No Reform - No State

 Our lives are unnatural and horrible, and engender sins not due to natural depravity and wickedness but to an artificial and abnormal state of society. We produce not only the victims, the poor; we also manufacture the criminal men and women by the conditions in which we place them. So long as this accursed system of capitalist production holds, a curse alike and a demoralisation alike to all, so long must — it is no question of individual will — this condition that is just now shocking us all continue also. So long as the producers are the bond-slaves of the capitalist class, so long will these things go on. So long, indeed, as we have two classes face to face, the one literally in a position to buy, and actually buying, the bodies of the other, so long will the crimes that necessarily result from such a system continue. 

There are those who accuse us of being, to say the least, "impractical," because instead of trying "to help where we can" we demand a revolution. I maintain that we socialists alone are truly practical, because we alone dare to go to the root of the ill. Ask a doctor to cure a patient living under absolutely unhealthy conditions in the midst of pestilential air and unsanitary surroundings. The doctor will tell you that you must change these surroundings if you would save the life of the individual. We but apply to many, to all individuals — i.e., to society — what the doctor applies to the one. 

We say so long as human beings are the slaves they now are — whether they be the slaves of wealth or of poverty — this disease must continue. And so, instead of trying to do what is impossible, and seeking to make healthy individuals where the whole system is diseased, we say, do away with this unnatural state of things. Do not foster unnatural crime by unnatural conditions. Live free and healthy lives, and men and women will be free and healthy. Abolish the cause of the disease and the disease will disappear. And so long as there is a class that must sell its labour-power — and the labour-power of the poor takes many forms — so long must this iniquity continue.

We must work only with those who can really help us ; those who understand that the "salvation" of society means the revolution of society. The old biblical story may serve our turn. We need a "great flood" to wipe out the ills and evils of this society of ours. It is with those who would revolutionise society that our work as men and women lies. Do not believe those who tell you any political party, or any "reformers" or any special legislation, can do away with crimes that are only the result of our whole system of society to-day. If you would do away with these crimes, you must do away with their cause.

It is a sign of the times that more and more people are discussing the meaning of socialism. Socialism will bring the largest possible measure of the amenities of life within the reach of all. In a socialist administration for all there are no employers, no superiors, as no oppression; all are equals, and enjoy equal rights. No leader can make socialism, and no would-be leader can unmake it. No leader can dictate its course. It is a party of men and women, and not of one person. The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system; it must go. As we suffer together, we must work together so that we may all enjoy together. We offer justice for all. The truth of the matter is that this is a rich man’s State and a rich man’s government. 

The State is there to act on behalf of the capitalists and to protect their interests against that of the people. There is war. It is class war. It is waged by the representatives of one class, the oppressors, against the oppressed. In this war, the State is always and invariably on the side of the oppressors. Some of its representatives may try to achieve the ends of capital by cajoling and wheedling. But they always keep the big stick ready. The State — that is the big stick of the owners of wealth, the big stick of the big corporations. Every one who tries to persuade you that the State is your friend, your defender, that the State is impartial is misleading you. When you protect “industry” you give it freedom to exploit “labour”. The reformists preach to the workers a reliance on this very State and its laws as prescribed for them by the ruling class.

The future for humankind is socialism

 

Socialism means a class-free society, and a class-free society means that a privileged minority of the population are not in a position to enjoy the wealth the majority’s labour produce. It means especially that privileged individuals cannot invest it in the instruments of production with which others work, thus reducing them to a position of fixed subservience. It means an end of rent, profit, and interest on stocks and bonds, an end of “surplus value,” an end of the exploitation of labour. Socialism will solve the problem of poverty by abolishing it. Socialism will not make us angels upon earth; it will only encourage and nurture our better qualities instead of upon our baser, as is done by capitalism today. Bankrupt capitalism has survived beyond its time, and inflicted untold evil on the world.

Socialism will not fall from the skies, nor will it be gained by any appeals to the good will and compassion of the capitalist exploiters. Socialism will not come of its own accord. Socialism can be realised only by the class struggle of the workers. There is an irreconcilable conflict of class interests between the workers and their capitalist exploiters. There can be no greater crime than to miseducate or deceive this working class upon whom so much depends for the salvation of mankind. It is a crime to offer them a program of reformism under the label of socialism. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) today represents not a continuation of Eugene Debs’ tradition but a complete break with this tradition. While these “socialists” still talk a great deal about socialism and revolution, this talk merely serves to conceal their actual service to the capitalist class as a force for misleading and taming the revolutionary movement. 

We believe that workers all over the world, no matter what their nationality, have common problems and common bonds, that the rich men who control General Motors, for example, robs all working peoples and that therefore we share common interests with the workers of other lands against the common enemy. We rejoice when we learn that the workers of other countries have had victories which improve their standard of living or widen their liberties, we sympathise with them in their defeats.

Of all political parties or groups the Socialist Party are the most open and frank about their aims and objectives.  In 1848 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, declared: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.” This is still our position.

The system of profit-making, the ownership and control of industry by a few industrialists and bankers for their own gain and not for the benefit of the people. The solution for the ills of present day society is the social ownership of the industries and production for the common good, instead of profits for the few.  We desire a happy contented life, which we think only socialism can bring. We know that socialism will succeed capitalism as sure as day follows night. This small minority is actually a dictatorship which decides, on the basis of whether it is profitable for them or not, whether a man will work or not and how he will work. The worker himself has no say whatsoever in this vital matter. We are not “prophets of gloom”. On the contrary, we have our eyes set on the future for mankind. To introduce a system of society where industries are run not for profit but for the good of mankind, a system of society where unemployment will be unknown, where children will be able to secure the maximum education irrespective of the financial position of their parents.

In socialism, the wealth will really belong to the people and be used for their benefit. Socialism will not only guarantee a more equitable distribution of the world’s goods but an enormous increase in the production of all that is necessary to make humankind happy.

Capitalism is a wasteful, irrational system which operates not on the basis of producing what is good for the people, but only what shows the biggest profit. Great inventions and new technologies are held back because they would affect the profits of the capitalists, while millions of pounds are spent every year to convince people to buy what they don’t want. It is impossible to estimate what genius is lost to our society today by the inability of the average working man to give his children advanced education, or allow them to develop their artistic talent. So once the shackles of private profit-making are removed our society will march ahead to unheard of production of goods and men and women’s talents, and this will provide plenty of everything for everyone. Human selfishness will disappear. We are working for such a society and although our numbers and our influence are growing, there are not enough of us yet to make the progress.  The nurse, the doctor, the scientific research worker know the thrill of achievement for others and they will understand how we feel when we see socialism advancing with mighty strides, knowing that every little success brings closer the world socialist system which will benefit all humankind.

 What about joining us? 

No. 1394 Socialist Standard October 2020 Contents

No. 1394 october 2020

Socialist Standard No. 1394 October 2020 PDF version

No. 1394 October 2020 Contents

	Regulars Editorial: Beyond the false choice Pathfinders: Capitalism by gaslight Cooking the Books Letters Material World: Hair is big money Proper Gander: Radio Ga-Ga Reviews 50 Years Ago: Black Power Meetings Rear View

Features

US elections: The lesser-evil fallacy

As the American presidential election draws closer, progressives such as Noam Chomsky are making their message to vote Biden very much more vocal, declaring Trump is so demented and deranged that a president already displaying symptoms of senility and dementia is preferable and so working people must ignore Biden’s ignominious past record. Read >

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Socialism is not a Dream. It can be Reality. It’s up to You…

Socialism is the great beacon of hope for humanity. The working class, black and white, have put up with endless injustice in capitalism. Socialism will be a huge relief after the long nightmare of capitalist exploitation, inequality, and poverty in the midst of material prosperity. Socialism is not an end, but a beginning, it is the beginning of the real history of humankind, an awakening to a new age of socialist justice. Socialism means the free development of each man and woman, black and white, as the condition of the free development of all men and women. Read >

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Enough food for all

‘Malnutrition is caused by “the lack of access to sufficient, nutritious and safe food” due to poverty’ (UN Food and Agriculture Organisation 2017).

Within the current political system planning ahead on whatever front, the main goal will be in some way or another connected to the financial aspect. Housing, for instance, is a major problem for millions around the world even though it is designated by a UN resolution as a basic human right. In ‘normal’ non-Covid times the UK, with less than one percent and the US, with less than five percent of the global population, both have significant numbers of people living rough on the streets or in hostels whilst more than enough housing remains empty but unavailable to them. Read >

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US elections: capitalism or capitalism?

America is at the cusp of deciding the nature of its future, or at least it thinks it is. It has two scarcely distinguishable options, Democrat Joe Biden and incumbent Donald Trump. The Trump presidency has already had an effect on America that will long outlast his second term, should he get one. The wildfires sweeping the West Coast have had fuel thrown upon them by the rapid destruction of what little environmental regulation there was before Trump. Nominal wages have gone up steadily over the last four years, but cost of living has been growing faster, far outstripping the growth in wages. Read>

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Capitalism: incompatible with democracy

We continue from Part One, our explanation as to why capitalism is not and cannot be democratic

The ownership of the mass media is merely the start of the problem. Another way of constraining democracy is by limiting what is seen as being suitable for discussion. Liberal Democracy (LD) does not normally limit discussion by outlawing ideas and throwing people who fail to conform into gaol or worse, although this may happen in certain circumstances. Instead it falls more into the category expressed by Marx that the dominant ideas in society are those of the ruling class. Read >

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Anti-imperialism is not anti-capitalism

We continue our series on the origins of the mistaken view that workers in the advanced capitalist countries share in the exploitation of those in the so-called ‘underdeveloped’ countries.

In his 1920 Preface to Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism Lenin comments: ‘Capitalism has grown into a world system of colonial oppression and of the financial strangulation of the overwhelming majority of the population of the world by a handful of “advanced” countries’.

 Colonialism is not quite the same thing as imperialism. It entails the annexation of, and direct political control over, other territories by a state which is not necessarily true of imperialism. Read >

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Conflicts in Hong Kong

Hong Kong was a small but important part of the British Empire, acquired by military might. Hong Kong Island originally became part of the Empire in 1842, after China was defeated in the First Opium War, as the lucrative opium trade was imposed on China by Britain. After the Second Opium War in 1860, further land was ceded, including Kowloon Peninsula. Then in 1898 the New Territories to the north of Kowloon were leased to Britain for 99 years. Read >

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Reviews

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Socialist Standard October 2020

Making socialism real

To arrive at a clear understanding, it is necessary first to grasp the nature of class society, otherwise freedom and democracy, like ideas about rights and justice, remain vague concepts. In our Declaration of Principles, we refer to the enslavement of the working class being a consequence of the ownership of the means of living by the capitalist class. This is the number one fact of life of capitalist society. The only sense in which the working class are free is, as Marx explains in ’The Communist Manifesto’, that they are not tied to land or any individual employers, but being divorced from the means of production are free to sell their working abilities on the labour market to any capitalist willing to hire them. Wage-labour is socially enslaved to the capitalist class as a whole.

The capitalists are not a single group with the same interest, but numerous groups with often conflicting interests. Although they all live on the backs of the workers, they dispute among themselves as to which should have the main burden of taxation for the costs of running their system.  The workers then as now blamed their hardships on leaders and parties rather than the system. The fraud of reformism has become the status quo. The institutional forms taken by the national affairs of the capitalist class, which includes the health, education and welfare of the working class, are put over to the workers as freedom and democracy.

For the dubious privilege of having his children’s heads stuffed with nationalism and religion, while being trained for a life of wage-slavery, and the benefits bestowed by the Welfare/Warfare state to relieve the worst extremes of poverty, the worker is expected to rejoice that he is remembered at election times and invited to vote for the continuation of things as they are. Just as capitalist politicians debated the dangers of teaching workers to read and had no choice but to do so, they also debated the wisdom of universal suffrage. The provision of facilities for lobbying opinion to decide how property interests and profitability can best be served is not the same thing as freedom. There is no provision made for expressing socialist views; these fall outside the province of profit promotion, and have to make their own way. The capitalist conception of freedom can never amount to more than the freedom of the capitalist class to trade, legislate and arm against their rivals. For them, the first freedom must always be the freedom to exploit wage labour. Even the contesting of elections is tightly circumscribed by money, resources and access to the media. political power of capitalism are built upon the ownership of the means of production and distribution by the capitalist class. The prevailing ideology and morality reflect the interests of private property. The non-owning class are fed false information and miseducated to produce attitudes in conformity with the dominance of private property and profits. Attitudes towards money, wages, leadership, housing, inflation, trade and war, are manipulated by the schools, press, radio and t.v. on the basis of the prior assumptions of the capitalist interest. The skilful use of spurious information and a pretence of a debate excludes views which reject those prior assumptions.

Political power of capitalism are built upon the ownership of the means of production and distribution by the capitalist class. The prevailing ideology and morality reflect the interests of private property. The non-owning class are fed false information and miseducated to produce attitudes in conformity with the dominance of private property and profits. Attitudes towards money, wages, leadership, housing, inflation, trade and war, are manipulated by the schools, press, radio and t.v. on the basis of the prior assumptions of the capitalist interest. The skilful use of spurious information and a pretence of a debate excludes views which reject those prior assumptions.

What sustains their continued acceptance of capitalism, is the fact that workers everywhere, are side tracked into struggling for a host of other issues. For socialists, the attainment of freedom means the abolition of classes and democracy is inseparable from socialism.

Arouse, Ye Wage-Slaves!

We socialists know what the matter is: it’s capitalism; and we know what the cure is: it’s socialism. Capitalism is a thing, a system; it’s the organization of society under which we all live. And it’s wrong, fundamentally wrong. It is a system of competition for wealth, for the necessities of human life, and, a survival of the old struggle of the jungle, it forces the individual to . be selfish, and rewards him for beating and abusing his fellow man. Profit is made the aim of all human effort, not use, not service. The competitive system sets man against man. It puts a premium upon hate; and love— the love of a man for his neighbor — is abnormal and all but impossible. The system crucifies the prophets and servants of mankind. It rewards greed the most, honours the ruthless, and advances the unscrupulous.

Our appeal to the workers is do not to vote for ourselves. All we ask is that you think, organize, and go into politics for yourselves. We aren’t contesting elections to win office; not yet. We want a majority of socialists, not of votes. There would be no use getting into power with a people that did not understand. The cooperative commonwealth can come only when the people know enough to want to work together, and when, by working together to win, they have developed a common sense of common service. We ask men and women to sacrifice the present for the future, to ‘throw away their votes’ to mark the rising tide of protest and build up a party that will represent them.

Socialists are the inheritors of a civilisation and all that is good in it — art, music, institutions, architecture, not one of these should be lost. And violence would lose us much. The people haven’t all they need, and yet there’s an abundance, a surplus. The hitch is in distribution. The capitalist, producing, not to supply the demand, but to get his profit. The capitalists can’t govern themselves. They can’t control prices, because they can’t control their own nature, which is bred under the sordid profit system. Socialism will be an entirely different system. It will produce for use, not profit. With socialism, all industry would be intelligently managed and freed from the brutalising temptation of profits. It’s the profit system we want to abolish. We want the producers to get all they produce. The producers are all who labour in any productive way, mentally or physically. We would get rid only of the capitalists, stockholders, and financiers, who rake off fortunes for themselves and leave property in machinery and wage-slaves to keep their children in idleness, or vice, a curse to themselves and a burden on mankind for ever and ever and ever. We take away all incentive to steal and graft and finance and overproduce and shut up the shop sudden. We all would do our work, as most of us do it now, without the incentive of a fortune in prospect. Wouldn’t a fireman save a child’s life if he didn’t get a salary? Men and women are better than we are led to believe; they are less selfish than your ‘economic man.’ We have heroes of altruism under the present system. Socialists don’t propose to substitute altruism for self-interest. The capitalist system levels most men down now? It takes all the individuality, all the courage, self-respect, liberty, and beauty out of the great mass of mankind. There would be emulation after competition is abolished. Men and women would vie in skill and service, and that would produce individuality and character, though of a different sort. We would level up, not down. We would let humanity develop naturally. If we took away the fear of starvation on the one hand and on the other the tremendous rewards for crookedness and exploitation; removed all incentives to base self-seeking, and arranged things so that the good of the individual ran, not counter to, as at present, but parallel with, the good of society, why, then, at last, human beings would stand erect, frank, free, friendly, and happy.

How do socialists account for war, for example, and graft; political corruption, ignorance, child labour, crime, and poverty? Some men prosper off others. We see the majority of men and women working for the few. That’s what we call wage- slavery, and it is slavery. The employer say they might quit work; that the boss will let them go. But the fear of starvation is the boss’s slave-driver. They don’t dare quit. The wage-slaves work in competition, and they produce goods that they need but haven’t enough money to buy. That’s poverty. And the measure thereof is the riches of the exploiters of labour, industry, and finance. And the other cause of poverty is the waste of competition and the artificial halt of production — to keep up prices and profits. Petty and professional crime are a result of poverty; high crime springs from wealth-seeking. The poor aren’t poor because they drank; they drink because they are poor. Child labour is simply the meanest form of the exploitation of human beings by human beings, and, as I showed, is due, not to any inherent cruelty in the employer, but to the system of which he also is a victim — the capitalistic system which puts profits first and children. Take a willing worker, overwork and underpay him, keep him on the verge, and then when he and his kind cannot consume what they produce, discharge him. He leaves his family to hunt a job, and, finding none, tramps or commits a crime. His children suffer, go young to work; they learn that their father is a bum or a crook. They are discouraged. The father drinks; they drink. Their children are, the best of them, perhaps, criminals, and the others, vagrants. It will stop by abolishing the cause — poverty and riches.

Socialism is the cooperative control and the democratic management of the means of production. Socialism is the next natural stage in the evolution of human society; an organisation of all men into an ordered, cooperative commonwealth in which they work together, consciously, for a common purpose: the good of all, not of the few, not of the majority, but of all. With socialism people would exercise their abilities for the common good and their own greater satisfaction. Art and culture will become common. All will have leisure. The schools will teach liberty and the trades, justice and democracy and work, beauty, truth, and the glory of labor, efficient and honourable. The arts will thrive, as they always have, in a free, cultivated democracy. There always will be some work less attractive than other kinds. Machines will do the dirty work.

Socialism does not abolish private property, except in the means of production. We want all men to have all they produce, all; we are for private property; it is capitalism that is against it. Under capitalism only the few can have property. We do not preach hate. We are opposed to classes. We teach the worker not to strive to rise out of his or her class; not to want to be an employer, but to stay with his fellow workers, and by striving all together, industrially,  politically, learn to cooperate for the common good of the working class to the end that some day we may abolish classes and have only workers — all kinds of workers, but all producers. Then we should have no class at all, should we? Only men and women and children. Socialists are only preparing the minds of our fellow-workers for it

It’s Up to Us!

Socialism will come into being mainly as the result of a conflict of interest between the possessing and the non-possessing classes. Reformists look towards the mutual good understanding and good intentions of the ethical good elements of all classes to recognise the wickedness of the capitalist system to bring about the co-operative commonwealth. Many socialists deny that socialism presupposes any radical change in individual character at all, or that it has anything necessarily to do with what is known as selfishness or unselfishness in the present condition of society. The human qualities with which socialism will be brought about, and upon which it will have to be based upon, we are convinced, is no more represented by the unselfish saint than it is by the ultra-selfish egotist.

 What we contend is that socialism, as primarily an economic transformation, brought about by the class struggle between the working class and the capitalist class, will change the character of all who come under the influence of the new conditions with quite different virtues and vices. The transformation of modern civilisation into the co-operative commonwealth, involving the greatest change known at least to history, must necessarily result in a corresponding change in the content of mankind’s nature. That the ultra-selfish individualist engendered by competitive conditions will speedily disappear in socialism we may fairly take for granted, just as we see no reason to expect that the unselfish saint will become more numerous even under socialism than he or she is at present. It is not the hearts of men and women, but the conditions of society that socialists intend to change. It is the transformation of society we seek and in doing so we want rather enlightened selfishness than unselfishness. The class-conscious worker full of the class war spirit could hardly be described as an unselfish saint identifying ones own interest with that of one’s class. The reorganisation of society in a socialist sense; we must lose no opportunity of proclaiming, does not require for its vindication men and women as paragons of unselfish virtue. It presupposes simply – an ordinary person.

We want the cooperative commonwealth. Our part is to get control of political power, in order to complete the transition to the socialist society peacefully and systematically. In whatever way socialism comes, we must have a majority of the people in favour of it. The Socialist Party does not hold with the small, well-disciplined minority theory assuming command and imposing socialism. It is the work of the Socialist Party to clarify and educate the vast amount of vague, undeveloped socialist sentiment existing today, and crystallize and organise it into something palpable and definite. The somewhat abstruse doctrines of Marxian economics must be popularised and put into such simple form and language. Ways must be devised of getting information and knowledge into the hands and heads of all workers.To institute a global cooperative commonwealth we must have a world organisation.

We must resurrect socialism from surviving on life-support. Restoring the validity of the socialism is not merely an academic project. The  aim of the Socialist Party is to establish socialism and abolish the right of one man to rob another of the fruits of his or her labour. This is what makes our Party different from all others. Nowhere in the world has socialism been established. To make revolution and put an end to capitalism, the proletariat must have a clear strategic orientation, a clear plan. It must determine what the nature of the struggle is, who are its main enemies, and who are its friends. Every day workers pour their sweat into production and experience the life-killing exploitation on which the system is built. 

 Working people build houses and live in hovels; manufacture clothes and wear second-hand garments; generate electricity and freeze; mill flour and starve; make shoes and go barefooted; sell their bodies and boast they’re free; curse effects, don’t see causes; complain about the rich capitalists yet vote for them; eat, sleep, toil, don’t read or think; love capitalism and hate socialism. Low wages and long hours mean a harvest of profits to those who buy labour, and a world of misery to those who must sell their labour to live. Nearly all the laws in existence have been made for the protection of life and property, and as the judges of the courts are the creatures of the capitalist class, they so construe the laws that all of the force of government is used to protect the life and property of the capitalist class.

Socialism is coming. Don’t say it is far off. If you believe in Socialism, vote for it. It will never come any other way. Vote for the platform and candidates of the Socialist Party. That is the party which stands uncompromisingly for socialism. Refuse to vote for the palliatives, the half-way measures of the decoy capitalists political parties. A vote for a capitalist party is a vote for robbery of the working class. Vote for the interests of the working class. Be a class-conscious socialist.