Socialism is the only alterntive

The socialist objective is the simultaneous abolition of capital, wage labour and the state and it will be a self-organised workers movement which will bring about this transformation and socialisation of the means of production. No longer will society be based upon the capitalist system of business expansion and contraction, economic boom and slump, but instead will be replaced by the  collective conscious planned control, exercised by the producers at all levels of society. Socialism is the voluntary and free association of the producers, a conception of the decentralised, self-governing society, federated from the bottom upwards. This is the vision of a communal ownership and social control against the coercive alienated control of the state and of capital. This is a principle of self-emancipation where the working class will educate itself and develop its capacities for self-government through its own organisations.

Marxists are frequently accused of underestimating the complexity of modern economy and that we have  a mistaken view of production relations. We are told that the elimination of commodity production, and instead production for use rather than for exchange is not possible. Those who lack confidence in Marxist thought argue for a more reasonable feasible version of ‘socialism’ that incorporate markets and private ownership of the means of production, in other words, a 'mixed' economy with basic utilities run by public corporations, medium and small scale production undertaken by workers' cooperatives, and private or family concerns operating in many service industries and in retail distribution.

Central planning which socialists are accused of advocating need not entail centralisation in the top-down sense. This can be thwarted by democratic, de-centralised self-management, a system of administration and planning in which the mass of workers themselves allocate resources and democratically determine the priorities. Such a system requires that people articulate their own needs as producers, consumers and that they take control of their living and working conditions, and that they free themselves of the despotism both of the bureaucracy and the tyranny of the market.  Democracy in production is more likely to be realised if production units are smaller and decentralised. This is to bring matters within human scale so that individuals are able to fully participate effectively in processes of decision making and production.

But it can be argued that socialist administration and its practice are complementary and are neither centralising nor decentralising but can be described as centralising from the bottom up. No matter how  ironic it may seem to those who identify Marx with a bureaucratic state-ownership, Marx's earliest political passion was a hatred of bureaucracy and it remained with him throughout his life. Marx's writings embodies the freedom of the individual and argues that the worker of today, subjugated to a specialised function in the factory will give way to the 'individual an all round development' who is able to participate in a diversity of functions in production. Likewise, the Socialist Party looks to replace the coercive power of the state by the democratic community as the legitimate social authority. This new social authority will be the fusion of social and political relationships, removing the existing separation between the state and civic society. A new social network is to become integral to the practical life of the individual. The individual voluntarily constitutes this new identity rather than having it imposed upon individual life from the outside. The new social authority is a legitimate because individuals have given, continue to give and may, if they wish, withdraw their consent.

All the main features of organisation and planning under socialism are to be discerned according to this principle. The subordination of production to the satisfaction of human needs as opposed to the pursuit of profit, the abolition of the state, of capital and of the division of labour in so far as it prevents the participation in the diversity of life activities, the 'end’ of politics as a sphere independent of the practical life of individuals, the abolition of forms of representation disconnected to the practical, everyday world of individuals. Work is no longer a mere means to an end but has also become 'life's prime want', integral to unfolding the individual's human potentialities. Socialism replaces the ruling class control of the state and capital with social control. Socialism has abolished alienated and exploitative relations and its associated producers are capable of instituting a rational organisation of the productive forces.

Economic necessity drove the weavers of Rochdale into co-operation, and the same cause led to its expansion. In the past, optimistic co-operative proponents anticipated that soon they would monopolise the trade of the working class but the supermarkets threaten the very existence of the Co-operative movement. It is argued that they are, like the trade unions, training schools for socialism yet co-operatives are managed on purely business lines, (apart from the funds devoted to educational and charity purposes) and are unable to evolve into a non-exploitative society. Its  centralisation of production and distribution differs little from any chain-store.

Utopians create a blueprint of the future socialist society yet they often neglect to explain the political agency capable of giving practical effect to the blueprint. Utopian socialists confirm the associational principle but had been undermined by their belief that the nexus of power could be bypassed rather than confronted. Many have produced excellent blueprints of the feasible socialist economy, but nowhere do they indicate how their models might be implemented and merely rely upon the reasonableness of ideas to attract popular support. The Zeitgeist Project is an example.

Richard Wolff proposes what he describes as Workers’ Self-Directed Enterprises (WSDE’s) and Gar Alperovitz suggests a “pluralist commonwealth” which is a system of cooperatives, neighborhood corporations, worker-owned companies, social enterprises, land trusts, and municipal utilities—along with, of course, small scale private businesses. Both men are responding to the traditional view of “socialism” as a command economy of state-capitalism , which at one time seemed  progressive to many but now stands revealed as limited to early phases of primitive accumulation and forced industrialisation, where the means of production have been taken over by the state but commodity production continues. The workers themselves remain subject to the political extraction of surplus value presided over by a bureaucratic class. The market has continued, along with the veil of the money form concealing the continued exploitation of the workers. Any idea of social control has been firmly suppressed  by the state. The abundance of cooperative wealth and the free supply of goods and services has nowhere been in evidence in these countries.

Lesser known advocates of market-socialism are:-

Diane Elson in 'Market Socialism or the Socialization of the Market?’ who proposes a model in which firms are publicly owned, internally self-managed but with representatives of consumers and the local community on their boards; the functions of the capital market are assumed by a 'Regulator of Public Enterprises';the dialogue between firms and 'Wage and Price Commissions' sets prices.

Geoff Hodgson puts the case for some form of market socialism, one that has an essential role for democracy in the planning of the economy as a non-capitalist market economy based upon a community of producer cooperatives, each cooperative is owned, and run by the workers themselves. Their products are sold on a market. The purchase the required raw materials themselves.There is little or no central planning. Hodgson describes such a system as 'market collectivist', challenging the identification of the market with capitalism. The market is to be made the servant of 'society', democratically constituted through its social relations, rather than that invisible, anonymous power exercised over society.

Tom Devine's model conceives economic organisation as a process of 'negotiated coordination' among representatives of those affected by the decisions involved, informed by participatory discussion among the multiplicity of affected interests (Democracy and Economic Planning). Devine makes a distinction between 'market exchange’ and 'market forces'. Market exchange involves transactions between buyers and sellers, where what is being exchanged consists of either stocks (inventories) or goods and services produced by enterprises using their existing capacity. Market forces refer to the process whereby changes are brought about in the underlying allocation of resources, the relative size of different industries, the geographical distribution of economic activity, through the interaction of decisions on investment and disinvestment that are taken independently of one another, with coordination occurring ex post.

However we should be fully aware if such idealised forms of ownership were implemented of  the danger of workers' autonomy of it eventually leading to the reintroduction of competition and capitalism and the creation of a social system that distinguishes itself from past capitalism only as regards formal ownership.

“Within the cooperative society based on common ownership of the means of  production the producers do not exchange their products." Marx (Gotha)

 Marx meant that production units will not buy and sell raw materials and producer goods to and from each other and that, as a result markets will not coordinate their economic relation. Thus, the relation between production units in the future society will be like the relation between the different departments of the capitalist firm. Marx argues against a system where the economy is based upon separate, competing cooperative enterprises would re-produce capitalist 'anarchy’. What matters is that the producers are associated with each other and produce according to a common plan. Workers' cooperatives must exist on a large scale and be able to regulate production within a common plan.

However, the conscious control under a common plan advocated by Marxian socialists is not to be identified with the control of an elite organised, in the state envisaged in the genuine democratic control of the producers and citizens. The dominant traditions of socialism, both parliamentary and revolutionary, have sought to achieve socialism through the nationalisation of the means of  production rather than through the transformation of social relation. State ownership, the transfer of the title deeds to property, does nothing in itself to alter the production relations, the relations which are more fundamental than the property relations. There can be no such thing as socialism, in Marx's perspective, without the free association and self-government of the producers.

Contemporary discussions on the viability of  an alternative economy  in the attempt to combine social justice with economic efficiency draws attention to the fundamentally uncontrollable nature of the market system, immunising it from any form of the social control other than socialism. Private ownership may indeed have been replaced by various forms of shared ownership but these enterprises are still directed by market forces.

Marx describes his views on the co-operative movement quite explicitly:
(a) We acknowledge the cooperative movement as one of the transforming forces of the present society based upon class antagonism. Its great merit is to practically show, that the present pauperising and despotic system of the subordination of labour to. capital can be superseded by the republican and beneficent system of the association of free and equal producers
(b) Restricted, however, to the dwarfish forms into which individual wage slaves can elaborate it by their private efforts, the cooperative system will never transform capitalistic society. To convert social production into one large and harmonious system of free and cooperative labour general social changes are wanted, changes of the general conditions of society, never to be realised save by the transfer of the organised forces of society, viz., the state power, from capitalists and landlords to. the producers themselves.
(c) We recommend to the working men to embark in cooperative production rather than in cooperative stores. The latter touch but the surface of the present economical system, the former attacks its groundwork.
(d) We recommend to all cooperative societies to convert one part of their  joint income into a fund for propagating their principles by example as well as by precept, in other words, by promoting the establishment of new cooperative fabrics, as well as by teaching and preaching.
(e) In order to prevent cooperative societies from degenerating into ordinary middle class joint stock companies (societes par actions), all workman employed, whether shareholders or not, ought to share alike. As a mere temporary expedient, we are willing to allow shareholders a low rate of interest.- Marx Inaugural Address of the I.W.M.A.

He was indeed sympathetic to the co-operative model.

Apart from the above he previously wrote in 1864:
‘The value of these great social experiments cannot be overrated. By deed instead of by argument, they have shown that production on a large scale, and in accord with the behests of modern science, may be carried on without the existence of a class of masters employing a class of hands...’

And later in Volume 3 of Capital Marx argued of co-operatives that ‘the antithesis between capital and labour is overcome within them, if at first only by way of making the associated labourers into their own capitalist, i.e., by enabling them to use the means of production for the employment of their own labour.'

However, in each case Marx also described the limitations of co-operatives NOT advocating them as solutions.

‘...however... excellent in principle and however useful in practice, co-operative labour, if kept within the narrow circle of the casual efforts of private workmen, will never be able to arrest the growth in geometrical progression of monopoly, to free the masses, nor even to perceptibly lighten the burden of their miseries. … To save the industrious masses, co-operative labour ought to be developed to national dimensions, and, consequently, to be fostered by national means. Yet the lords of the land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defence and perpetuation of their economic monopolies. So far from promoting, they will continue to lay every possible impediment in the way of the emancipation of labour. …To conquer political power has, therefore, become the great duty of the working classes.’ (IWMA 1864)

‘Restricted, however, to the dwarfish forms into which individual wages slaves can elaborate it by their private efforts, the co-operative system will never transform capitalist society. To convert social production into one large and harmonious system of free and co-operative labour, general social changes are wanted, changes of the general conditions of society, never to be realised save by the transfer of the organised forces of society, viz., the state power, from capitalists and landlords to the producers themselves.’ (IWMA 1866)

‘The co-operative factories of the labourers themselves represent within the old form the first sprouts of the new, although they naturally reproduce, and must reproduce, everywhere in their actual organisation all the shortcomings of the prevailing system’ (Capital, Vol.3)

Marx was saying that workers taking control of their own productive work processes, of organising co-operatively in firms, appeared to be a positive reaction on the part of workers to private capitalism. As such it was a source of growing confidence for the working class, proof that the historically progressive role of private capitalists had come to an end:

‘Co-operative factories furnish proof that the capitalist has become no less redundant as a functionary in production as he himself, looking down from his high perch, finds the big landowner redundant.’ (Capital, Vol. 3)

Co-operatives are certainly run on capitalist lines; it has to be or they would go under.  But they possess a democratic constitution and are composed mostly of wage-earners who can mould it as they choose. Thus it is distinguished from a normal capitalist concern. If employees are badly paid and otherwise maltreated its members are  to blame and can make good again. That some   have exclusively argued  co-ops as the way to the elimination of poverty in no way proves their uselessness, but rather demonstrates the folly of such advocates attempting to solve economic problems without a full knowledge of the economic structure and evolution of society.

The more we explain the meaning of capital versus labour, in which the capitalists, with their huge capital invested in production and transit, and deriving therefrom a surplus-value far in excess of the wages earned by the workers, have every possible advantage when it comes to a real, deadly struggle, the more will co-operatives realise that whilst the movement may live for a time, by itself, it cannot hope to lift the people into economic salvation, but must simply act as a stand-by until the workers, by political action, seize hold of all land and capital and use these for social production and social distribution.

Empty Threats

Everyone has seen the TV adverts about payday lenders coming to the rescue of hard-up workers but it seems the ads are misleading. Wonga is the UK's biggest payday lender; in 2012 it made nearly 4m loans to more than 1 million customers, but it has recently been exposed as somewhat less than benevolent. 'Britain's best-known payday lender,Wonga, has been ordered to pay more than £2.6m compensation after it was found to have sent threatening letters to customers from non-existent law firms. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said Wonga had been guilty of "unfair and misleading debt collection practices". It said the firm would be compensating around 45,000 customers.' (Guardian, 25 June) RD

Empty Promises

Fewer than two in every 10 homes for sale in England are affordable for working families on average wages. And in some areas,  would-be buyers are priced out completely, even if they can raise a sizeable deposit, according to figures from Shelter that underline the extent of the housing crisis. 'Rocketing house prices in some regions, combined with stagnant wage growth, have combined to push homes out of the reach of buyers, so much so that in more than half the country fewer than one in 10 of the suitable homes on the market was affordable to families who could put a typical 18% deposit towards their purchase.' (Guardian, 25 June) When she was Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher boasted that she was making Britain "a property owning democracy". Like all other politicians' boasts this turned out to be another empty one. RD

Cuts Before Caring

Politicians like to portray themselves as caring individuals devoting themselves to the   betterment of their electorate, but the reality is somewhat different. 'Longer waits to see a GP in the UK are "becoming the norm", the British Medical Association is warning. BMA GP leader Dr Chaand Nagpaul said "chronic underfunding" meant patients were often having to wait one or two weeks for an appointment. Some patients struggled to get an appointment, he said. Data from the GP patient survey in England shows one in 10 could not last time they tried.' (BBC News, 25 June) Government cuts on  welfare spending is a favourite target despite political denials. RD

Demolish the Old - Build the New!

The World today is full of stark and bewildering contradictions. The greatest industrial and agricultural capacity in history cannot feed, clothe and provide a decent livelihood for millions. Poverty and economic insecurity exist alongside extravagance. What is the reason for the promises, the potential of this society, and its stark reality? Why is there such a yawning gap between what is and what could be?  The answers to these questions cannot be found in cynical condemnations of “human nature” or apologies about the “way things are.” Capitalism, the social system under which we live, is responsible for the contradictions of to-day’s World.  A system of exploitation, violence, racism and war strangles our lives. Capitalism thrives on the private control of society’s wealth and production – production involving the interconnected efforts of millions of working people. The rich have one basic goal in life: to make more and more profits, and they accomplish this by dominating the economics, politics, and cultural life around the globe. The capitalists will throw workers out into the streets to starve, promote violent nationalism, and build a military arsenal that can destroy the world several times over – anything for profits. This is an irrational system.

Workers are wage slaves who survive only by selling their labour power to the capitalists. Capitalists own the means of production and pay workers for their labor power. But the working class produces far more wealth than it receives in income. The difference is the source of capitalist profits. The capitalist tries to drive down the wages of the worker. The worker is employed only as long as he or she helps create profit for the employers. When the capitalist has problems maximising his profits, he does not hesitate to throw workers out into the street. The class struggle is the ceaseless struggle which goes on from day to day in every country. It may take the form of more wages or shorter hours or the alteration of some workshop practice; but the particular point really does not matter, the opposing forces are always the same – the employers and the working class.The  capitalist system exploits the working class and creates the poverty and economic insecurity of society as a whole. Capitalism is a system of international exploitation. The capitalist class invest  abroad, penetrate foreign markets, and plunder the natural resources of developing countries. They also attempt to dominate other countries politically and militarily. This neo-colonialism bring enormous profits for the big banks and corporations, and wretched lives for the people of the developing world.

The  capitalist system is a system of economic anarchy and crisis. Capitalism is plagued by periodic economic recessions, which are becoming more serious and complex. These crises are built into the economic system. Each business tries to maximise its profits by pushing production and cutting expenses, especially the pay of workers. Economic crises are also worsened by speculation, hoarding and other schemes of the bankers, financiers and industrialists. Each tries to profit in the short run, but because of this individual greed, the people suffer. Capitalism is an obstacle to the further advancement of the material well-being of society. It is unjust, wasteful, irrational and increasingly unproductive. The situation demands a new, more rational system of economic organization that will utilize the productive forces for the benefit of the vast majority of society. This exploitative and oppressive system, where profit is master, has choked our entire society with economic crises, political reaction and social decay. The drive for profits holds millions hostage to hunger and want; it has poisoned the very air we breathe; it spawns cynicism and violence, drugs, crime and other social problems.

But life does not have to be this way. We can change our lives and society, and we can eliminate exploitation and capitalist injustice, by overturning the capitalist system. We can replace capitalism with a rational and humane system – socialism. Socialism is a social system where social wealth is genuinely controlled by society and for the benefit of society; where the common good, not profits, becomes the chief concern; where the everyday working people become the rightful masters of society. The socialist revolution has become a historical necessity and possibility. There is no other choice today but for the working people to organize to struggle and, one day, win socialism.  We must look ahead to the future where socialism, as a more advanced social system, will be built on the powerful productive capacities now stifled by capitalism. Socialism will replace capitalism, just as capitalism replaced feudalism. Socialism does not consist merely in the overthrow of private ownership. Socialism is that social system under which the necessaries of production are owned, controlled, and administered by the people, for the people, and under which, accordingly, the cause of political and economic despotism having been abolished, class rule is at end. That is socialism, nothing short of that. Socialism will qualitatively improve the lives of the working and oppressed peoples of the world. Women and men, young and old, and people of all nationalities are realising we must unite and struggle to survive, to be able to work, eat and live as decent human beings. If the working people, and not the corporations, controlled the great resources of our society, we could improve all our lives. These are the hopes and dreams of socialism and it will be the common woman and man who will bring about this historic transformation.

The Scots and the American Civil War

Substantial sections of Britain’s business elite were working with impunity to help the slave-owning southern states win the American Civil War – despite the fact that Britain was officially neutral  and had outlawed slavery almost 30 years earlier. The entirely illegal, but tacitly British-Government-approved pro-Confederate gun-running operation is thought to have lengthened the American Civil War by up to two years – and to have therefore cost as many as 400,000 American lives.

Bridge of Allan, at any one time, housed around 10 Confederate agents who held their planning meetings there – and used it as a base from which they could visit top shipbuilding magnates and others on Clydeside and "test drive" vessels to assess their speed.

“The clandestine headquarters was established just 32 miles by railway from Clydeside because it was the big shipbuilding magnates there who were being contracted to build or upgrade more than half of the two hundred vessels supplied to the Confederacy by UK shipyards.” said maritime historian Dr Eric Graham of Edinburgh University. “It demonstrates that Britain’s neutrality was, in reality, a complete sham,” said Dr Graham, the author of a major book on the Civil War gun-runners, Clyde Built: The Blockade Runners of the American Civil War.

The anti-slavery Dundee Ladies’ Emancipation Society realized who they were  and  informed the US consul in Dundee accordingly. After much pressure had been exerted by the US on the British Government, the exposure of the secret headquarters led a year later to the British preventing the export of a giant, potentially game-changing 130m armoured warship - and four other warships - to the Confederate Navy.

Much of the business sector were actively pro-Confederate, as there were considerable fortunes to be made from supplying guns, uniforms, medicines, textiles and even food to the South.Geopolitically, the British government saw the USA as a growing challenge to its global domination – especially in terms of merchant marine carrying capacity. The British also feared US expansionism and potential US-originating threats to Canada and British colonies in the Caribbean. “Economically Britain saw huge advantages in the break-up of the United States. It saw the American South as a source of raw cotton – and as a market for manufacturing goods, whereas it saw the North as an industrial competitor which sought to use protectionist policies to exclude Britain from American markets,” said Dr. Graham.

Exploring Trade Unions (Part 2)

More than Militancy

It is important to build the solidarity in common struggle against the source of our troubles, the capitalist system of wage slavery. In ‘Wages, Price and Profit’ Marx insisted that if workers were to abandon their battles around wages and working conditions, then “they would be degraded to one level mass of broken wretches past salvation ... By cowardly giving way in their everyday conflict with capital, they would certainly disqualify themselves for the initiating of any larger movement.”
But these battles are not ends in themselves. In the very next paragraph Marx also warned against exaggerating the importance of such battles and becoming “exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never-ending encroachments of capital...”
Thus while this struggle is necessary if the proletariat is to resist everyday attacks and still more to develop its fitness for revolutionary combat, such struggle is not itself revolutionary struggle. Moreover, unless the economic struggle is linked to building a consciously revolutionary movement–unless, as Marx puts it, it is waged not from the view of “fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work” but under the banner of “abolition of the wages system”– then such struggle turns into its opposite, from a blow against the employers to a treadmill for the worker.

The trade union, as one socialist put it, is the arm the worker instinctively raises to ward off the blows of capital. It is an instinctive defensive response and, no matter how passive or militant, as long as the workers’ struggle is confined to such a narrow framework the trade union struggle can only perfect the chains that bind labour to capital. No matter how extensive the rank and file participation, no matter how democratic, the fact remains that the militant rank and file unionism are still striving for better terms and conditions within the framework of wage-slavery. While it is, of course, preferable that the trade unions be under rank and file control rather than run by a bureaucratic clique, that the workers themselves decide issues of wages, benefits, strikes, and compromises rather than having these things decided over their heads, and that the workers be able to appoint their own officials rather than being subject to appointments from the top, it should not be forgotten that such reforms will still reflect the workers’reformist aspirations  as the open collaboration of trade union leaders. While it is the task of socialists to show that even the most ‘revolutionary’ trade unionism cannot break the chains of wage-slavery, some activists will argue that if only the rust was removed and the chains were made a bit longer it will somehow be easier for workers to wear and bear them.

 As socialists it is our task to explain that the root of the problem is not corrupt leadership, not their anti-democratic manipulations, nor their behind-closed-door compromises and sell-outs, not the lack of palpable lasting results, not the integration of the unions into the state apparatus, not the lack of strike calls for resistance, and not even the restriction of the right to strike or any other curtailment of  ‘labour rights’ but the wages system itself. The problem is the entire system and not some particular injustice within it. We should not confuse the much needed struggle for trade union democracy with the struggle for socialism. Union reforms within the class struggle are a by-product of our real work of explaining the need for socialist democracy. It is not the task of the Socialist Party to adopt slogans of “class struggle trade unionism” or whatever passes at the time for radical posturing. It is the duty of socialists to show that this, too, is still only trade unionist striving to strike a better deal with the employers; that this, too, remains a form of  enslavement of labour by capital and that this, too,  can in no way resolve the workers’ fundamental interests. Militant trade unionism, no matter how much one may embellish it,represents the workers’ interests only within the framework of winning better terms for the sale of labour-power. But it is a starting point in educating our fellow worker to question of the  legitimacy of that sale.

In a strike there is always a  tendency to put forward only a militant trade unionist position, fighting hard for a victory in the strike, but failing to educate the workers about the character of the capitalist system and the need for socialism. We seem reluctant to explain that the fight for better wages or piecemeal reforms perpetuates this corrupt capitalist system that enslaves the vast majority. We need to say that our fight is not only for economic demands in a  particular factory or industry but  to abolish the entire system of wage slavery. We’ve got to combine and fight against this whole capitalist system together. Creating a socialist world, where people live from birth to death never having to suffer under the chains of wage slavery is what all workers should be fighting for.

How ousting the union bureaucrats and putting in their stead “good honest union militants” will advance the workers’ struggle for the requisite political power remains a mystery. How it will be possible for workers to understand that even the most militant trade unionism is still not enough, because it is still the acceptance of capitalist economics, remains unknown. It should go without saying that socialists struggle to expose the corrupt labour autocrats. But socialists are not at all satisfied or content to oust dishonest trade unionists and replace them with honest trade unionists. What we want at the head of the trade unions are not “honest union militants” but dedicated socialist workers. We do not want ‘democratic’ wage-slavery or even the workers to ‘aspire for fighting unions’ to get a better deal under wage-slavery. We want, first and foremost, an end to wage-slavery, and this cannot be accomplished by presenting trade union militancy as a panacea for all the workers’ woes.

We are often offered an analysis put forward usually by Trotskyists that the big union fat cats act as a brake on the working class militancy but it is exacly the the role of the union bureaucray to “see fit” to tie the workers to the trade union struggle alone. It is precisely the role of such bureaucrats to preach class peace and the steady ‘improvement’ of the workers’ conditions. It is precisely the function of such full-time officials to attempt to rally the masses of workers behind themselves. To accuse them of being traitors to the cause assumes that at one time they did not represent such policies of compromise and co-operation with management. One cannot, after all, betray something one has never upheld. But regardless, the working class is entirely capable, by its own efforts and without the assistance of the Socialist Party, of not only exposing but dislodging top trade union bureaucrats. Those bureaucrats may be replaced by militant trade unionists, but this in itself does not at all mark any transformation of the trade union movement. The militant trade unionists may fight to the end for the workers’ immediate interests, may rely upon and rally the rank and file to long and bitter strike battles, may be entirely above-board in their negotiations, may repeatedly break the barriers of legality, and so on. But however impressive this may be, the fact remains that such militant struggle still operates entirely within the bounds of capitalist relations and does not threaten the foundations of capitalist exploitation.  Too many Leftists possess a hazy conception that militancy plus militancy and screaming at the top of their lungs for a general strike is bound to lead to something. To what, they are not at all sure. We all too often hear inflated claims for the general strike from those who will argue that this one massive onslaught will knock the ruling class from their throne with an act of blind faith in the miracle-working power of direct-action. Despite its talk of ‘linking’ the militant trade union struggle to ‘socialism’, all that they accomplish is to perhaps gain for themselves the benefit of a few seats at the top table in the union bureaucracy and make their own deals with the employers. We have witnessed it over and over.

The left-wing militants conclude that every trade unionist struggle for a 'just’ demand  is part and parcel of the struggle for socialism. This will of course come as a surprise to many workers who, while struggling for a pay rise, will suddenly discover that they are actually struggling to capture the state machine and overthrow his employer. But workers know well enough that a trade union struggle, even if it involves the government and so assumes a certian political character, is still only a trade union struggle, and that after all is said and done they’ll be punching in their time dockets tomorrow as usual despite some left-wing party hack who comes along declaring that trade unionist politics equals the struggle for socialism. The fact that the workers may, on their own, militantly resist the onslaught of capital, or wage a struggle to influence the government on their behalf, does not mean that such struggles are socialist struggles. A  trade unionist is content  to influence the affairs of state, not to capture the State.

“It is not the name of an organization nor its preamble, but the degree of working class knowledge possessed by its membership that determines whether or not it is a revolutionary body.... It is true that the act of voting in favour of an industrial as against the craft form of organization denotes an advance in the understanding of the commodity nature of labour power, but it does not by any means imply a knowledge of the necessity of the social revolution." Jack Kavanagh, One Big Union

Exploring Trade Unions (Part 1)

The nature of capitalist society is such that the employer always tries to minimise the cost of production and maximise his profits. This can only be done at the worker’s expense, the worker that finds himself constantly the victim of attempts by management to lengthen the working day, or speeding up production and reducing wages. The workers and capitalist do constant battle over the level of wages, the price of “labour”. The trade unions see their struggle as one fought primarily inside the capitalist system for the improvement of the worker’s condition. The trade unions fight around contracts, and using contracts to improve the worker’s condition, the unions,  “negotiate” like people at a trading fair, like businessmen at an auction. But even a ”good contract” still simply means the worker has only won a better deal for the selling of his or her labour power, the fundamental causes of this problem still exists – the capitalist system. There are no solutions within the capitalist system.

Trade unions first arose out of the spontaneous battles of working people to defend themselves from the abuses and oppressive conditions imposed by the system of wage labour. Stripped of any means of survival other than the sale of their labor power; workers were forced to compete against each other, thereby enabling profit-hungry capitalists to drive down wages and force long hours and inhuman conditions on the people. In this situation of virtual enslavement, workers were bound to resist. In drawing together workers and teaching them through struggle the need for solidarity and unity against the onslaught of the capitalists, unions served as centers for organizing the working class as a whole.The capitalist class has taken increasing steps to try to ensure that workers remain reliable and loyal wage slaves. Revolutionaries point out that the historic task of the trade unions is to fight for the complete emancipation of labour from capital. Reformists, on the other hand, advances a programme designed to keep workers shackled as wage slaves, but simply better-paid wage slaves.

Associations of workmen of one type or another can be traced far back into history, but trade unions as we know them today date back only to the 18th century. Concerning the origin of trade unions, Marx points out how capital is concentrated social power, while the worker has only his individual labour power at his disposal. Therefore, the agreement between Capital and Labour can never be just. The only social force possessed by the workers is their numerical strength. This force, however, is impaired by the absence of unity. The lack of unity among the workers is caused by the inevitable competition among themselves, and is maintained by it. The trade unions developed originally out of the spontaneous attempts of the workers to do away with this competition, or at least to restrict it, for the purpose of obtaining at least such contractual conditions as would raise them above the status of virtual slaves. The immediate aim of the trade unions, therefore, was limited to waging the day-to-day struggle against Capital, as a means of defence against continuous abuses by the latter, i.e., questions concerning wages and working hours.  This activity of the trade unions is not only justified but also necessary. It cannot be dispensed with so long as the capitalist mode of production exists. On the contrary, it must become general by means of creating and uniting trade unions in all countries.  If the trade unions refrained from such struggle there would be no limit to the exploitation of the workers other than that of physical endurance. The workers would be reduced to the status of slaves.

Engels in 1881 wrote, “The time is also rapidly approaching when the working class will have understood that the struggle for high wages and short hours, is not an end in itself, but a means, a very necessary and effective means, but only one of several means towards a higher end: the abolition of the wages-system altogether”. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/05/28.htm#p2

Trade union organisation is as requisite as socialist organisation since it enables the workers to wage the class conflict on a higher plane and prepares the way for the higher Socialist organisation. Our struggle is to fight for genuine working class control of the trade unions. This is also a pre-requisite for the emancipation of the working class and the establishment of socialism. For all reformists such things as union democracy, the right to strike, etc., are goals in themselves rather than simply means for the complete emancipation of the working class from capitalist exploitation. John Maclean explained it:
“Effective unions will never exist till the workers are revolutionary Socialists, just as effective political action can never come till the masses are thoroughly class-conscious and are fully determined to stop all robbery by the moulding of present-day capitalism into the co-operative commonwealth.”

Trade unions are not revolutionary vehicles; they are capitalist institutions, not socialist ones.Trade unions organise workers as wage slaves selling labour power as a commodity. Marxists insists that the working class must also, in addition to their economic organisation, develop its political movement. To succeed in the class struggle, the workers will need more than economic organisation. They will need to be politically organised, using its‘political supremacy to wrest by degrees all capital from the bourgeoisie’(Manifesto of the Communist Party). Marx nowhere deprecates the political dimension but, rather, insists upon it. The working class must convert its economic movement into its political movement if it is to challenge and overthrow the power of capital and the state. Where the political party is strong all workers feel themselves brothers; their solidarity is not limited to his trade or occupation. However, one can search in vain for the ‘ideal’ instrument of socialist revolution, since all organisational forms will be, to a greater or lesser extent, implicated in the environment it seeks to change. The ‘perfect’ form may be sofar removed from the society to be changed and the social practices of the workers as to be either irrelevant or an abstract tool leading to political alienation.

Rosa Luxemburg was also to find out that it was the trade unions who curtailed the radicalism of the party, not vice versa. The syndicalists failed to understand just how much trade unions are part of the capitalist system, organising workers as wage labourers whose labour power is a commodity. There is, therefore, a structural tendency for trade unions to be incorporated within the capitalist system as permanent bargaining organisations and as managers of the conflict surrounding the employment relation. Because of this, trade unions could not function as vehicles of economic emancipation. Workers’ economistic socialism offers a reformism from below against the social democratic parties’ reformism from above.

The Trade Unions were organisations aiming to increase the proportion of social wealth going to the working class, an aim which Luxemburg described as a 'sort of labour of Sisyphus' since it was doomed to frustration by the processes of proletarianisation, the growth of the productivity of labour and unemployment. Luxemburg earned the continuing enmity of Trade Union leaders for this phrase, but Luxemburg was surely right. In a capitalist economy, trade union power can be used to make gains in pay and conditions within the wages system, but cannot be used to abolish the wages system. Trade unions in their functions cannot go beyond a certain critical level, to the point at which they obstruct and subvert the mechanisms of accumulation and investment, the very premise of union demands. When this critical level is reached, unions have to convert the economic struggle into a general political struggle aiming to change the economic and political system, at which point they cease to be trade unions,or restrain their demand within what the system can afford. Luxemburg was therefore pointing to the limitations of trade unions as vehicles of change.This does not, however,  mean that Luxemburg and socialists considered trade unions unimportant.

Taking the argument that trade unions are not political or revolutionary organisations but organisations for the sale of labour power. This is true, but is it not possible that, with the movement of the class, they could be more than economic organisations. Marx himself entertained this notion, and one needs to understand why. Marx understood that trade unions come too much to concentrate upon the economic struggle with capital whereas they should be looking to abolish capitalist relations; the wages struggle should be converted into the struggle for the abolition of the wages system. It is argued that the trade unions cannot do this. But Marx’s argument needs to be understood. For Marx, it is not the organisation, of any kind, that acts but the working class as the subject and creative agency. The working class itself converts its economic struggles and interests into the revolutionary socialist objective. The argument that trade unions are merely organisations for the sale of labour power can be considered as failing to appreciate the political inherent in the economic, the political potential of the wages struggle, the possibility of converting the economic movement of the class into the political. It is akin to arguing that the working class exists permanently as the class of labour power and is incapable of becoming the revolutionary class challenging capitalist relations.

The militancy, the consistency of purpose, the determination, the willingness to confront the authorities and the energy, vitality and discipline and the self-sacrifice displayed by the workers expressed something much more profound than ‘economism’. Certainly, economic issues were to the fore – wages, poverty, unemployment, speed up, overtime, managerial practices. Yet in the spirit of revolt workers are protesting against their exploitation and dehumanisation; the workers are contesting not poverty but their status as wage slaves. The workers are affirming their human dignity and are coming to assert the class power which derived from the increasing unity, development and maturity of the class.

“There is no possibility of achieving economic freedom, nor even of taking any steps towards that end, unless the workers themselves are conscious that what they suffer from, as a class, is economic subjugation and consequent exploitation by the capitalists. Moreover, unless the workers themselves protest against this subjugation and exploitation, and themselves form organisations for the specific purpose of persistently fighting the enemy until freedom shall be won –then all else is as nothing." wrote Tom Mann

But it must be made clear that neither industrial organisation, nor Parliamentary action, nor both combined, can achieve the emancipation of the workers unless such emancipation is definitely aimed at.

“Political and industrial action direct must at all times be inspired by revolutionary principles. That is, the aim must ever be to change from capitalism to socialism as speedily as possible. Anything less than this means continued domination by the capitalist class.” Tom Mann explained.

Far from putting its faith in the spontaneous revolt of the working class, still lest the voluntarist uprising of the political party, the syndicalist argument conceives revolution as a process in which the workers develop their intellectual, organisational and technical ability to assume control of the new social order. The workers thus come to create the foundations of the future social order within the shell of the present society. Hence the importance of the point that the workers will possess the capacity to carry on production having ejected the employing class. The workers, in short, from dehumanised and degraded under capitalist relations, would become capable of directing their own lives, taking the future in their own hands and assuming control of the new social order. The power of the state and of capital is indeed to be challenged and overthrown and this does require political organisation. But political activity with a socialist aim has to have a social basis if it is to be effective. The industrial (self) organisation of the working class, enabling it to exercise responsibility and initiative in the old and the new society, is the foundation of socialism. Proletarian autonomy has to emerge as the essential control of the revolutionary process.

 “The worker has but one problem before him, and that is how to control production in theinterest of himself and the community. And in the same way as he thinks it is his right to vote for the election of Parliament or a Municipal Council, so must he acquire the right to elect the organisers of industry, viz., managers, foremen, and all others necessary for the successful conduct of wealth production.” Tom Mann

 The railway worker Charles Watkins who founded and edited the Syndicalist Railwayman newspaper, writes “The first prerequisite to a scientifically organised, vigorously conducted working class movement is a clearer understanding on the part of the workers of the actual relation existing between themselves and the capitalists, and a more intelligent appreciation on their part of theimportance of the class struggle. To gain these, the workers must rely on their own experience and on the knowledge gained through the study of industrial history and working class economics. But even without a knowledge of economic theory, the workers will find their class instincts far more reliable as a guide than much of the advice tendered by some of their ‘leaders’.”

Apparently, everyone’s forgotten the role of resistance. Resistance isn’t simply important; resistance is everything. There’s a myth suggesting that companies pay their employees all that they can afford to pay them. That is patently false (which is why it’s a myth). They pay their employees as little as they can get away with. Union membership is at an historical low because there is not enough resistance to keep it from shrinking. Profits are high, but resistance is low. Unions need to mount a counter-offensive, and they need to do it now.

 A workers’ party that is of any use is one that recognises that the workers are robbed by the capitalist, and understands how that robbery takes place; and is one that is organised to prosecute the class struggle politically until socialism is attained. Such would be a socialist party based on Marxist principles. All other parties, no matter how named, and of whom composed, are useless.

Socialism is a MUST

It is impossible to discuss any important political problem of our time, let alone take a part in resolving it, without a clear understanding of what socialism really signifies. It is just as impossible to get such an understanding from the writings and speeches of capitalists, their statesmen, politicians, hangers-on, apologists, or any other beneficiaries of their rule. They are quite capable of describing the notorious vices of particular aspects of capitalism but its true social significance, however, escapes them. Whoever does not know what are the real relationships between the social system of capitalism and the social system of socialism, may be ever so intelligent in fields like physics or the arts or investment banking, but in the most important field of social science, he is hopeless. Whoever knows something about these relationships, but refuses to make them the rock foundation on which to base and build his political ideas and actions, may be ever so fine a family man, so tender a poet, so graceful a writer and so eloquent an orator, but in this field of politics he is either a muddlehead, a mercenary or a plain demagogue.

 The biggest productive machine ever imagined for the creation of social wealth, has nevertheless instilled in the entire population a profound and a sense of insecurity. Everybody realises that whatever economic prosperity there is, or seems to be, is based upon the unparalleled economic destruction produced by the wars of today or by the organised economic waste of the periods of war preparations. The very preparation for war requires that a crushing economic burden be kept upon the shoulders of society, above all on those shoulders least able to carry the burden. Political or intellectual leaders one after another now repeats, as if it were an incontestable truth, that they face a fight for survival in a war against terror; and not a person has yet been found to reject or rebut that ominous formula. It should be clear why the professional supporters of capitalism are incapable of analysing and understanding socialism. Such an understanding implies a thoroughgoing indictment of capitalism which is unacceptable to those who are wedded economically or intellectually to this moribund social order.

When we speak of capitalism solving a social problem it should be self-evident that we mean solving the problem on a capitalistic basis. Capitalism has never been able to solve a social problem on any other basis. What is more, when it was able to solve such problems on that basis in the past, it is now less and less capable of solving them even on that basis today. Socialism is not a happy Utopia, which we OUGHT to establish but a future system which we inevitably MUST attain.

 Society is not as stationary but as constantly in motion. Society is made up of a net of social relations, the most decisive of which are the economic, that is, those productive relations which result in the satisfaction of our basic needs, food, clothing, shelter. The production and reproduction of life—that is the great activity of the organic world, an activity that separates the animate from inanimate matter. And in the whole animal world there goes on a struggle with nature to wring from it the necessities of life. The struggle for life becomes the struggle for the means of life. And if mankind has separated himself from the ape it is in this that mankind, under the pressure of environmental forces, in the course of  evolutionary development, became a tool-making animal and through  tools changed from a victim of environment to a controller of it. The struggle for life which had become a struggle for the means of life now more and more becomes a struggle for the means of production of the necessities of life. The development of life, then, must coincide with the development of the means (the forces) of production. Here we have the basic factor of all society, the forces of production. Freedom can only come from the materialist control by mankind of the forces of nature of which it is a part.  Just as the economic structure of society depends upon the productive forces, upon the level of technique and praxis attained, so the general social and cultural relations depend upon the economic ones.  Each change in the technique of production changes the interests involved, brings forth new economic relations which challenge the old. Soon the old controlling relations hamper the forces of production. These relations must now be burst asunder. They are burst asunder by the revolution and with the social revolution come new relations, which are no longer in conflict with the development of production, of life and of freedom. Throughout all history we can see this process at work.

Capitalism is tremendously wasteful and destructive of men, goods, power, land. The ultimate destiny of all useful goods is to be consumed. Yet under capitalism goods are not produced to be consumed, but for profit, and if a greater profit can be made by destroying the goods, the destruction takes place. While production is a social act, the appropriation of the product, under the present system, is individual. As capitalism develops, larger and larger factories are built, thousands of laborers co-operate in the production of a single article, yet the article does not belong to them but to the owner of the means of production. The labourers are merely paid wages for the use of their labour power, wages which constantly grow less and less an part of the total product as the total product ever increases. Simultaneously the owner of the industries becomes progressively more divorced from the productive process. As small partnerships become big corporations or are driven out of business by the trusts and monopolies, the original entrepreneurs and organizers become mere rentiers. The corporation also develops, becomes more and more a public utility. The state begins to take a hand, and to run the industry. The former individual owner now becomes a purely parasitic hanger-on, his dividends paid regularly by the state apparatus which he controls.

Capitalist relations throttle and destroy these productive forces. Within the factory a rigid dictatorship, a terrible “rationalisation” where the dead machine rules living labor, where the man is transformed into a cog of the machine, where labor becomes wage-slavery. Outside the factory dictatorship is replaced by economic chaos, man is ruled by prices which he cannot control, by the wild forces of the market of which he can be only the victim. It is only through the hectic fluctuations of supply and demand, it is only through the frantic rush of “successes” and bankruptcies that society “decides” and “plans” the division of its labour.

 Inasmuch as our ideas rationalise our interests, the ideas of the ruling class will be along the line of preserving their property and their right to exploit, while the ideas of the working class will follow their interests. The capitalists and their agents in the seats of government are blinded by their self interest, by the profits which they make as beneficiaries of the present system. The workers, on the other hand, having nothing to lose, are free to see that the present society must evolve into a new one; they see that nothing can free society from its convulsions save the change in the mode of production from a capitalist one, of private ownership of the means of production, to a  socialist one, where the means of production are socialised and classes are no more. As yet, the signs of recognition of class lines from among the ranks of the working class have not been numerous. But there have been some progress. Signs are pointing to a period of militant action on the part of labour.  As the working class fights against its increasingly worsened position it comes to the realisation that the only way out is for labor to take what it has produced for itself. To take over the means of production, the mines, mills, factories, farms and natural resources,  and run them for their own benefit. Then we will have production for use and not for profit. Then we will end both despotism in the factory and anarchy in the market. Then society will allocate its resources and labour power according to a social plan that will benefit all.

It is capitalism which creates the working class, which places this class before its problems, which sharpens its intelligence and gives it its science. It is capitalism that arms the workers and gives them the strength to carry out their own interests. In short, capitalism as it grows out of date creates its own grave-diggers who begin to do their work. The interest of the workers is diametrically opposed to the interest of the capitalists and exploiters of the workers who, controlling the government and the social educational agencies, strive to keep the workers down. The productive forces have created capitalist relations, capitalist relations have created classes which have opposite economic and thus opposite political and cultural interests. The capitalists want to keep the old relations of exploitation. They fight the rise of the workers. But their only alternative is to plunge society into one crisis and one war after another. The victory of the workers cannot be forever delayed. The old relations must be burst asunder. And if the capitalists, blinded by their interests, try to stop the wheels of progress they are ruthlessly pushed aside by the workers just as in the past they themselves pushed aside the feudal lords.

When the workers of the world unite to take over the rule over persons will begin to give way to an administration over things. The state, with its religion, will begin to wither away. There will be no exploitation. There will be no classes. Each will receive according to his needs and will contribute according to his ability. Society will be a free one and mankind emancipated.

The Battle of Democracy

What is the nature of our society? What is the controlling force which is guiding our destinies, and regulating our actions towards our fellow men and women? Could it be replaced by a better system? The Socialist Party pose these questions and provide some answers. It is the working class alone that satisfies all human wants, and keeps humanity alive. What about the capitalist – that good, kind, benevolent employer, to whom the expropriated and exploited labourer goes hat in hand, cringing for the privilege of being permitted to work? What is his place in our social system? It is to extort another huge slice out of the worker. The worker need not hope for a reasonable wage. The capitalist has but to dismiss some of his hands, or fill their places with labour-saving machinery  and those thrown out of employment will immediately under-cut those employed in order to be reinstated. If the latter do not accede to a reduction of wage, they will be dismissed to make room for the one who offers their services cheaper. If the workers form a union, and strike for higher wages, they cannot hold out for long as the strike reduces them to poverty.

 The government may differ in form, and whether it be a theocracy, an autocracy, a constitutional monarchy or republic, they are alike in fact. Whatever they may be called, presidents are virtually kings, plutocracies are like aristocracies, and in many countries political dynasties are no better than hereditary rule. Whatever the form of government, they are all marked by this general characteristic – they all rest upon theft and robbery expropriation and exploitation. Whatever the fiction of political freedom, economic slavery underlie the social structure.

That the present social system has failed must be apparent to all. It has made the many servants to the few; it has checked the best human endeavours, and facilitated every method of exploitation; it disinherits the great mass, and ordains their lifelong misery before they are even born. The oligarchs rule the world.

 It is useless to preach thrift to those who have nothing to save, or to hope for universal prosperity when the enrichment of the few is caused by the plunder of the many. Again it is foolish to imagine that a general patronage of co-operatives and the like, will ever tend to ameliorate social wrongs; for their gains always implies someone else’s loss. These “remedies” are no remedies at all.

 The robbery of the people by rent, interest and profit, must be abolished – abolished peacefully, purposefully, and permanently. But how can we do it? How can we get from the present unjust, destructive system, into one in which justice and happiness shall be the distinguishing characteristics? How shall we fight out of the present blood-thirsty system without the shedding of blood which has marked the rebellions of the past?  It can be done. It must be done. It shall be done. But how? By the revolutionary use of the vote, that’s how.

The vote is a potential class weapon, a potential "instrument of emancipation" as Marx put it. He and Engels always held that the bourgeois democratic republic was the best political framework for the development and triumph of the socialist movement. For Marx the key task of the working class was to win "the battle of democracy". This was to capture control of the political machinery of society for the majority so that production could be socialised. Then the coercive powers of the state could be dismantled as a consequence of the abolition of class society. Marx said that you cannot carry on socialism with capitalist governmental machinery; that you must transform the government of one class by another into the administration of social affairs; that between the capitalist society and socialist society lies a period of transformation during which one after another the political forms of to-day will disappear, but the worst features must be lopped off immediately the working class obtains supremacy in the state.

If there were a working class committed to socialism the correct method of achieving political power would be to fight the general election on a revolutionary programme, without any reforms to attract support from non-socialists. In fact, the first stage in a socialist revolution is for the vast majority of the working class to use their votes as class weapons. This would represent the transfer of political power to the working class. We adopt this position not because we are fixated by legality, nor because we overlook the cynical two-faced double-dealing which the capitalists will no doubt resort to. We say, however, that a majority of socialist delegates voted into the national assembly or parliament would use political power to coordinate the measures needed to overthrow the capitalist system. Any minority which was inclined to waver would have second thoughts about taking on such a socialist majority which was in a position to wield the state power.

The vote is not a gift to the people from the ruling class out of the benevolence of their heart. It was fought for and ceded by the wealthy to the poor out of fear and so we don't advocate de facto disenfranchisement of the worker by promoting political abstention. The right to vote can become a powerful instrument to end our servitude and to achieve genuine democracy and freedom. Working people with an understanding of socialism can use their vote to signify that the overwhelming majority demand change and to bring about social revolution. The first object of a socialist organisation is the development of the desire for socialism among the working class and the preparation of the political party to give expression to that desire. What our capitalist opponents consequently do when the majority wish to prevail will determine our subsequent actions . If they accept defeat, well and good. If they choose not to accept the verdict of the majority which is given through the medium of their own institutions and contest that verdict by physical force, then the workers will respond in kind, with the legitimacy and the authority of a democratic mandate. The important thing is for the workers to gain control of the political machinery, because the political machine is the real centre of social control - not made so by capitalist rulers but developed and evolved over centuries and through struggles. The power over the means of life which the capitalist class has, is vested in its control of the political machinery.

It is the quality of the voters behind the vote that, in the revolutionary struggle, will be decisive. 

Unlock the World

We call our world civilised but it is hard to justify the term. To-day’s world tolerates hunger amid plenty. Production of things people need, and of things they would be better without, is plan-less and irresponsible, resulting in grave inequalities, where immense wealth flaunts itself amid squalor, and poverty breeds hatred and contempt. Capitalism is a social system which cannot satisfy the most elementary needs of the people, but can squander billions for war. That is the greatest indictment of capitalist ‘civilisation’.

 Socialists have always contended that capitalism should be abolished because it mismanages the means of production so that a very few – those who own the means of production – reap great profits while the rest of the people are deprived of a decent secure standard of living. We have often  demonstrated the tremendous capacities of modern industry; how it could satisfy the needs of everyone if it were run for that purpose; and how capitalism, instead, runs it for profits. Socialists explain that if only the people could run these industries for themselves, they could produce enough to satisfy everyone’s needs. Capitalism is a wasteful and inefficient system. . During crises the working masses suffer extreme want in respect of elementary necessities, their requirements are satisfied worse than at any other time. Millions of people starve because “too much" grain has been produced, people suffer from cold because “too much" coal has been produced. The working people are deprived of means of livelihood just because they have produced these means in too great a quantity. Such is the crying contradiction of the capitalist mode of production, under which, in the words of the French utopian socialist Fourier, “plenty becomes the source of poverty and want".

Upheavals often occurred under pre-capitalist modes of production, too. But they were the result od  some natural or social calamity: flood, drought, wars or epidemics sometimes laid waste entire countries, dooming population to famine and extinction. The difference, however, between these economic upheavals and capitalist crises is that the hunger and want caused by these upheavals were an outcome of the low level of development of production, the extreme shortage of products; whereas under capitalism crises are engendered by the growth of production alongside the wretched standard of living of the masses, by a relative “excess" of commodities produced. Because of the massive dynamics and productivity of capitalism at the same time as anarchy of the market exists, we face the phenomenon of poverty in the midst of plenty. For thousands of years people starved because there was not enough food. Capitalism is the only system of society in which people starve because there is too much food.

Socialism could provide people with all necessities. There would be no shortages created by the greed of a few owners of the means of production, because the people would own the means of production. We can feed the hungry, provide shelter for the homeless, and warmth for the old. There’s plenty of food in the world, the factories are there, the industrial technology is there, the scientific know-how is there, the skills of the workers are there – and the needs and wants of people are plain for all to see. The problem is that they can’t be matched up. We can produce what people need – but we don’t. With socialism, production can be organised to meet the needs of all the people and not to provide profit for a single class. It will, therefore be possible to plan production; and so to increase enormously the amount produced.

The aim of the Socialist Party is to build a society which will be classless, where all the means of producing wealth are owned in common. Instead of being divided into workers and employers, rich and poor, society will be an association of free people, all making their special contributions to the well-being of society, which in return will supply them with what they need in order to live full and happy lives. Such a society can be summed up in the slogan: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”  For this to be possible, socialism must be based on abundance. Production will be organised in such a way that there is plenty of everything for everybody: not only food, houses, railways, and so on, to satisfy material needs; but also schools and theatres, playing-fields, cultural centres, so that people can lead full, physical and spiritual lives. Socialism must embrace all the peoples of the world; and in so doing it will put an end to war. It is clear from the fore-mentioned  that many institutions which we accept today as essential will have disappeared. Because no wars can take place in a truly world society there will be no need for armies. Because it will be a community of plenty, where there is enough for all and therefore no advantage can be obtained by theft or other forms of crime, all need for courts of justice and police and prisons will have disappeared. In other words, the State, which is the sum of all these institutions and organisations, will itself disappear. Instead of one section of society ruling and oppressing another, men and women will have grown accustomed to living together in society without fear and compulsion. Thus, for the first time, mankind, united in a world-wide family of nations, will be free. Work, instead of being simply a means of earning a living, will have become the natural expression of individuals’ lives, freely given according to their abilities. Moreover, the nature of work will itself have changed. Through the development of science much of its drudgery will have disappeared and every man and woman will develop their mental and physical capacities to the full.

Everything is ripe for socialism; it is only necessary to remove its enemies, the capitalist thieves and their accomplices. The answer to  poverty and deprivation is not welfare but a new society which will have real solutions.

Against Immigration Laws and Border Controls

It is the task of all workers regardless of their place of birth to unite and present one front to the common enemy in the common struggle which is the fight against the exploitation of those who work by those who own — our fight is against wage-slavery.

Scotland is a nation of immigrants and what has been the lot of foreign-born workers? The longest hours and the lowest wages; the worst housing and the poorest schooling plus discriminatory laws against them. Foreign workers are cut off by differences in language, in customs, religion, so they more easily became prey to the employers, and today are the most exploited and oppressed section of the working class. From every corner of the world they have come, anxious to experience liberty and happiness in a new land. They have come, hoping for a better life, in which the misery and suffering of the past will be ended. Instead, they find that they are despised, condemned to live in squalor and poverty performing the hardest and most unpleasant work,  while they create wealth for the class they serve. Foreign workers finds the dice loaded against them from the moment they arrive and the form of exploitation varies in the different localities, but there are certain general practices which are to be found where foreign-born workers are numerous such as employment agencies charging of fees out of proportion to services rendered and misrepresentation of of terms of employment and conditions or the withholding wages. Unacquainted with the English language, law, or court procedure, the foreign-born worker is the victim of fraud and dishonesty. The story of the practical enslavement of the foreign born workers has been told again and again. The capitalists have taken advantage of this to rob and oppress the foreign-born even worse than they rob and oppress the native-born workers.

If the dividends are to be paid, if industry is to continue to make their millions in profits the employers must have the foreign-born workers and they must intensify the exploitation and increase their ruthless oppression. Or they must have a similar source of cheap, expendable, flexible disposable labour for like purposes - the native born worker. The employers are creating by law a class of worker which can be compelled to accept low wages and bad working conditions, and then using these oppressed and exploited workers to destroy the organisations and reduce the standard of living of the native and foreign-born alike. They hope through oppressive exception laws directed at the foreign-born workers to create a class of workers who cannot fight back, and thus weaken and destroy the whole labour movement.

In order to force lower wages, longer hours, and worsen the conditions of employment, on all the workers, the employers are trying to divide the working class. The struggle between the working class and the employing class, no matter what the nationality, race, or religion be, is a war. In this war, the class war, as in all other wars, an army picks the weakest sector in its enemy’s front as the first point of attack. This is the quickest and easiest way of breaking through and smashing the whole line of the enemy’s defense. The employing class has picked the foreign-born workers as the first working people to be attacked because they are the weakest politically, the worst oppressed job-wise and the most handicapped socially. Not knowing the language and institutions of the country and often being victims of the prejudice and hatred fostered among the native workers by the capitalists, the foreign-born workers offer the easiest picking for the employers Thus, the drive of the exploiters against the foreign-born workers is only a wedge to split wide open the army of the working class, indigenous and in-comer. The employers’ aim is to pit one section of the working class against another. With lower wages and worse conditions of employment forced upon the  foreign workers, the defeat of the better organised and better paid native workers is made sure. The success of the capitalists in forcing lower wages, longer hours, and intolerable working conditions on the native workers is then only a matter of time. It is clear that the present drive of the employing class against the foreign-born workers is only a preliminary offensive that is being prepared against the whole working class — the local-born and the foreign-born workers.

In order to separate the native workers from their foreign-born brothers and sisters, in order to prejudice them against the foreign-born workers, the capitalists and their Government raise ridiculous and false alarms in the media about the threat of incomers. With so large a number of the workers intimidated, the capitalists feel safe in launching their drive against the whole working class. The divided workers will then be more easily crushed by the united capitalists. The propaganda strategy of the capitalists’ attack is clever. First, they force the damnable working and living conditions upon the foreign-born workers. Then, the  employers curses and condemns the foreign-born workers to the native workers for the intolerable conditions that it has forced the foreign-born workers to accept. The press spread the brazen lie that the foreign born workers are a menace to the standard of living. The capitalist class thus hides its own guilt by shifting the blame to the foreign-born workers. The governments of all the EU countries have responded to their inability to provide a decent standard of living for workers – houses, schools, hospitals and job security – by blaming the influx of immigrants. Thus the enmity of the native workers to the capitalists who are to blame for the falling standard of living is turned from the ruling elite  and against the foreign-born workers instead. Thus the employers misleads the native workers into believing that their foreign-born brothers and sisters are responsible for lowering wages and lengthening hours. The capitalists are hoping to sow dissension. The workers are in this way divided along the artificial lines of nationality. A disastrous defeat for the working class is assured and a capitalist victory is secure.

The Socialist Party knows that the complete liberation of the working class can come only through the revolution; that is, when workers be able to abolish wage slavery.  But until then the working class cannot sit idly by but via the unions organise a campaign of defense against their employers. The immigrant workers can be a source of great strength or terrific weakness to the whole working class in its struggle against the capitalist class. When these foreign-born workers are oppressed, unorganised and separated from the native workers they are a source of weakness and danger — politically and industrially — to the whole labour movement. But if these foreign-born workers are organised and united industrially and politically with all the other  workers — the native workers — then the working class can successfully fight back against the employers in their campaign to break the unions, cut the wages, lengthen the hours of work or put full-time into part-time and lower the standard of living of all the workers — native and foreign-born alike. In recent years the foreign-born workers have joined the native-born in the struggle against the bosses, and low wages. The bosses have learned that they can no longer use the foreign-born workers to cut the standard of living of all  workers. If members of the working class are to save themselves from intensified wage slavery,if the workers are to win freedom from exploitation and oppression by the employers, then all the workers, native and foreign-born must unite in the common fight. The  fighting forces of the foreign-born workers must become a living part of the whole working class army. A divided front of the workers will crumble.

All workers must unite and wage a strong campaign for the removal of all visa laws forbidding foreign workers from working. All workers — foreign-born and native — must unite to prevent the enactment of new laws against foreign-born workers. The unions must wage a strong campaign of unionisation amongst all unorganised workers, especially amongst the unorganised migrant workers. All the workers must wage an active campaign to uproot the prejudices fostered by the employing class against the foreign-born and to draw foreign born workers more and more into the political and civic life of the communities where they live.  We denounce the laws directed against the foreign-born. We denounce registration, fingerprinting and photographing of asylum seekers.

Ideologically, the “religion” of the state is nationalism. In lieu of class unity, nationalism is successful because it appeals to primal human desires for solidarity and belonging, as well as fear of the unknown (“outsiders”). Fear of outsiders is deliberately cultivated by rulers in order to mystify the real cause of the people’s discontent (namely rulers themselves), especially during times of economic/environmental crisis. Ultimately, the state has come to function as a sort of artificial surrogate for real community.

All workers have but one enemy — the capitalist class. The fight is between those who work for a living and those who own. It is a war between the exploited and their exploiters!

There is no race except the human race, no nation except the world!

 “The Immigrant”
I have shouldered my burden as the American
man-of-all-work.
I contribute eighty-five percent of all the labor
in the slaughtering and meat-packing industries.
I do seven-tenths of the bituminous coal mining.
I do seventy-eight per cent of all the work
in the woolen mills.
I contribute nineteen-twentieths of all the clothing.
I manufacture more than half of the shoes.
I build four-fifths of all the furniture.
I make half the collars, cuffs and shirts.
I turn out four-fifths of all the leather.
I make half the gloves.
I refine nearly nineteen-twentieths of the sugar.
I make half of the tobacco and cigars.
And yet, I am the great American problem.
When I pour out my blood on your altar of labor,
and lay down my life as a sacrifice
to your god of toil, and make no more
comment than at the fall of a sparrow.
But my brawn is woven into the warp and woof
of the fabric of your national.
My children shall be your children and your land
shall be my land because my sweat and
my blood will cement the foundations
of the America of Tomorrow
Frederick J. Haskins

Socialism From Below

What is socialism? If we are socialists, what are we actually striving for? These days many activists are busy rethinking their idea of socialism. It is a sign of the times that more and more people are discussing the meaning of socialism. They are not content with the reiteration of  generalisations and want to know how socialism will be applicable in contemporary conditions. Some socialists stress finding the correct definition in the writings of Marx and Engels, who, however, failed to offer up a detailed picture. The label “socialist" is not particularly informative. The range of conflicting and incompatible ideas that call themselves socialist is a wide one. The nearest thing to a common content of the various “socialisms” is a negative: anti-capitalism. Even anti-capitalism holds little meaning when it too lacks any clear definition. Blurring the terminology so much that vague varieties of “socialism” and capitalism are indistinguishable from one another.

There has always been different kinds of “socialists”, reformist or revolutionary, peaceful or violent, democratic or authoritarian, anarchist or statist. There has been the “socialism-from-above”, a conception that “socialism” must be handed down to the working class in one shape or other, by an elite which is not subject to their control. The opposing view is “socialism-from-below.” that socialism can be realised only through the self-emancipation and action of the majority of workers. Socialism, without a doubt, is the doctrine of revolutionary action. But it has nothing in common with violence practiced by individuals or direct action by minorities. It is important for socialists to analyse the past so that future action will not be impeded.

Marx steadfastly refused to supply a blueprint for socialism. The question “what is socialism?” is, he argued, inextricably entwined with another question: how can socialism be achieved? No socialist Utopia s worth the paper it is written on if its authors expect the workers to be passive while the Utopia was achieved. The only way workers  can be emancipated from capital is from below – and the struggle from below cannot be set in motion from above.  By changing the means of getting socialism, reformists changed the meaning of socialism itself. When socialism became a “reformed capitalism” – a different goal-  it ceased to be socialism, and became something completely different.

Socialism, as it was understood by Marx and Engels, would be a society that would have no need for repression and oppression because it had overcome economic scarcity. Marx and Engels envisaged a society in which the social productive forces had developed to a point that they would be capable of producing such a surplus of goods and services that the majority of people would no longer have to spend the greater part of their lives in work. The planned allocation of resources and human labour, in such a future society, would also ensure that no one would have to degrade themselves by working for another human being in order to survive. Instead of work being something we all try to avoid, it would gradually be transformed into one of a wide range of creative activities people engage in to make their lives meaningful. It would be foolish to abandon hope in the promise held out to humanity by the socialism of Marx and Engels.

For centuries the wisest minds and the most far-sighted of our thinkers had thought about and tried to work out plans for a human society not dominated by exploiters, be they slave-owners or factory-owners; a society in which human beings could enjoy the fullness of life without the need to make others their servants, or to be servants of others. People have dreamt of a world where there would be no oppression but where people would live in peace without being robbed. Marx and Engels predicted that the development of the productive forces under industrial capitalism would for the first time in human history build the material basis for such a fundamental transformation of society.

Socialists have always stood opposed to the proposition that it is the destiny of most human beings to live an unfulfilled life. Human progress and social evolution has relied on the grossest forms of oppression and misery. But such economic exploitation, oppression and repression, though regrettable, are unavoidable features of human history as long as the combined output of human labour, science, the machines and technology people have created, is not large enough to provide sufficient food, shelter, recreation, education and necessary luxuries for everyone. Socialists call this condition “economic scarcity.” Economic exploitation, oppression and repression therefore, pose not an unchanging human problem, but are historical problems which could disappear when our productive forces have developed to an extent that nobody goes without what they need for a fully human life.

We will not put the socialist movement on the right track and restore its rightful appeal to the best sentiments of the working class of this country and above all to the young, until we begin to call socialism by its right name as the great teachers did. Until we make it dear that we stand for an ever-expanding workers’ democracy as the only road to socialism. Until we root out every corruption of the meaning of socialism and democracy, and restate the thoughts and formulations of the authentic Marxist teachers. Socialists should not argue with workers when they say they wants democracy and don’t want to be ruled by a dictatorship. Rather, we should recognise this demand for human rights and democratic guarantees, now and in the future, is in itself progressive. The socialist task is not to deny democracy, but to expand it and make it more complete. That is the true socialist tradition. Socialists throughout the long history of our movement, have always valued and defended bourgeois democratic rights, restricted as they were; and have made use of them for the education and organisation of the workers in the struggle to establish full democracy by abolishing the capitalist rule altogether. Socialism cannot be soundly built except on a foundation of trust in the capacity of ordinary people to manage their own affairs which requires methods of administration on a scale not so large as to deprive them of all possibility of exerting any real control over what is done.

Our challenge is to ourselves, to study what went on before, by standing upon the shoulders of the earlier working-class fighters and applying the discoveries of our predecessors to the problems of our time. It s up to the exploited class – the working class – to seize the means of production in a revolution. No one can do it for them. It certainly is no good just thinking about a new society, or trying to attract others to it by example. A socialist economy cannot be planned for workers. Socialism depends upon control from below, and control from below can never be brought about from above. Our task is to persuade the many members of working class  that their interests and aspirations are bound up with the struggle against capitalism. This socialist project is  grounded in the growing awareness of vast numbers of men and women that the capitalist system cannot deliver on the promises which its apologists so generously dispense. Our priority as a socialist party is to convince our fellow workers that there exists a feasible, achievable socialist alternative to capitalism. What is badly needed, is a reaffirmation of the principles and values which make up the socialist objective, and an insistence that there are radical, rational and viable alternatives to the ways of life dictated by a system whose own needs are ever more sharply in conflict with human needs. No piecemeal reforms or partial solutions can bring an end to this state of things. We must resist the efforts to sow illusions about “reforming” capitalism, and instead build our movement with the perspective of overthrowing it. When the Socialist Party climbed up and spoke on soapboxes in almost every town this was the meaning of socialism we were teaching. Part of the lesson naturally consisted of casting aspersions upon the validity of rival political parties and de-throning others’ ideological saints.

The socialist movement has felt obliged to abandon the use of an important word because it had become too corrupt. After the First World War, “Social-democrat” became a dirty word, and as a self-description was dropped. Many socialists who would have been quite happy to call themselves “communists” in the days of Marx or Morris, would now be reluctant to do so. When these words were abandoned as favourable descriptions,  it was not just a matter of changing a label, but of establishing the identity of a valid idea, which would otherwise be confused with a degenerate idea. The same procedure may well have to be adopted again if we cannot successfully reclaim the terms socialist/socialism and if its social vision cannot be assimilated as one coherent piece into the body of a modern social protest.