Socialism: Management of Society by Workers

We must repeat for the benefit of those who do not yet know it that socialism is quite different from the aim of other organisations. Socialists are not trying to carry out an improved Labour Party programme.

The elements of the problem are simple. Nine people out of ten live frugally and with little to hope for, on wages that never leave any worth-while margin beyond necessities. And the social system we live in does not even produce enough consumer goods to satisfy reasonable human needs; nor will it ever do so. At present the means of production and distribution—land, factories, transport systems, etc., are owned by the propertied minority and used by them to make profit out of the sale of the products. Goods are not produced solely for use but for profit, and national groups, coming into conflict through rivalries about markets and trade routes, and sources of raw material, are all forced into their costly and inhuman armament schemes. The Socialist Party’s aim is to get to the root cause of these evils of poverty and war by changing the basis of the social system so that things would be produced not for sale and profit but solely for the use of mankind. Only by this can war and poverty be abolished, and along with them class and national rivalries and hatreds.

"Fantasy!" say opponents of socialism, including supporters of the Labour Party. All great social advances of the past, including the abolition of chattel slavery and serfdom, have appeared to be fantastic until they came about.

For those people who like going in for marches, demonstrations, signing petitions and lobbying M.P.s. capitalism sees to it that they are kept busy, even if they achieve nothing. The fact is there is so much wrong, so many objectionable things taking place all the time, that the protesters are bound to miss quite a lot. 

Apart from this they suffer from two fatal faults, first the objects of their marching are only effects and do not touch the fundamental cause, secondly, the fundamental cause being the class ownership of the means of production, marching is not the way to remove it.

It must not be taken from the above that demonstrations can serve no purpose of importance to the working-class. As a means of rallying support for wage claims, drawing attention to grievances and mustering a certain amount of solidarity during strikes they are useful. But we are concerned here purely with demonstrations as a means of altering the course of capitalism or eradicating one at a time the problems which arise because of capitalism; even in the sphere of wages etc., the effect is short-lived for the conflict between exploiter and exploited goes on interminably and will do so until the exploited understand socialism.

 The answer is bluntly that, squirm as they may, while the world remains under the present system, the workers will continue to bear the brunt of it.

From our standpoint as socialists, taking the interests of the world working-class as our guide, there is no proposition which simply involves re-arranging capitalism that can make one arrangement "preferable" to another. Whatever the arrangement, the workers are going to continue being exploited for the profit of an idle class, insecurity will continue to be the lot of the useful, crises will continue to arise while commodity production, world markets and profits remain, and wars with all this bestiality will continue to arise. It therefore remains that the one object of any real use that the world's workers should devote their efforts to, is the establishment of socialism. This means they must understand that capitalism cannot be made to work in their interests by adjustments here and there. From this understanding they must build the political organisation to send delegates to Parliament for the task of making the means of production common-property so that society can then proceed from this basis of a classless world to organise production for use and eliminate all wasteful and harmful production, so that mankind in peace eternal be able to enjoy the fruits of their labours to the full.

Socialism is a pledge of fraternity and internationalism, an awakening to the social mission of the working class.

Let us face the blunt truth, most people do not at present see the need for socialism and prefer to campaign on issues such as climate change and against the innumerable social injustices. They are constantly advocating "solutions" to these problems. Our challenge as socialists is how we can be generalise such resistance into opposition to capitalism itself. How do we reach those people engaged in a struggle against our exploitative society and help them to understand the need to act in an organized class way and not as isolated groups with limited or one-issue objectives. How can the fragmented struggles of isolated groups of working people come together and cooperate in a co-ordinated struggle? How can a mass socialist consciousness be developed?

We believe that it is possible, not inevitable, that working people in struggle can draw conclusions which are fundamentally socialist in content. The resentment of working people today for the failures of capitalism to fulfil its promises provides a driving force towards a socialist future. Too many times the attempts of workers to organise a new society have mirrored the very system they were allegedly trying to overthrow. 

Socialism presupposes a high degree of social and political consciousness. It cannot arise out of a mere revolt or insurrection but must answer the immense problem of the reconstruction of modern society. No one individual, group, or party can be accomplish this on behalf of the working class or in its stead. It is because it is impossible for a minority to take on such tasks, since these tasks are on a scale that humanity and humanity alone is capable of dealing with.

The Socialist Party has no blueprints. Nor are we intending to be the ultimate and final word on the way we organise for revolutionary change. The methods of struggle decided by the working class will to a large extent on their situation and the circumstances they face which will shape the form of their organisation. 

The Socialist Party is not self-appointed "leadership". The future may show us the need to modify and alter our present conceptions. That is to be expected and is nothing to worry about. Capitalist society denies working people the right to manage their own lives and to decide their own destinies. 

The approach of the Socialist Party is to facilitate for our fellow-workers to determine and direct their own fate. We reject the idea that matters of great importance require decisions by a political party’s polit-bureau and Marxian theoreticians. 

The Socialist Party does hold certain principles but as correct as we hold our ideas to be, they are dependent on workers agreeing with them. We cannot impose our case for socialism upon an unwilling and unreceptive audience. Socialism is not and cannot be anything other than the management of production, the economy, and society by the workers.

Education Brings Enlightenment

During this pandemic crisis we have seen how fragile and vulnerable our world is, We really need to do something radical and fundemental. We need to make the COVID-19 crisis into an opportunity to build a fairer and a sustainable future.

The task of socialists is to win over fellow-workers to the cause of socialist revolution. Socialism will change our way of life. Socialism will be possible only when the workers, those who meet the needs of society, decide that they are determined to lay the living conditions of mankind on a new foundation. The whole future of humanity rests on the emergence of working people as the creative force in society. Socialism meets the desire for freedom innate in every human being. Socialists are not worshippers of violence. Above all do they try to guard against the sporadic, meaningless and inevitably self-defeating insurrections that suffering are likely to prompt. We are aiming at a better, a more human world. The history of mankind can be described as the history of the efforts of communities to free themselves from the constraints always imposed by the necessity of meeting their daily survival needs and reproducing the species. All societies throughout the world are now interdependent. The socialisation of humanity has reached unprecedented levels. 

Most workers accept capitalism, believe it can’t be changed, and view socialists who want to change it as idealists. Why do workers so often accept reactionary ideas, and how can this change? In feudal society there was a rigid division between lords and serfs. This was therefore generally accepted as natural and inevitable; to use the language of the time, something ‘ordained by God’. Capitalist society is founded on the profit motive – and therefore this is thought of as ‘natural’. In fact such ideas do more than simply reflect society; they justify it. They justify the current class divisions. As socialists put it: ‘the ruling ideas of any age will be the ideas of the ruling class’. If we look at capitalism today we can easily see how this can be so. The ruling class controls the channels for the formation and propagation of ideas: the education system, the press, the television stations and all other means of mass communication, and its ideas are dominant in all these. But the power of ruling-class ideas does not arise simply from a ‘conspiracy’ of rich media moguls, publishers and university professors, ministers and civil servants and so on.

Capitalist ideas seem to make sense because they reflect the world as we experience it. Businesses are run for profit and society is divided into classes – so to believe these things are ‘natural’ and ‘true’ seems simple common sense. If workers do not believe the emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class, then they will look for salvation from above, or, worse still, come to the conclusion that no emancipation is possible at all. If workers lack a socialist analysis of the economic crisis they will accept one or other of the various bourgeois explanations on offer: ‘it’s an act of god’, ‘it’s all the fault of lazy workers’ or ‘powerful trade unions’. At best it’s due to ‘government mismanagement’ and the solution is to elect a better government.

Our Power is the Vote

Working people are in immediate need of having their sufferings alleviated, but, unfortunately, the sad fact of their suffering is not enough to bring about the change. There is a class in society called the "capitalist class", which has control of the necessaries of life. This class consists of the fortunate 5 per cent or so. The other 95 per cent. of the population  produce the wealth that is appropriated by the 5 per cent. There must be something wrong somewhere. The 95 per cent. of society would probably be interested to know how they are robbed—yes, robbed!—of the wealth which they have produced.

The 5 per cent say to the 95 per cent, "We possess the means for producing all you need; if you will work for us we will return to you sufficient out of what you produce to enable you to go on working for us."

Of course, they do not exactly use these words. Stating facts would not coincide with their interests.

Most workers are probably not aware that the means of production, i.e., machinery, raw material, etc., are absolutely worthless to the capitalists until their labour power has been applied to them. But even if they do not know this, the fear of having their jobs taken from them by others of the 95 per cent. forces them to accept the terms of the capitalists.

The majority of "unskilled" labourers work for a miserable subsistence wage. On the average they are paid according to the cost of their production and maintenance. The small number who do receive a better scale of living are being paid for the higher cost of their production, i.e., training. This does not alter the fact that they also are exploited by their employers. The workers' wages, whatever they be, are paid out of the results of their labour. The surplus goes to supply the capitalists with their profits. Now comes the rub. The reason the working class are deprived or robbed of the surplus produced is that they do not OWN and CONTROL the means of production so therefore must submit to those who do.

Does it not appear incredible that such a small percentage of the population—the 5 per cent.—should be able to subject the 95 per cent. to such a palpable form of robbery ?

Capitalism has become a very complicated affair, far too complicated to allow of the personal management of the capitalists. Hence various institutions necessary to their maintenance have come into being. The most important of these institutions is the State, through which all the other institutions are controlled—for example, education, the media, and the military. The capitalists propose certain representatives for Parliament, and the workers, carefully educated by the capitalist media to believe that they really represent working-class interests, obediently vote them in. These capitalist henchmen— Tory, or Labour, it makes not the slightest difference—proceed to pass laws for the safeguarding of their employers' interests.

In the face of these facts, the anti-parliamentarians exclaim "Political action is futile ! We will make a revolution whether the time be ripe or not. Since the workers are so desperately in need of some change. We will educate them when the revolution is an accomplished fact."

They propose to set about this "revolution" by bringing what they term the economic factor to the fore. By this they mean a general strike. Of course, it is difficult to imagine for one moment that a spontaneous general strike could be brought about, since the anti-parliamentarians  already recognise that the time is not yet ripe for a political revolution. The workers have not at present reached the essential state of class-consciousness.

But suppose for a moment that conditions do tend favourably to such an upheaval, note what would surely result. The strike would cause the stoppage of all transport; foodstuffs would diminish in a very short time.

 The capitalist class would not suffer from the shortage: they could quite easily recruit volunteers from their own ranks, or conscripts from the Army, to be in a position to satisfy their own needs. For keep in mind that they still own the means of production and distribution. Finally, if the strikers would persist for a prolonged period, the armed forces of the nation, which are controlled through Parliament, would prove the deciding factor. All the heroism and martyrdom in the world would avail nothing against the ruthless machine-guns and other instruments of civilised warfare, which undoubtedly would be brought forward to induce the working class to realise the futility of rebelling against such a power. An uprising of this description can only add to the misery of the workers without advancing their cause in the least.

It should be quite obvious that the whole power of the capitalists lies in a government that can summon the inevitable deciding factor, force, when needed. Therefore the only logical thing for the workers to do is to capture that government, and so in a constitutional manner gain control of the armed forces.

This can only be accomplished when the majority of the working class have reached class-consciousness—in other words, when the bulk of the workers have arrived at a complete understanding of their position as wage-slaves under the existing system of society.

They will then utilise their powers of voting to further their own interests instead of the interests of a class that has always ruthlessly oppressed them.

Changing things for the better

The Socialist Party visualise a future society that would be based on the common ownership of the means of production, the elimination of profit in the means of production, the abolition of the wage system, the abolition of the division of society into classes. When we speak of the means of production, we mean that wealth which is necessary for the production of the necessities of the people. The industries, the transportation, and so on. We don’t propose the elimination of private possession of personal effects. We speak of only those things which are necessary for the production of the people’s needs. They shall be owned in common by all the people.

As classes are abolished, as exploitation is eliminated, as the conflict of class against class is eliminated, the very reason for the existence of a government in the strict sense of the term begins to diminish. Governments are primarily instruments of repression of one class against another. According to the doctrine of Marx and Engels and all of the great Marxists who followed them, and based themselves on their doctrine, we visualise, as Engels expressed it, a gradual withering away of the government as a repressive force, as an armed force, and its replacement by purely administrative councils, whose duties will be to plan production, to supervise public works, and education, and things of this sort. As Engels expressed it, the government of men will be replaced by the administration of things. The “government” of a socialist society in reality will be an administrative body, because we don’t anticipate the need for any military, jails, repressions, and consequently that aspect of government dies out for want of function.

What we mean by “social revolution” is a political and economic transformation of society which fundamentally affects the property system and the method of production. A political revolution can occur without any radical transformation of the underlying economic structure of society, the property basis of society. A social revolution, on the other hand, affects not only the government, but affects the economic system.

The class struggle between workers and owners can have only one possible ending.  Sooner or later the great mass of the people who do the work will see that their own separate interests are bound up with the interests of their class. They will see that it is folly for them to support in luxury the owning class. They will unite to overthrow the capitalist system under which we are living, and to establish the cooperative commonwealth. By this we mean a society in which the good things of life shall not be produced for the profit of a privileged minority, living off the labour of others. We mean a society in which there shall not be a ruling class a class of workers under them, but in all shall rule — in which human equality shall be not a phrase but a fact. 

 The working class is made up of people with one common interest — to get the wealth they produce and use it in living a happier life. They will have no subject class under them, that they could govern if they chose. All they need to do is to abolish the capitalist class as a class and treat the capitalists like anyone else. They will thus establish equality, not because it is so beautiful in theory, but because it is the only practical way of doing the work they want done. 

 When we talk of equality, we do not mean that all the money or all the wealth of the country will be “divided up.” That is something never advocated by the Socialist Party. We don’t need the money nor the mansions nor the limousines that the capitalist have today. We want the use of the Earth and of the technology, to produce all the good things we need. Again, it is no part of the Socialist Party programme to make wages exactly equal for all but to abolish wage slavery. When the cooperative commonwealth is in operation the rewards of the various kinds of labour will tend to adjust themselves automatically. If it is hard to find street-cleaners and easy to find librarians, it will be a simple matter to increase the rewards and reduce the hours of streetcleaners until a balance is reached. The Socialist Party would not take away the artist’s brushes. We only hold that machinery so complex that they have to be used in common should be owned in common.

We say that this class struggle must finally end in the downfall of the capitalist system, and the building of the cooperative commonwealth. We say that if the cooperative commonwealth is to be brought about it is social revolution.  There is a simple way to get hold ofthe machinery of government. It is by voting for the party of the working class, that is, the Socialist Party. We do not mean to say that the election of one Socialist Party official or of a hundred Socialist Party officers will in itself bring any great measure of freedom and happiness to the working class. As long as the capitalists control any part of the machinery of government, they will use that part to nullify any measure that may be passed in the interest of the working class. Our constant aim therefore is to organise the workers into a party which shall finally dislodge the capitalists from power once for all, and establish the cooperative commonwealth.  The organisation of the Socialist Party may grown into the organisation of the cooperative commonwealth, and it is worth the best efforts of every worker to make this organisation as effective as possible. 

Don't trust others to do your thinking.

Politics is the business of government, i.e., the control and management of people. Workers should know that all the results of capitalist production spell trouble and conflict of interests between worker and worker. 

The Socialist Party shows that present-day society is divided, in the main, into two distinct classes—the workers on the one hand, by whose labour, applied to the nature-given material, all wealth is produced, and on the other hand the capitalist class, who own and control the wealth and the means by which it is produced. The workers have to sell their labour power in order to live, to those who own the means by which alone that labour-power can be applied to wealth production. The interest of the workers is to get as much by the sale of their labour-power as they can. To achieve this result they organise in trade unions. Seeing, however, that the workers produce all the wealth, and yet remain poor and are denied the opportunity of living when they are, through no fault of theirs, unemployed, the question arises why such an unreasonable state of things exists. To understand an effect the cause must be sought. The cause of all present-day social evils lies in the root of the capitalist system—private ownership and control of the means of living. In this ownership they are secured by the political power given to them by a politically ignorant working class. This political power enables them to control the armed forces, which are used to conserve the interests of the ruling class. The workers, therefore, have to deprive their masters of this political power as the first step toward their freedom, and only knowledge and organisation can enable them to do this, therefore, the Socialist Party exists to bring that necessary knowledge to the workers and to organise them in a political party for the conquest of political power by and for the working class. We point out to fellow-workers the difficulties and anomalies of the capitalist system of wealth production. We point out the hopelessness of reforming a system of society that is rotten to its foundations.

 The Socialist Party understands that the workers are wage-slaves, and that their position in society must necessarily be a servile one. That being the socialist's conception of the working class, nothing can be done to permanently better their condition. Economic freedom can only be realised when the workers organise and capture political control. It is consequently hostile to all other political parties, and claims to be the only party in this country worthy of working-class support. 

The Socialist Party looking at all phenomena in the light of socialist knowledge, sees that until the present system of private property ends, the majority of the people—the working class, that is—will remain in their present condition of penury, sordidness, and degradation, dependent upon another class for their very existence.

We look towards our own class—the working class— for help in our task of making socialists. We ask for their co-operation so that when capitalism falls, out of the wreck the working class will rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of an outworn and unregretted order, into a new world of freedom and happiness. 

To non-Socialist Party member the present outlook is, without question, bleak and black. Only when one hears the lessons taught by socialists, that it dawns upon us that capitalist society is doomed by its governing laws and that we will eventually progress to a different and, as we believe, a superior society, will hope appear and allay ones fears and disappointments.