Choose post-capitalism and people power

Socialism has never existed anywhere, regardless of the labels political opportunists claimed for themselves, as it is a post-capitalist society. Many are referring to top-down state capitalist efforts, in many cases to establish capitalist production methods, with its concomitants of waged enslaved conditions of production, poverty (absolute or relative) and war.

'Left wing' thinking is irrelevant to socialism, as in the main the Left attempt to manage capitalism and retain the features of it such as waged labour, governments and apparatus of state control. (Meet the new boss same as the old boss)

Socialism is not some Left variant of capitalism, but the antithesis of it, with production for use, utilising the advanced technology of capitalism to create the superabundance of necessities which will be required for free access. It will be a fully democratic society, locally, regionally, globally, with recallable delegates where necessary on world bodies such as WHO as an example where we need specialised expertise.

Most people fall into a trap of addressing the question from a perspective which has been shaped by a society with rationed access as a norm and attributing human behaviours arising out of the social conditioned normative responses of the present day, as general principles, a 'human nature' even. War as 'business by other means' is not a natural event but a social one arising out of competition..

Socialism will come about as the conscious political act of the immense majority acting in their class interest and will become seen, as in the interest of all humanity ultimately, ending war over resources, and artificially created scarcity, poverty absolute and relative, created by the production of commodities for markets in conditions of waged slavery, rather than production of useful utilities for human needs, so it will not have the same resistance, when it is seen to be in everyone’s ultimate self-interest to manage the planet and resources for all rather than depleting it for a minority parasitic owning class.

The capitalist economic argument is of accumulation, accumulation, of ever more profits for the capitalist parasite class is the driver of the destruction of harmonious use of resources. This senseless, in a sane society, competition between rival capitalists, the duplication of which leads to economic crises, leads to war and destruction of the natural environment.

It is quite possible to produce a superabundance of all the necessities, food, clothing, shelter etc. in ways which ensure the satisfaction of human needs without wasteful overproduction.

The end of the market system will end, sales, armies, government, banking, insurance and all of the attendant paraphernalia associated with the waged rationed economy. The problem is competitive production for profit, while initially building up the technology and resources, squanders those ultimately as it does not satisfy human needs, but satisfies market led demands and the needs of industry and commerce and thus wastes resources, in the interests of a minority class rather than rationalising the use of production and distribution resources to satisfy all human needs. The planet will become, already has in some places a wasteland if a commonly owned, democratically controlled solution is not sought, won and implemented without elite minority dominance.

The real world, of production for the profit of a minority parasite class, with the essential concomitant of waged slavery impoverishment for the many, war through competition over raw materials, trade routes and geopolitical interests of the hegemonic entities spawned by the business interests of the leech class, is well past its previously useful stage of building up the means of production.

Time to abolish class ownership and dissolve the politicians with their government over us. It is not real democracy when the elected representative is 'over' us. He or she is a representative of a dominant economic, parasitic elite then elected to control social discontent and arbitrate over the affairs of the powerful in a production for profit for the minority and waged slavery for the majority.

A true democracy can only arise out of common ownership and democratic control, of all the means of producing and distributing wealth, with production for use, which has recallable delegates, in effect, when we dissolve governments and their politicians and elect ourselves to run a post-capitalist, free access, society.

The EU referendum will be successful capitalist outcome regardless of how the proles vote. It provides the illusion that we have exercised some control over events. Utter nonsense.

Workers have no country and a world to win, to make and shape in the interests of us all, with production for use, in a post-capitalist future of common ownership, democratic control and price-free, free access to the common wealth.

The conventional political parties – Conservative, Labour, LibDem, the Greens, UKIP, the Nationalists – strive to persuade us that they have the ability and the intention to wipe out the current problems in society. To this end they produce policies relating to problems such as health, housing, crime, poverty, education, transport, along with less prominent issues such as planning, art and culture.

This is often effective in persuading enough people that they should take serious notice of their pronouncements, however transparently populist. But for people to do this entails them ignoring the fact that these parties have promised many times before to solve these problems, so that at times the remedies being put forward clash with those in the past. It also entails ignoring the vital – indeed crucial – fact that, as these problems are engendered by the capitalist system itself, they cannot be solved within its framework of minority ownership and production for profit, a system which all these parties uphold in one form or another.

Capitalism cannot be reformed and must be replaced. The referendum choice being presented to you is, do you want to be f**ked over in or out of the E.U.

It is a capitalist argument. Dissolve all governments 'over' you and elect yourselves to administer a commonly owned world.

The world for the workers.

Wee Matt

Lenin 4/6

Marx’s theory of socialist revolution is grounded on the fundamental principle that “the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself”. Marx held to this view throughout his political activity. Marx saw that the very social position of the working class within capitalist society as a non-owning, exploited, wealth-producing class forced it to struggle against its capitalist conditions of existence. This “movement” of the working class could be said to be implicitly socialist since the struggle was ultimately over who should control the means of production: the minority capitalist class or the working class (i.e. society as a whole). At first the movement of the working class would be, Marx believed, unconscious and unorganised but in time, as the workers gained more experience of the class struggle and the workings of capitalism, it would become more consciously socialist and democratically organised by the workers themselves.

The emergence of socialist understanding out of the experience of the workers could thus be said to be “spontaneous” in the sense that it would require no intervention by people outside the working class to bring it about (not that such people could not take part in this process, but their participation was not essential or crucial). Socialist propaganda and agitation would indeed be necessary but would come to be carried out by workers themselves whose socialist ideas would have been derived from an interpretation of their class experience of capitalism. The end result would be an independent movement of the socialist-minded and democratically organised working class aimed at winning control of political power in order to abolish capitalism. As Marx and Engels put it in The Communist Manifesto, “the proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority”. This in fact was Marx’s conception of “the workers’ party”. He did not see the party of the working class as a self-appointed elite of professional revolutionaries, as did the Blanquists, but as the mass democratic movement of the working class with a view to establishing Socialism, the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.

Lenin in his pamphlet “What Is To Be Done?”, on the other hand, declared:

“The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals”

“Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is, only from outside of the economic struggle, from outside of the sphere of relations between workers and employers” (Lenin’s emphasis)

“The spontaneous working class movement by itself is able to create (and inevitably creates) only trade unionism, and working class trade unionist politics are precisely working class bourgeois politics”

Lenin went on to argue that the Russian Social Democratic Party should be such an “organisation of professional revolutionaries”, acting as the vanguard of the working class. The task of this vanguard party to be composed of professional revolutionaries under strict central control was to “lead” the working class, offering them slogans to follow and struggle for.

It is the very antithesis of Marx’s theory of working class self-emancipation.

The implication of Marx’s theory of working class self-emancipation is that the immense majority of the working class must be consciously involved in the socialist revolution against capitalism. “The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority in the interest of the immense majority”.

The Bolshevik coup in November, 1917, was carried out under the guise of protecting the rights of the Congress of Soviets, did not enjoy conscious majority support, at least not for socialism, though their slogan “Peace, Bread and Land” was widely popular. For instance, elections to the Constituent Assembly, held after the Bolshevik coup and so under Bolshevik government, gave them only about 25 per cent of the votes. John Reed, a sympathetic American journalist, whose famous account of the Bolshevik coup, “Ten Days That Shook The World”, was commended in a foreword by Lenin, quotes Lenin as replying to this kind of criticism in a speech he made to the Congress of Peasants’ Soviets on 27 November, 1917:

“If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years...The Socialist political party - this is the vanguard of the working class; it must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiative…” (Reed’s emphasis and omissions)

Having seized power before the working class (and, even less, the 80 per cent peasant majority of the population) had prepared themselves for Socialism, all the Bolshevik government could do, as Lenin himself openly admitted, was to establish state capitalism in Russia. Which is what they did, while at the same time imposing their own dictatorship over the working class. Contempt for the intellectual abilities of the working class led to the claim that the vanguard party should rule on their behalf, even against their will. Lenin’s theory of the vanguard party became enshrined as a principle of government (“the leading role of the Party”) which has served to justify what has proved to be the world’s longest-lasting political dictatorship.

Lenin 3/6

The Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia put the clock back in the sense that before the First World War the radical wing of the international Social Democratic movement was making progress towards positions similar to those of the Socialist Party in Britain but, after 1917, most of those involved were side-tracked into supporting the Bolsheviks. The Leninists appropriated Marx for the cause of state capitalism. For many this was only a temporary dalliance, but the damage had been done. The Leninist regimes in Eastern Europe have fallen. The reformism of the Western Labour and Social Democratic Parties is in retreat. Many people wonder if genuine socialism will ever be achieved.

For years, the Communist Party members had been telling the workers that Socialism was being made in Russia. This was false. The workers in that country were producing commodities for sale and being exploited as in every other capitalist country. Capitalism, not Socialism, developed in Russia. The social relations of wage-labour and capital were the order of the day in Russia, developing under the name of the Five Year Plan, which was merely a step taken in the industrialization  of Russia,—at the expense of the worker. The majority of the population of Russia were peasants, with the peasant individualistic outlook, and largely illiterate. It was difficult enough to get the workers of western capitalist countries to understand Socialism (where all the conditions were favourable and reflected this idea) but how much more difficult would it be in such a backward country as Russia? Russia held out no example to the workers of Britain or any other capitalist country of how to establish Socialism. On the contrary, as Marx had pointed out many years ago in the preface to his work “ Capital,” the more highly developed country held out to the lesser developed the image of its own future. Russia, at the time of the revolution, was mainly an agrarian country where the industrial working class constituted a small part of the population. In these conditions, the Bolsheviks were forced to embark on a course of rapid industrialisation. The Bolsheviks and their supporters look to the earlier works of Marx and Engels, which optimistically predict an immediate revolution as justification for the Russian Revolution being a genuine workers' revolution. They overlook the later and more mature works of Marx that argue that capitalism must be fully developed before a socialist revolution can be successful. Thus, Leninist ideas on capturing the state through the vanguard party and organising society on state capitalist lines became the orthodox interpretation of Marxism.

The position of the Socialist Party was that Socialism could only come about by the intelligent action of an enlightened working class, organised in a Revolutionary Socialist organisation to get control of the State machine for that purpose. No reforms or palliative measures could be advocated by such a Party to side-track the workers, therefore, we would ask the workers present to support such a policy and reject the reformist and muddled policy of the Communist Party. The Socialist Party has a clear line on what socialism is, and how it will be achieved.

Socialism will be a society in which all the means by which wealth is produced and distributed will be under the common ownership and democratic control of the whole community. Of necessity, it will be a worldwide system because the means of production and distribution are worldwide. There will be no wage or price system as things will be produced solely for use and not for sale. People will work to the best of their ability and take according to their needs. The nature of Socialism shows that it can only be achieved by the conscious and independent action of a clear majority. It is the job of Socialists to help build that majority. We do not deprecate the struggles of workers but we insist that they must understand the class basis of those struggles. Without that consciousness, all their efforts will eventually be futile. Once Socialists are in the majority they will have to get hold of the state machinery to prevent it being used against them. Socialist delegates elected to the various assemblies of the capitalist nation-states by a Socialist working class would have this control, and would leave any recalcitrant capitalists in a virtually helpless position. The capitalist class only maintain their order with the active support or acquiescence of the workers. Once they lose this and are faced with an organized, uncompromising working class it will be plain to all what they are—a socially useless, parasitic minority living off the backs of the workers.

Lenin 2/6

The collapse of the Second International in the First World War cleared the way for Lenin and the Bolsheviks to carry the flag of socialist revolution. It might have been possible to rescue something out of the confusion, and spread sound Socialist understanding, after the 1914-1918 war. Particularly as workers everywhere, feeling that they had been betrayed, were in a ferment of discontent. But the Bolsheviks, by corruption, distortion, betrayal and mud-slinging, destroyed this possibility, setting out by lies, trickery and distortion to politically, and sometimes physically, destroy all the parties and individuals who were not prepared to be abject tools of the Bolshevik dictatorship. In the first flush of Bolshevik victory, radical parties all over the world acclaimed the victory and gave them generous support, even where they had doubts on some of the methods adopted. It soon became evident that Russia was not embarked upon even a democratic society. The secret police and the concentration camp were on the way. The mass of the Russian people knew nothing about Socialism; most of them could not even read. The peasants, who formed the bulk of the population, wanted land, and all wanted peace and bread. Hard as the road to Socialism always was, the Russians have made it harder, and have destroyed, or driven to despair, many genuine fighters for the workers' freedom from Capitalism, even if some of these have been mistaken in their methods.

You can't have a revolution unless you make it for yourself. Marx's conclusion in 1881 as that of workers struggles should be “pursued by all the means which the proletariat has at its disposal, including universal suffrage, thus transformed from the instrument of trickery which it has been up till now into an instrument of emancipation”. There is no reason why parliamentary institutions could not be used by a class-conscious socialist majority to win power for the socialist revolution. The main, but by no means only distortion, by Lenin concerns the vanguard party. Lenin argued that workers were incapable of self-emancipation and instead must be freed from above by professional revolutionaries who have the workers' best interests at heart. (similar to Kautsky's position.) But Marx and Engels profoundly disagreed , as they made clear in a circular in 1879:

“At the founding of the International we expressly formulated the battle cry: The emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class itself. Hence we cannot co-operate with men who say openly that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves, and must first be emancipated from above by philanthropic members of the upper and lower middle classes”.

Alexander Rabinowitch’s research points, in particular, to the fact that the Bolshevik Party in 1917 was not a monolithic bloc under Lenin’s thumb. He shows how in fact Lenin’s views were often ignored by other Bolshevik leaders in closer touch with the feelings of soldiers and factory workers. Lenin favoured a naked seizure of power by the Bolshevik Party; most of the other Bolshevik leaders were more circumspect; they realised, as Rabinowitch documents, that while most of the workers and soldiers wanted “peace, land and bread” and, by November 1917, were in favour of the overthrow of the Provisional Government under Kerensky because it sought to continue the war, they wanted to see it replaced by a government made up of all the “socialist” parties of Russia, i.e. of the Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries as well as the Bolsheviks, that would emanate from the Congress of Soviets and which would take Russia out of the war. The Bolsheviks, therefore, followed the more subtle approach of disguising the seizure of power advocated by Lenin as an assumption of power by the Congress of Soviets. Thus, the Bolshevik seizure of power in November 1917 looked to be a “Soviet” revolution, with power appearing to pass into the hands of these makeshift representative institutions (the Russian word “soviet” means simply “council”) that soldiers and workers had formed to give expression to their political views. In fact, power had passed into the hands of the minority Bolshevik Party which was determined to hold on to it, alone, come what may.

Sharp differences existed between Luxemburg and Lenin, particularly on the question of leadership, where Luxemburg, the social-democrat, opposed the essentially "Jacobin" revolutionary, Lenin. The true interest of the people was represented by the Jacobins, if only the people were enlightened enough to recognise it. For "the people", Lenin substituted "the proletariat", which was hardly appropriate since 90 per cent of Russians were peasants. However, this did not worry Lenin since he decided the working class was incapable of progressing beyond a trade-union consciousness and that the revolution would have to be carried out in its name by an élite of professional revolutionaries, the "vanguard party". Once this had been accepted, there was nothing left of Marx's statement that "the emancipation of the working class itself". The words "dictatorship of the proletariat" meant little more than the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party. When, in January 1918, an election was held for a Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks found themselves in a minority and reacted by using troops to disperse the Assembly. When workers showed their hostility to the régime, the Bolsheviks had no hesitation in using the utmost brutality to suppress them, as at Kronstadt in 1921. Lenin's "proletarian dictatorship" meant rule by a clique of Party members.

Lenin is rightly known for having stood for a centralised hierarchical vanguard party to lead the masses. A case can be made out for saying that up until WWI Lenin was a left-wing Social Democrat who argued that, under the autocratic political conditions of Tsarism, Social Democrats there had to organise as a hierarchical centralised party in order to overthrow the Tsarist regime, and that for Western Europe he accepted the German party's model of an open, democratic party pursuing a maximum programme (of socialism) and a minimum programme of reforms of capitalism, contesting elections, etc. The trouble is that he changed his position after 1917. He now said that the organisational form and tactics that he had advocated for the overthrow of Tsarism (which was not in fact how Tsarism ended as it collapsed more or less of its own accord; his tactics only worked to overthrow the weak government that emerged following this) should also be applied in Western Europe for the overthrow of capitalism. This is when he would have ceased to be a Social Democrat and became a Leninist.

In “What is to be done?” Lenin proposed that the Russian social democrat party must be a tight-knit, exclusive organisation, acting as the vanguard of the working class and turning workers into revolutionaries. Party members must be disciplined in organisation and loyal in doctrine. The party must be highly centralised. This was hugely controversial and Lenin’s divisive activity cause a split at the 1903 Second Party Congress between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Later in “Two Tactics of Social Democracy” Lenin posits that the bourgeoisie cannot be the natural leaders of a Russian anti-Tsarist revolution They will betray the revolution and seek compromise with the ruling class. They can’t be trusted to establish political democracy. There must be a ‘provisional revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.’ Terror is to be used in order to achieve this. Many Mensheviks denounce his proposals as having nothing in common with genuinely socialist politics. Lenin was warned that it would lead to a permanent dictatorship. “April Thesis” published amidst the events of the Russia  Revolution calls on the Bolshevik party to build up majorities in the soviets and other mass organisations and then to expedite the transfer of power solely to them. The Provisional Government is to be overthrown; the transition to socialism to be inaugurated instantly. The Bourgeois and Socialist revolutions to be merged into one under the aegis of the Bolsheviks. Many Bolsheviks members are stunned. Even they had popularly presumed that Russia would require an epoch of capitalist development. No one had suggested that socialism could be ‘leapt to’. But it became accepted policy after much debate and threat of resignation as the leader from Lenin by Bolsheviks at the end of April. The “State and Revolution” was written to clarify key points and as a piece of “libertarian” propaganda. The passage from capitalism to communism requires an intermediate stage called the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. The construction of socialism will thus begin. Mass political participation to be facilitated. An unprecedentedly high level of social and material welfare to be provided. Once the resistance of the former ruling classes has been broken, the need for repressive agencies will disappear. Dictatorship will become obsolete and the state will wither away. Then a further phase – communism – will be inaugurated. Society to be run according to the principle: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Under communism, there would be no political or national oppression, no economic exploitation. Humanity will have reached its ultimate stage of development.

  Once in power, the Bolsheviks established what they misnamed the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In fact, it was nothing of the kind. It was not even the dictatorship of the Bolshevik party (which again they misnamed the Communist Party), but the dictatorship of a small inner group with Lenin as the guiding star. They established a system of treachery and terrorism, first against opposing elements and eventually internally against those who would not abjectly submit to the dictates of the inner circle. In the end, this led to members of the inner circle trying to destroy each other. First Trotsky, then Kamenev, Zinoviev Bukharin, and Radek fell victims to the terrorism they had built up. Fortunately for him, Lenin died before he could become a victim of the system in which he was the leading actor.

Hard as the road to Socialism always was, the Russians have made it harder, and have destroyed, or driven to despair, many genuine fighters for the workers' freedom from Capitalism, even if some of these have been mistaken in their methods. The lesson to be drawn from the Russian experience is the impossibility of a small group of leaders, with a mass of blind supporters, ushering in anything other than some form of dictatorship; certainly not Socialism, The supreme need of the workers is an understanding of Socialism, what it is and what it implies, and organising together for the sole purpose of achieving it. Finally, that Socialism is an international system which cannot be achieved in one country alone, but requires the understanding and harmonious co-operation of all the workers of the world.

Lenin 1/6

“Soviet Socialist Democracy is in no way inconsistent with the rule and dictatorship of one person” Lenin

Many on the Left have canonised Lenin as a saint to be venerated. Leninism today deserves the hostility of workers everywhere. Lenin seriously distorted Marxism and thereby severely damaged the development of the socialist movement. Indeed, Leninism still continues to pose a real obstacle to the achievement of socialism.

Lenin’s claims to Marxist 'orthodoxy' are bogus. Lenin could not accept the Marxian view that commodity production was an identifying feature of capitalism. Following the Bolshevik seizure of power, the production of wealth in the form of commodities was the only option open to the misnamed Communist Party. Commodity production continued and was an accepted feature of life in "communist" Russia. Lenin stood for state capitalism and argued that socialist democracy is in no way inconsistent with the rule and dictatorship of one person. There is a wide chasm between the views of Marx and those of Lenin in their understanding of the nature of socialism, of how it would be achieved and of the manner of its administration. Marx sees socialism as the abolition of ownership (implied in the term "common ownership"). His vision is a state-free, class-free and money-free society which, by its nature, could only come to fruition when a conscious majority wanted it and wherein the affairs of the human family would be democratically administered. A form of social organisation in which people would voluntarily contribute their skills and abilities in exchange for the freedom of living in a society that guarantees their needs and wherein the poverty, repression and violence of capitalism would have no place. Lenin's definition of socialism is "Socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the whole people". Lenin knew that he was introducing a new definition of socialism which was not to be found in Marx but claimed that there were two stages after capitalism: socialism (his new definition) and communism (what Marxists had always understood by socialism)

The terms socialism and communism have had a checkered history, but it can be said with certainty that it is not correct that Marxists have always used the term socialism to mean a "period between the seizure of power by the working-class and the epoch of full Communism." Marx did not, neither did Engels, and Lenin knew this. Lenin, in "The State and Revolution", actually quotes Marx from a passage in the Critique of the Gotha Programme where Marx begins with the words: "But these defects are unavoidable in the first phase of Communist society . . .” Lenin then interposes the words "generally called Socialism." Marx and Engels used the terms communism and socialism to mean precisely the same thing. They used "communism" in the early years up to about 1875, and after that date mainly used the term "socialism" There was a reason for this. In the early days, about 1847-1850, Marx and Engels chose the name "communism" in order to distinguish their ideas from Utopian, reactionary or disreputable movements then in existence, which called themselves "Socialist" Later on, when these movements disappeared or went into obscurity, and when, from 1870 onwards, parties were being formed in many countries under the name Social-Democratic Party or Socialist Party, Marx and Engels reverted to the words socialist and socialism. Thus when Marx in 1875  wanted to make the distinction he spoke of the "first phase of communist society" and "a higher phase of communist society" Engels, writing in the same year, used the term socialism, not communism, and habitually did so afterwards. It will be noticed that one of the most widely circulated works of Engels was called by him "Socialism, Utopian and Scientific" not "Communism, Utopian and Scientific." So Marx more or less used sometimes the one, sometimes the other, without any distinction of meaning.

In his criticism of the Gotha programme in 1875, Marx  pointed out that "the co-operative commonwealth based upon common ownership of the means of production" (i.e., Socialism, or, as he then called it, Communism) would have a "first phase" in which it would be "afflicted with the congenital defects of the society from which it has sprung." In this first phase the individual "receives from society a voucher showing that he has done so-and-so much work. . . . On presentation of this voucher he withdraws from the communal storehouse of articles of consumption as much as this quantum of work is worth."

In this first phase, there would, Marx says, be mal-adaptations. Thus if each individual were required "to do an equal quantum of work, and all to receive an equal share from the social fund of articles of consumption," the man with dependents to keep would be worse off than the single man, while the stronger and more clever individuals would be able to do the required amount of work with less effort than the weak. Marx added that "such mal-adaptations are inevitable in the first phase of Communist society because it is born out of capitalist society."

In due course the first phase would go, giving place to a higher phase: -

 "In a higher phase of communist society, when the slavish subordination of the individual to the yoke of the division of labour has disappeared, and when concomitantly the distinction between mental and physical work has ceased to exist; when labour is no longer the means to live, but is in itself the first of vital needs; when the productive forces of society have expanded proportionately with the multi- form development of the individuals of whom society is made up—then will the narrow bourgeois outlook be utterly transcended, and then will society inscribe upon its banners, "From everyone according to his capacities, to everyone according to his needs!"

(It may be mentioned that Louis Blanc and others had also preceded Marx in stating that this last principle would not be applicable until after a "transition" period.)

 Leninism (in whatever of its versions or mutations) was and remains, by virtue of its assumptions and ethos, an elitist and totalitarian doctrine, capable of creating, whatever its subjective intentions, only elitist and totalitarian societies, in which the proletariat either becomes or remains a politically repressed and economically exploited class. Lenin persistently rejected the view that the working class was capable of achieving socialism without leaders. He argued that trade union consciousness represented the peak of working class consciousness. Socialism, he affirmed, would be achieved by a band of revolutionaries at the head of a discontented but non-socialist-conscious working class. Leninism constitutes a monumental and tragic hoax perpetrated on countless millions of oppressed and exploited human beings, not only in Russia but throughout the world. The situation in Russia left the Bolsheviks no alternative to the development of capitalism under the agency of the state. The concept of state capitalism is wholly consistent with Lenin's misunderstanding of the nature of socialism. State capitalism was erroneously exported via Comintern as being consistent with the views of Marx.

The contrast between Marx and Lenin is demonstrated most strikingly in Lenin's view of the nature and role of the state. Whereas Marx saw the state as a feature of class society that would be used by a politically-conscious working class to bring about the transfer of power and then be abolished, Lenin saw the state as a permanent and vital part of what he perceived as socialism, relegating Marx's abolition of the state to the dim and distant future in “communism” while in the meantime the state had to be strengthened – the again mis-defined “dictatorship of the proletariat. The Russian state and its coercive arms became a huge, brutal dictatorship under Lenin, who set the scene for Stalin.

The Bolshevik seizure of power in November 1917 was not a "working class soviet (workers' council) revolution" but a military coup engineered by Lenin, Trotsky and the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party. The Bolshevik "revolution" was a classic example of Leninist thinking; in fact, it was a coup d'état carried out by professional revolutionaries and based on the populist slogan, "Peace, Land and Bread". Socialism was not on offer, nor could it have been. It is true that Lenin wrongly thought their Russian coup would spark off similar revolts in Western Europe and, especially, in Germany. Not only was this a monumental political error, but it was based on Lenin's erroneous perception of socialism and his belief that his distorted conceptions could be imposed on the working class of Western Europe which was, generally, better politically organised and more sophisticated than the people of Russia.

It "ain't gonna last"

The press in mid-May were focusing on the new government in Brazil. Articles featured the corruption at all levels of administration, the inauguration of the new president, Michael Temer, and the possible impeachment of outgoing President, Dilma Rousseff. As interesting as all this is, the fundamental matter was largely ignored: the tottering state of Brazil's economy.

A few years back when things were booming the press were full of praise for Brazil, but like all things concerning capitalist economy, it "ain't gonna last." A fat pay cheque today mean squat for later on. 

John Ayers.

The Unreal World Of Capitalism

On May 13 it was all over the media that Kelly Ripa wasn't happy about being informed that Michael Strahan was quitting their morning talk show at almost the last minute. She thought she should have been told sooner; to quote "I think all people are deserving of fair treatment in the work place. People should be treated equally and with dignity."

Though Ms. Ripa makes an astronomical salary compare to most of us she is still a member of the working class and gets dumped on by her bosses. As for her complaining of disrespect, welcome to the real world Kelly – or should I say the unreal world, called capitalism. 

John Ayers.

The World to Win

Patriotism is nationalism as an ideology. It is used to persuade workers they have a country to fight and die for. In fact, workers have no country, but the World to win, in common with fellow workers worldwide. Socialism is a post-capitalist, production for use society, of free access without prices or any need for a means of exchange, as everything is owned in common. Many people are attributing attempts to regulate capitalist excesses, with socialism when in fact they are elements of governing capitalism, using reformist means to manage discontent. The purpose of business is to exploit the worker for the surplus value which they alone create. Their failure (reforms) is just further evidence of the fact capitalism cannot be managed and requires replacement, by common ownership and democratic control of all the means of producing and distributing wealth, with production for use and local, regional and global control by the people themselves in conditions of free access and sharing of vital resources. Socialism has never existed anywhere, regardless of the labels political opportunists claimed for themselves, as it is a post-capitalist society. Many mistakenly refer socialism to top-down state capitalist efforts, in many cases to establish capitalist production methods, with its concomitants of waged enslaved conditions of production, poverty (absolute or relative) and war. 'Left wing' thinking is irrelevant to socialism, as in the main the Left attempt to manage capitalism and retain the features of it such as waged labour, governments and apparatus of state control. (Meet the new boss, same as the old boss)

Socialism is not some Left variant of capitalism, but the anti-thesis of it, with production for use, utilising the advanced technology of capitalism to create the superabundance of necessities which will be required for free access. It will be a fully democratic society, locally, regionally, globally, with recallable delegates where necessary on world bodies such as WHO as an example where we need specialised expertise. Too many folk fall into a trap of addressing the question from a perspective which has been shaped by a society with rationed access as a norm and attributing human behaviours arising out of the social conditioned normative responses of the present day, as general principles, a 'human nature' even. War as 'business by other means' is not a natural event but a social one arising out of competition.

Socialism will come about as the conscious political act of the immense majority acting in their class interest and will become seen, as in the interest of all humanity ultimately, ending war over resources, and artificially created scarcity, poverty absolute and relative, created by the production of commodities for markets in conditions of waged slavery, rather than production of useful utilities for human needs, so it will not have the same resistance, when it is seen to be in everyone’s ultimate self-interest to manage the planet and resources for all rather than depleting it for a minority parasitic owning class.

Jonathan Portes of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research thinks over-population alarm is wrong. “We find it hard to be positive about population growth. But it has boosted economic growth. It has made austerity less painful, by increasing total employment and tax revenues. And congestion, pressure on services – they’re considerably easier to cope with, from a collective point of view, than the opposite problems. We’ve forgotten what depopulation feels like.”

Between 1975 and 1978, the UK population fell. In 1982, it dropped again. “The population of inner London fell by 20% in the 70s,” says Jonathan Portes. “Many people said London was basically doomed. It was going to go the way of Detroit. Inner London would become wasteland.” The consequences of depopulation could be bleak: boarded-up houses; miles of urban dereliction; dwindling investment and passenger numbers in and on public transport. In some places, despite the recovery of the population since, this emptied Britain still exists.

Portes points out that much of the UK is not crowded anyway. Liverpool and Glasgow have barely half as many inhabitants now as they had at their peaks in the middle of the 20th century. All population statistics are by definition slightly out of date and approximate, but while England has roughly 410 people a sq. km – the second highest in the EU – Wales has only 150, Northern Ireland 135 and Scotland 70. Even heaving, stressful London is much less full of people than is widely supposed. “London is the lowest-density mega-city on the planet,” says Danny Dorling. “The densest part of London is four times less dense than Barcelona, a normal, well-planned European city that Britons all want to visit.”

Globally, 50% of the world’s population is crammed into just 1% of the Earth’s landmass. Yet if you wished you could fit the entire world’s human population into the state of Texas.

The world’s population is predicted by some to reach 11 billion by 2100. The map shows there is space for us all to live but it’ll take some clever socialist thinking, in a post-capitalist, commonly owned, production for use society to ensure we actually do.

The map is based on NASA’s gridded population data, which records the population of Earth in 14 square kilometre patches. This map uses a grid of 28 million cells of roughly 3 x 3 miles. “The yellow region in the map includes every cell with a population of 8,000 or more people. Since each of them has an area of about nine square miles, the population density of each yellow cell is at least 900 people per square mile, roughly the same population density as the state of Massachusetts.

http://www.alphr.com/science/1002386/50-of-the-global-population-live-on-1-of-the-world-s-land

It is the economic argument of accumulation, accumulation, of ever more profits for the capitalist parasite class is the driver of the destruction of harmonious use of resources. This senseless, in a sane society, competition between rival capitalists, the duplication of which leads to economic crises, leads to war and destruction of the natural environment. It is quite possible to produce a superabundance of all the necessities, food, clothing, shelter etc. in ways which ensure the satisfaction of human needs without wasteful overproduction. The end of the market system will end, armies, government, banking, insurance and all of the attendant paraphernalia associated with the waged rationed economy.

"From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".

Do not settle for crumbs from the rich man's table, take over the bakery. We have the World to win.

Wee Matt

Why we are socialists

If we are socialists, what are we actually fighting for? Many understand the need for social change, but why do we need a revolution? What is socialism, and why is it necessarily better than capitalism?  Where is there socialism today? The answer is that it does not exist anywhere and hasn’t done. Many dismiss socialist ideas as Utopian. It’s a good idea, they say, but people are too greedy and selfish for it to work in practice. They forget that each and every day we work together co-operatively on a massive scale. They forget too, or perhaps have never been lucky enough to experience, the co-operation and solidarity that are displayed in every strike. Socialism sets out to provide security for all human beings.

We can produce what people need – but we don’t.  Socialism releases the creativity of the common people, who are capable of tremendous advances when not labouring under a system of exploitation. When socialists talk about ending “exploitation,” we mean the process of capitalists not paying workers the full value of what they produce. The capitalists withhold as profits part of the wealth that workers produce, a process called “exploitation.” Capitalism organises and exploits workers collectively. Our work is organised on the basis of social co-operation and the division of labour. Capitalism has in fact given workers tremendous collective power, power which runs factories, hospitals, schools, transport systems. This power creates all the things that we need as human beings. Many people today across the planet are involved in issues and struggles to improve their situation or stop injustices that they face. In practically every community, there are struggles and efforts by workers to obtain a living wage.

Socialism is a society in which all the members of the community collectively determine their conditions of life and their way of living. In order to do so, they must control, collectively, the use to which machines, factories, raw materials – all the means of production – are put. Unless the means of production are effectively in the hands of the whole society, not as in the world today where 1 per cent of the population owns practically all property, there can be no question of the collective control of the conditions of life.

By revolution, we mean the overthrow of the capitalist ruling class and the basic economic system of society. We believe a revolution is necessary because the problems of this society – the economic problems of inflation and recession, national oppression, social ills – are all the product of the capitalist system itself. The basic nature of capitalism is that while the vast majority of people work and produce the wealth of society, a handful of capitalists control all the wealth – the factories, mines, railroads and fields, and all the profits that are produced. The ruling class prospers at the expense of the vast majority of the people, and their constant drive for profit and more profit results in only more problems and suffering for the people. We believe that no amount of reform of the present system can offer any lasting improvements, security or stability for the masses or fundamentally alter their position in society. Great reforms won by the people, reforms such as the winning of the franchise, trade union rights and certain welfare guarantees such as free education and free healthcare were major victories but they have not fundamentally changed things. Furthermore, the ruling class always tries to limit or negate those concessions that have been won. The ruling class will always do this so long as it holds the power of society; it will try to milk everything it can from the working people to enrich or protect its own interests.

Under capitalism, the private ownership of the means of production makes society-wide planning impossible and leads to a socially anarchistic process of social reproduction. At the same time, socialised production leads to an increasingly complex, interdependent, large-scale division of labour in all modern industrialized societies. This is the basic problem and the essence of the destructiveness of capitalism. Capitalists not only do not direct the capital but in fact are themselves directed by and enslaved by capital. Capital spontaneously flows wherever the most profit can be made. There is no society-wide overall planning under capitalism, nor can a capitalist economy as a whole be a planned economy. The interests of the capitalists are individual interests. Under the system of private ownership of the means of production, the capitalists all fight for their own immediate interests, the interests of a particular company or sector. By their very nature, that is their sole consideration. Thus they come into antagonistic conflict with other capitalists, other sectors and other industries. Under capitalism there is nothing to prevent anyone with capital from producing identical products as long as the goods can be sold. Conflicts and waste inherently exist because products are duplicated. And there is even a contradiction in artificially creating demand and falsely advertising simply to sell these hyped products. So it is clear the private ownership precludes planning. This is true within each sector as well as for any sector’s relation to other sectors. Capitalists don’t sit down together and plan (except to monopolize pricing and markets, which further destroys the basis for capitalism), and there’s little interest for them to do so. As long as many different corporations exist, there is competition among them. As long as there are different domestic and foreign corporations, they are constantly driven to compete with each other. Without the profits, they cannot compete.

If someone is building a house excavating and laying the foundation is the key task. Other tasks, such as selecting the building materials, are undertaken simultaneously but are influenced by the type of foundation being laid. All these tasks must be accomplished, but laying the foundation is the central task at that moment. The same is true in making a socialist revolution. In any particular period, one task must be the central task, the accomplishment of which will enable the entire process to move ahead. Deciding the central task does not mean that that task is the only thing one does, but rather clarifies the key thing that will help along all the tasks in making a revolution. Today the central task must be forging a socialist party to widen socialist influence in society. Every successful revolutionary movement in history has had organisation. The working class needs its own party. The capitalists themselves are organised to defend their own interests. Without its own organisation, workers would be unable to resist the attacks of the oligarchs and plutocrats, let alone overthrow their rule.

Socialism and nothing less

Socialism is rule by the people. They will decide how socialism is to work. The task of socialists is to help and steer the transfer of power from capitalists to the people. To use the word “socialism” for anything but people’s power is to misuse the term. 

The Socialist Party argues that it is capitalism, not over-population, which is responsible for the "scarcity" we experience in our lives. Many in the Green movement accept the idea that the planet is full and there are too many people in the World, and that we need to do something about it. The Socialist Party position is it is not people who are the problem, but the way our social life is organiSed: capitalism. Those who support the ‘overpopulation’ argument quite simply play into the hands of governments, nationalists and anti-feminists who are quite happy to step up demographic controls, people management and anti-immigration policies. Also by interpreting population growth as the root cause of the environmental crisis they completely disregard the systemic nature of the problem and thus let capitalism off the hook. Throughout history, the overpopulation argument has been used to present people and children as the source of inherently social problems. Whether it’s the poor, the blacks or Asians all have been used strategically as scapegoats for an irrational and unproductive use of space and resources within a capitalist economy. Closing the borders while presenting immigrants as swarms of migrants exhausting national resources like locusts are common images for racists and nationalists. We should be attacking capitalism, not families. It isn’t surprising that newcomers will eventually be blamed for capitalism’s failures. Capitalism doesn’t make sense and neither do capitalist solutions. The ‘overpopulation’ proponents ask not for a new form of social organisation (that might see land and resources accessed and shared more evenly, contributing to less poverty, more sustainable lifestyles and fewer wars) but takes the shameful and hopeless route of blaming people, the victims.

Socialism will very likely dramatically improve people's life-spans and higher standards of living are likely to lower birthrates, leading to longer-term population stability. Once we are living in socialism, the release of human creativity to solve the problem of a finite planet and potential ever-expending population will provide many strategies that we can't even begin to imagine. New technologies of food production and medicine will be able to do more and more to remove the 'problem' in the first place. The major thing is the re-organisation of society.

Food availability depends on a number of factors. The first one is the purchasing capacity of the people. We should not forget that, during the 1974 famine, Bangladesh's per capita food availability was the highest to date. Even then, over 30,000 people died of starvation and millions suffered from malnutrition at that time, as the poor didn't have access to food grains for lack of purchasing capacity.

In 2010 a food crisis hit West Africa but it has nothing to do with shortages of food. From the Guardian.

The Guardian reported:

"When you walk through the markets, you can see that there is food here. The problem is that the ability to buy it has disappeared. People here depend on livestock to support themselves, but animals are being killed on the edge of exhaustion, and that means they are being sold for far less money. And on top of that, the cost of food basics has risen".

Basically market mechanisms are failing to allow people to get the food they need.

Latin America (1971)

From the May/June 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Part 1 

Economy and Investment (1971)

Latin America is the Cinderella of world politics. In comparison with Africa and Asia it has been neglected, as a glance at the shelves in the libraries and bookshops will show. Penguin paperbacks, for example, have published a whole African Library but nothing comparable on Latin America, and even the left wing have been relatively silent on the subject. Why is this? The main reason is that while Afro-Asia’s struggles of “national independence” are either current or very recent, Latin America’s similar struggles occurred over a century ago. And while the left has seen “socialism” in just about every Afro-Asian state, Latin America has been a United States colony, ridden with rightist governments and dictators. The Cuban revolt caused a momentary flutter but interest soon waned when the whole continent didn’t follow Cuba’s example and when the inevitable “degeneration” set in.

The rise of the Tupamaros plus Allende’s electoral victory have produced a reawakening of interest, so it would be a good opportunity for us to assess the situation in Latin America and the prospects for the growth there of socialist ideas. And what a task this is! We are dealing with 14 per cent of the world’s land mass containing 7 per cent of its population and with greatly varied technology and culture. A continent dominated by a mountain range which severely restricts communications, a continent with the world's greatest jungles and even a desert, and yet with an extremely high level of urbanisation and great cities on the scale of London, Paris and Milan. Alongside this are remnants of feudalism in the rural areas with master and serf relationships, not to mention those pockets where people are still living in primitive tribal societies.

The modern history of Latin America starts with independence from Spain and Portugal at the beginning of the 19th century. The continent was, and to a lesser degree still is, ruled by landowning oligarchies. America, Britain and France soon made it an area of investment and a market for their manufactures. Today, America has largely ousted the others and made the continent its own preserve. Of course American domination has tended to keep Latin America industrially backward in order to maintain it as an outlet for exports. Even now, when American big business sets up large scale industry, such as car factories, it does so only to protect existing markets from foreign rivals and local entrepreneurs. It is this situation which has thrown up the growing bourgeois and military nationalists plus the would-be imitators of Castro and Guevara, all determined to end “Yankee Imperialism”.

The major problem for Latin America is, how can it become industrialised to the extent that is required? The need is for the accumulation of capital to finance expansion carried out by one means or another — through military juntas as in parts of Afro-Asia; through “revolutionaries” using highly centralised government action as in the “communist” world; or through a home-grown recognisably capitalist class perhaps utilising some of the methods of the other two groups. The first two groups have already made their presence felt in Peru and Cuba respectively, and the signs are that the last group is at long last coming through. Whichever aspirants come to power in whatever country their most important task must be to tackle the antiquated and inefficient methods of agriculture caused by the system of landowning.

Until now this system has severely hampered industrialisation. The big landowners often trace their ancestry back to the conquistadors and regard wealth through feudal eyes — as ownership of land providing, above all, social status. As a result the land is often badly and underused so agriculture remains static with too many people producing only enough — and usually not even that — for themselves. Consequently, there can be no surplus for investment in industry nor a rural population with any money to become emergent industry’s consumers.

Undoubtedly Latin America’s system of landowning is archaic. Land is owned mainly in large estates (latifundios) and the rest in dwarf holdings (minifundios). On the large estates can work wage slaves plus a variety of peasantry categorised as follows

(1)          Tenant Farmers: works part of landlord’s land for himself giving a money rent in return.

(2)          Sharecropper: gives part of produce in return.

(3)          Labour Tenant: gives personal service (labour) in return and is an out and out feudal throwback. [1]

It is these three groups that the rural guerillas set their sights on. The following figures show the extent of big landowner’s holdings: Between 3 and 8 per cent of landlords own between 60 and 80% of the continent’s cultivable land. In Paraguay eleven lots cover 35% per the eastern region. In Chile 63% of arable land is owned by big owners, the remainder being dwarf holdings. In the Peruvian Highlands 1.3 per cent of estates control more than 50 per cent of land. [2]

So agriculture must be modernised by getting it onto a capitalist basis in order to stimulate investment, free a major portion of the population to become workers in industry and commerce, and create the mass of consumers necessary for a home market. Right, but who is to carry out the role of accumulators? Obviously the Castro-type solution is out, as the guerilla movement — where it even exists — is being given short shrift by the U.S. trained Latin American military. Witness the experience of Guevara in Bolivia. Also, the peasantry is fatalistic in its outlook and will only join in a revolt after it is seen to be winning. Besides, any idea of splitting up the land amongst the peasantry is, in the long run, opposed to modernisation in that while it may produce happier peasants it does not lead to a surplus for investment.

Can military dictatorships of a nationalist complexion fill the bill as in, say, Egypt, Indonesia, or Nigeria? This is likely in some of Latin America’s less developed nations where the bourgeoisie are still too weak or disunited, but in the more advanced nations a native bourgeoisie is emerging strong and determined enough and has been flexing its muscles of late, particularly in Chile and Venezuela.

Of course their potential has always been there as was shown during the depression years when, paradoxically, a considerable degree of industrialisation was achieved. As the flow of foreign funds dried up then the state and local capital stepped in to fill the vacuum. And during world war two, when Latin America’s normal suppliers of manufactures were otherwise engaged in mutual mayhem, a profitable opportunity beckoned for home investors. Then there is the 5 billion dollars of Latin American capital which is invested overseas, [3] so it’s not as if there is simply nothing in the kitty. Given the right climate for home investment (political stability) the continent’s capitalists could be induced to plunge heavily. Until now the state has had to do the job of laying the foundations of industrialisation. In what is virtually America’s backyard 30 per cent of all investment is by the state!  [4] Nationalisation, so beloved by the left, is embraced by conservative regimes easily enough. Oil, railways, steel, electricity, mining, are either wholly or partly state owned in many Latin American countries. And why not? It is often the logical way for an as yet economically weak owning class to run things by combining into a community of capital.

So far we have been reviewing Latin America’s past and present. In the next article we shall be considering the prospects for the future.

Part 2  Tomorrow’s prospects 

The modernisation of Latin America will be a fantastic task for whoever takes it on. Despite the existence of several nations with a more or less European culture and level of technology, the continent is generally appallingly backward. In the mid 1960’s its industry accounted for only 24 per cent of the gross domestic product and employed only 14 per cent of the native population. Only half the population ever receives any primary education and in some parts the rate of illiteracy is 100 per cent. In 1965 the income of General Motors was 20.7 billion (thousand million) dollars which was more than the gross national product of any Latin American nation including Brazil. In case the message still isn’t clear, one man, Paul Getty, owned more personal wealth than the yearly income of Ecuador. Moreover, many millions live outside a money economy: In Brazil’s north east alone 10 millions are reckoned to come into this category.

The most awesome statistic about Latin America is that from a total of 226 million in 1965 the population is expected to be around 316 million by 1980, 40 per cent of whom will be under 15 years of age. This means that the vast majority will be non-producers. Here, rather than China or India, is where the so-called population explosion is at its worst and an annual increase of 3 per cent in the economy is required just to keep living standards as they are.

In the face of all this can there really be any hope for Latin America? The answer is “yes”. In fact it is precisely this state of affairs which must galvanise capital into action, whether using the methods of democratic government or military juntas, for failure to act will ensure that the situation becomes utterly chaotic, and that can’t be good for business. What use is a continent seething with discontent and crawling with guerrillas in the countryside and in the cities? We dealt last month with the poor prospects of the rural guerrillas. As for their imitators in the cities, they have no basis of support among the working class class and can really only have nuisance value. A resumption of constitutional rights in Uruguay will undoubtedly cut much of the ground from beneath the Tupamaros. Indeed, the only possible contribution the guerrillas might be able to make is by prodding tardy regimes into some concessions that little bit sooner.

The working class of Latin America has already been written off as the “revolutionary” force by the would-be emancipators at the meeting of the Latin American Solidarity Organisation (OLAS) in Havana in 1967. It is true that the continental working class is still very weak and is actually declining as a percentage of the population. There are only about 7 million members of the trade unions and these mostly in the more developed nations. But in Latin America, as elsewhere, the Socialist movement must be essentially working class.

A popular explanation for the political backwardness of the Latin American working class is that it brings with in into the cities reactionary rural attitudes among which is the desire for a strong-man such as Peron was. In short, they look to a “Patron” to solve problems rather than their own political or industrial action (see S. Mander Static Society: The Paradox of Latin America). There is some truth in this explanation but it has to be seen against the fact that millions of city dwellers in Latin America aren’t, strictly speaking, workers at all. Each year destitute rural inhabitants drift citywards to end up in the shanty-towns such as the “Favelas” of Rio. Some drift back to the countryside for a variety of reasons but many of those who remain never really get involved in the relationships and disciplines of wage-labour, so the size and attitudes of Latin America’s working class cannot be accurately judged merely by looking at the urban populations.

Nor will the idea of the “Patron” endure outside of the semi-feudal hangover which throws it up. As capitalist expansion really gets underway the workers will be forced by an intensification of the class struggle to look to unions for help and to the various political parties. This has been the pattern in Italy, Japan, and other countries which have recently undergone large scale industrialisation and it is no accident that Latin America’s trade unions are strongest in those countries where capitalism has already made considerable progress, such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Venezuela.

The evidence is that Latin America’s capitalist class is awakening to the possibilities. Their theorists have long extolled the need to control foreign investment and interference, particularly American, and the current denunciations of the “imperialists” are belated recognition of this. Covering the election by the Chilean Congress of Dr. Allende as President, Lewis Duguid reported that “. . . the bourgeois congressmen, some of them bitterly anti-American and convinced that Chile’s problems are imported, have voted in a man who repudiates many institutions of Chile while glorifying its distinctiveness”. Of Allende’s alleged Marxism, Duguid quotes Allende explaining this as meaning "he accepts the Marxist interpretation of history”. (Guardian 25 October, 1970) So what? This is purely academic and the fact remains that Allende’s government is committed to and was elected on a mere ragbag of reforms, and far from opposing US investment is soliciting it, only this time for "fair returns”.

Meanwhile the government is forcing foreign companies which are wholly controlled from abroad to sell the majority of their shares to local investors. In Venezuela the bourgeois government is progressively increasing its share of the profits of the largely US owned oil companies and is extending its overall stake in the oil industry. This bourgeois confidence stems from the sure knowledge of their newfound unity.

As we have already said, our interest in Latin America lies in the prospects for the growth of socialist ideas there. These ideas will go hand in hand with the strengthening of the conditions which have produced them elsewhere — mainly the development of capitalism and all that stems from that, including its ever increasing problems and contradictions. Of course as socialist ideas grow in the rest of the world then, with the existence of today’s sophisticated means of communication, Latin America cannot fail to be affected by this. Indeed, even if the continent continued indefinitely in its backward state it could not escape Socialism when the developed world put it into operation. It would fall in line with the superior social system, so we don’t have to wait for every backward part of the world to be modernised before production for use becomes possible. The fact is that capitalism has come to Latin America and is rapidly expanding its techniques and relationships.

We confidently look forward to the day when growing interest in our ideas will be reflected in the number of enquiries from Latin America. What should socialists there do in the meantime? Certainly not to engage in movements of "anti-imperialism”, demands for agrarian reform and the like, but instead to propagate whenever possible the case for Socialism — worldwide common ownership and democratic control of society’s resources.

Vic Vanni

Revolution – Why we need it

Ideas stand no longer against ideas, but against a PR machine ruthlessly worked from ulterior motives. The notion that the end justifies the means has become a dogma of all the main political parties. Their principle consists in having no principles, propagating policies in which they do not themselves believe.

The crises of capitalism have made the re-organisation of society on socialist lines an imperative necessity. The theory of reformism is very different from the actual struggle for reforms. It is that repeated success in achieving reforms could, over time, will completely transform society, peacefully and without the sharp break represented by revolution, into another type of society. The idea was that capitalist society could grow gradually into a free socialist society. Socialist critics of reformism are not, of course, opposed to the struggle for reforms. But they do understand that no gain is permanently guaranteed so long as the means of production remain in the hands of the capitalist minority. But the struggle for socialism is not for something far-off. The first obligation of the Socialist Party is that its adherents should explain its aim and its essential characteristics clearly so that they can be understood by everyone. We must do away with many misunderstandings created by our adversaries and some created by ourselves. The main idea of socialism is simple. A multitude of human beings possesses nothing. They can only live by their work, and since, in order to work, they need an expensive equipment, which they have not got, and raw materials and capital, which they have not got, they are forced to put themselves in the hands of another class that owns the means of production, the land, the factories, the machines, the raw material, and accumulated capital in the form of money. And naturally, the capitalist and possessing class, taking advantage of its power, makes the working and non-owning class pay a large forfeit. Socialism stands for social or community property. Capitalism stands for private property. Socialism is a society without classes. Capitalism is divided into classes—the class owning property and the propertyless working class.

Wages are a badge of slavery. If to-day workers receive wages, it simply means that they are slaves. It is true that the capitalist cannot sell the body of his employees to another capitalist; it is true also that a worker may refuse to work for his or her present master and leave him. But, if they do, what happens? Like the plundered peasant, he or she is compelled to seek someone else to employ him, for we workers are propertyless and cannot live on air. Therefore, the wage earner is dependent on the capitalist class and the slave of that class. If the working class wishes to end its slavery, it will have to take those means of production from the present owners and convert them into the property of all society, i.e., establish socialism. But in doing this the workers will abolish the wages system, for then there will be no employer to say: “Sell your labour power to me and I'll give you enough money to buy the necessaries of life."

“How will the members of the Socialist commonwealth get food, etc., if they have no wages?" someone usually asks. Here is the answer: Since private ownership will be done away with, no one will be able to say, "These goods are mine, I'll sell them.” On the contrary, the wealth produced (like the means of production) will belong to all society and every member will have free access to that wealth.

One last objection is possible. Will there not be a scramble? Production, having advanced to its present level, has made it possible to produce goods in abundance and in quantities enough to satisfy everybody. Furthermore, since profits will not be the aim of production under Socialism (there being no profits), goods could be turned out in still greater quantities without fear of a crisis.

Everyone is an expert on human nature, especially politicians, who make remarks about the nature of people such as that humans are an inherently greedy, selfish, violent, nasty species. This is both wrong and unscientific. When most people talk about human nature, they are referring to human behaviour—two different concepts. The selfish, cruel, anti-social conduct that is laid at the door of human nature is really only the outcome of systems based on private property, which compels people to engage in predatory conduct in order to survive. We cannot afford to let an erroneous view of ourselves as human beings prevail. There is absolutely no reason why we cannot live in peace and harmony. That this will mean that we must make a fundamental change in our system of society is something we will come to when we know about ourselves as humans.

The Socialist Party’s aim is socialism because socialism is the only way to solve the problems of capitalism is to end the class divisions in society. The Socialist Party has therefore always been focused to take the means of production and distribution out of the hands of individuals, and to transfer them to the ownership of the people as a whole so that they can be used for the common good. Common ownership means an end to the chaos and wasteful competition of production for profit. Socialism does not mean the levelling down of living standards. Nor does it bring bureaucracy and tyranny. On the contrary, socialism draws more and more people into planning and making their own future, and frees their creative energies for great economic, social and cultural advances. We mean by Socialism what the pioneers meant—the ending of the exploitation of man by man, the abolition of the system of rent, interest and profit, planned production for use instead of private profit, and the ownership of the means of production and distribution by the working people.

“The word Revolution, which we Socialists are so often forced to use, has a terrible sound in most people's ears, even when we have explained to them that it does not necessarily mean a change accompanied by riot and all kinds of violence, and cannot mean a change made mechanically and in the teeth of opinion by a group of men who have somehow managed to seize on the executive power for the moment. Even when we explain that we use the word revolution in its etymological sense, and mean by it a change in the basis of society, people are scared at the idea of such a vast change, and beg that you will speak of reform and not revolution. As, however, we Socialists do not at all mean by our word revolution what these worthy people mean by their word reform, I can't help thinking that it would be a mistake to use it, whatever projects we might conceal beneath its harmless envelope. So we will stick to our word, which means a change in the basis of society." —William Morris (How We Live and How We Might Live.)

Domestic Tensions

 In April the annual Shelter Voices Survey from the Canadian Network of Women's Shelters and Transition Houses reported that on one day last year 234 shelters in Ontario had torn away 305 women and children who were fleeing domestic violence because they didn't have the space or resources to take them in.

Take heart folks the upholders of capitalism have risen to the occasion. The Federal Government have promised $89.9 million over 2 years to create 3000 spaces, meaning 2 new shelters for every province. This will be done through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which already oversees a shelter fund.

Obviously, the Government isn't trying to address the cause of domestic violence, the tensions people live under in this delightful economic system.

We can't say there would be no domestic violence in a socialist world, but we can say with the removal of tension it would be considerably less and all involved would quickly receive the help they need. 

John Ayers.

Prospects Under Capitalism?

In 2013 Fortress Development had mortgage brokers offer eight per cent interest rates to those who would invest in the Mady Collier Centre in Barrie, Ontario, which many did throwing in their R.R.S.P.'s. In all hundreds of investors sunk $16.9 million into a syndicated mortgage scheme which they were told was secure, which high interest paying and R.R.S.P eligible.

In April, the Mady Collier Centre filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors. Investors who want their money back will have to get in line behind banks and the construction trade.

Fortress claimed the failure to deliver was due to "bad weather, an extra floor added, and the failure of some subtrades."

All this means is that no matter how attractive the prospect, under capitalism, there is no sure thing.

 John Ayers.