violence or bloodshed. It is safe to say that every socialist in the world would regard it a calamity to our aim, as well as to humanity, to have a violent upheaval in society. Socialism offers a possible, a peaceful solution. We mean by “revolutionary socialism” the capture of the political powers of the nation by the working class as opposed to the capitalist class. This is the essence of revolutionary socialism. The social revolution is an international revolution. We are all cosmopolitans, endorsing in the fullest sense international socialism. Most of the objections to socialism offered by the reformists are simply subterfuges to distract from the real issues.

While it is clear that most workers are not yet won over to our overall revolutionary perspectives, we aim to convince our fellow workers based on the shared experience of coming struggles. We are socialists, wishful above all things to advance socialism, and by socialism we mean the common ownership of all the agencies of wealth production, and this involves the complete supercession of the capitalist system, and the conducting of all industrial and trading relations on a co-operative basis.

In former times, famine appeared only when the harvests failed. In today’s capitalist society, famines happen when granaries  burst with the fruits of the earth, and when the market is gorged with the products of industry. The capitalists have not proved competent. It has seized the social wealth to enjoy it and failed to guarantee to their worker even a miserable livelihood.

After every economic depression the cry has gone up, “It can never happen again!” And it has. Cyclical crises  are inherent in capitalist production: a recession is as characteristic as prosperity and as frequent. Captains of industry and finance at no time really understand the movement of the economic forces they exploit yet after each recession the capitalists, as they once more scoop up the profits of industry and speculation, begin to believe that they are again the saviors of mankind. The government joins in, declaring there will be  no more hard times because of the  system of “ regulatory controls” instituted. The liberals and progressives while perharps acknowledging the continuation of  abuses, believe that capitalism, with all its shortcomings, is working toward the “larger good.” Always, in one form or another, capitalism creates an ideology to disguise and justify its predatory character. It is a necessary device of class domination. Always there exists a deceptive conception of capitalism, readily provided by its intellectuals-for-hire.

Capitalism has taken possession of our planet. It is time to free ourselves.

"The Fair Elections Act"?

The act with the Orwellian title of "The Fair Elections Act" is not fair at all, according to Canada's chief electoral officer. According to Marc Mayrand, we would be better off with no act at all as it disenfranchises those who show up to vote with only voter-information cards or with friends and family to vouch for them. It's estimated that about 120,000 voted this way in 2011. Of course, most of those are poorer people on the margins of society who probably won't vote Conservative. John Ayers.

Promises and Reality

The NHS faces a "financial crisis"next year as a budget freeze imposed by the Coalition risks pushing most hospital trusts into deficit, a leading think-tank has warned. 'In a grim message to all three major parties,  the King's Fund said that whoever wins next May's general election will need to find more funding for the NHS or face up to the reality of "significant cuts to services". ..... Two-thirds of NHS trust finance directors were concerned that their hospital would go into deficit in 2015-16.' (Independent, 15 April) In all the rosy promises of the next election we can well imagine none of the reformers will mention forthcoming NHS financial cuts. That's not what electioneering is about.  RD