To Advance Towards Socialism

The position of the Socialist Party is one of hostility to the existing political order. That order is based upon private property in the means of production, and its function is to maintain and defend that property in the interests of the dominant class. Hence the existing political order is in antagonism to socialism. The aim of the Socialist Party is to obtain for the whole community complete ownership and control of the means of transport, the means of manufacture, the mines, and the land. We seek to put an end for ever to the wage-system, to sweep away all distinctions of class, and to establish world socialism. As to the means for the attainment of our end, we in the Socialist Party look for our success to the increasing and energetic promotion of our views among the whole people, and next to the capture and transformation of the state machinery so to give the people the power of controlling the whole political and social forces. Socialism as we understand it is the system of society in which production is for social use; that is, the production of all the means of existence — including all the necessaries and comforts of life — carried on by the organised community for its own use collectively and individually. This is not how society at the present time organised. Production to-day is carried out in the interest and for the profit of the class which owns the factories and the land and the transport. Socialism would substitute common ownership for class ownership, and this would also involve the abolition of classes altogether. 

Socialism does not mean mere government ownership or management. The State of to-day, nationally or locally, is only the agent of the possessing class. The democratic society contemplated by the Socialist Party is a very different thing from the class State of to-day. When society is organised for the control of its own business, and has acquired the possession of its the means of production production will be carried on for the use of all and not for the profit of a few. What we mean by socialism is the establishment of a collective administration — in place of the present class State — which purpose will be the common ownership and control of the whole of the world’s mining and manufacturing. The entire means of production thus being common property, there would no longer be a propertied class to make a profit. Private property which now divides society into two classes will disappear and classes themselves will be swept away.

Socialism embraces all the relations of human life. The establishment of socialism means a complete change in society in all its aspects. Socialism is neither altruistic nor egotistic, neither selfish nor unselfish. Socialism is not brotherly love, in the Christian sense found e.g., in the Sermon on the Mount, although it may, superficially, seem to bear some resemblance to it. Socialism is not spiritual but materialistic, and presupposes a condition of things in which the good of all will mean the good of each; that the individual cannot serve oneself without serving society, and cannot injure society without injuring oneself. Socialism calls for enlightened self-interest. With socialism it can serve itself only by serving the common interest, and as such it will completely change the character of its citizens.

 To-day working people oppose socialism because, in the first place, their whole education and point of view, inherited and acquired, prevent them seeing that they would be happier with socialism. Further, the bulk of the working class are absolutely blinded by their class position to the fact that they would be happier in socialism. The great majority are not class-conscious. Our fellow-workers do not see the direction in which their real interests lie, or that these interests are in antagonism to those of the ruling class; still less do they understand that they exist under a society founded on classes altogether.

Socialism is internationalist. It recognises no distinction between the various nations. “My country, right or wrong,” the expression of patriotism, is the very antithesis of socialism. Socialism is utterly opposed to nationalism and racism. The Red Flag of Social-Democracy, which does not acknowledge national distinctions or the division of humanity into  races. 

Socialism is revolutionary, politically and economically.  It aims at the complete overthrow of existing economic and political conditions. We organise and  prepare for what might be described as a revolutionary moment. We endeavour to show, the economic changes which are taking place, which are bringing about a revolutionary transformation in human society. While working for the complete overthrow of the capitalist system, the Socialists understands that our fellow workers have as their duty, as far as possible, to mitigate the evil effects of existing conditions to restrict the exploitation and limit impoverishment of working people. It is incumbent upon them to enter into the active political life of the day in order to press forward such measures for the general protection of themselves, their families and their communities. The Socialist Party accepts such reform measures not only palliate the worst evils of capitalism, but also to better fit them for the struggle for their emancipation. However, the Socialist Party itself does not engage in advocating reforms as experience invariably found that those who start out as socialists with the idea of  tinkering with the present system land themselves ultimately in some weak reform movement of an infinitely milder character. The Socialist Party is not hostile every movement for class and race equality, and for the improvement of the present condition of the working class. All which tend in the direction of socialism are viewed sympathetically by the Socialist Party. All which, no matter how reasonable or attractive they appear on the surface, are essentially antagonistic to socialism, the Socialist Party is bound to oppose as misleading and dangerous. Trade unions, for example, are supported by the Socialist Party, in that they are manifestations of the class struggle, and represent an organised effort of the working class to prevent or restrict their exploitation by the capitalist class. 

Co-operation is in its essence socialist. That is to say, that all co-operation implies co-operative effort and social union. But the general practice of co-operative movement is little more than co-operating with capitalism. Under existing conditions no business enterprise can succeed except on competitive lines, and so the co-operative enterprise of to-day can compete, with capitalist concerns, on capitalist conditions. They must successfully compete or go under. Thus, while conferring some slight advantage on their members, co-operative societies have little connection with the present working-class movement.

Socialism once having been attained, will never more be lost. When the fruits of the means of production and distribution become common property, free to all, and abundant for all, they will cease to have that importance they now possess. The sordid struggle for mere material things will disappear. With minds freed from the dreary need to survive now imposed by the perpetual struggle for daily bread, mankind will bend its thoughts on nobler things and greater aspirations will open up which are at present, inconceivable.

 

 

The 1964 Glasgow Bus Strike

 This pamphlet is about the Glasgow bus strike of April 1964. It tries to draw some lessons which may be of value to other busmen and perhaps even to other sections of workers. When union officials openly scab on their members as they did in Glasgow, far-sighted workers should ask themselves why.

Solidarity Pamphlet No.17

The pamphlet is the joint effort of Bob Potter, who worked on the London buses for five years and edited a rank-and-file journal (Battersea Garage Bulletin), and of a number of Glasgow drivers and conductors who were active members of the various garage strike committees. Because of the fear of victimisation, several of these brothers prefer to remain anonymous. Together they describe the background of the dispute and the development of the struggle.

The dispute received virtually no mention in the national dailies (except in their Scottish editions). Somehow they avoided noticing that Britain's third largest city was almost without public transport for the best part of a week!

Several of the smaller papers discussed the strike. None however seem to have grasped the significance of the new organizational forms adopted by the workers for maintaining contact with one another – in particular the mass branch meeting with open invitations to other branches to send mass deputations. These ingenious tactics cut across several attempts by the union leaders to isolate the various garages. They could become important in future struggles. In Glasgow they enabled the busmen to use the official union machinery for purposes of which the union officials disapproved - the establishment of contacts between rank-and-file militants in the various garages and direct confrontation of the officials by hundreds of the men they claim to represent.

The strike showed once again how crucial it is for workers to keep in contact with each other: within a single enterprise, from one city to another, between different sectors. We publish this pamphlet as a contribution to that effort.

WHO BOSSES THE BUSES

The livelihood of thousands of busmen and the services available to millions of passengers depend today on the State (or on various partially State-owned and State-controlled bodies). It is not generally appreciated how far the concentration of this type of capital – bus vehicles - has gone. It is worth giving a few figures.

Of the 76,000 buses in Great Britain, some 7,000 are owned by the London Transport Board. A further 14,300 vehicles are wholly owned by the Transport Holding Company, a nationalised concern - through 29 Tilling LS Companies (9,500 vehicles) and 7 Scottish bus companies (4,700 vehicles). The Transport Holding Company partially owns 11,000 vehicles owned jointly with various private concerns, such as the British Electric action Company in which the Transport Holding Company has a 50% holding). The T.H.C. also has minor holdings in such privately owned companies as Timpson and Sons Ltd. and Black and White Motorways Ltd. If we include the buses owned by various municipal authorities, it will be seen that nearly 50% of the buses in Britain are owned or controlled, to various agrees, by governmental or semi-governmental bodies.

Since many of the privately-owned buses run no regular public services, the travelling public has to rely even more on these State-controlled bodies than the above figures would indicate.

This massive concentration of capital in the hands of the state means that these bodies are important employers of labour, (The L.T.B.employs some 38,000 busmen. The 29 Tilling Companies employ 38,200 men and the 7 Scottish companies nearly 20,000 men). Despite this, each company maintains separate labour relations, separate negotiating machinery, LTB has separate agreements with the various unions it has to deal with. Capital is concentrated, but the labour force is atomised. This makes it easy for management to divide and rule, pitting one section against another, delaying claims here until they have been settled there, ;c. Such tactics doubtless helped the 36 totally state-owned companies ) make a total profit of £6,717,000 in 1963. The total profits of the semi-state-owned companies came to £1,352,000.

A World for All

 

A socialist society will be an open and informed society. In socialism it will be a routine to constantly inform people about the needs and problems in the various areas of human life worldwide. In the socialist system it is the citizens and their democratic and transparent institutions that will constantly provide information of the economic, social and human needs, as well as of the scientific and technical development of the different sectors. Given the present technology, the organisation of such information interchange and of everyone’s constant access to it is feasible even right now. Socialist society will be a society in which people enjoy a much higher level of scientific education than today. Access to learning and participation in scientific activity is not a privilege of a particular social group; it is everyone’s elementary right. Just as once basic literacy of reading and writing was the privilege of a few we shall see computer literacy even in its relatively complex and specialised applications accessible to all.

The realisation of socialism is the result of class struggle, and this struggle is as much capable of victory as it is vulnerable to defeat. Not only is socialism a possibility but also capitalist barbarism. The Socialist Party is however  optimistic about the future.  Our goals are clear and the process of the social revolution itself will provide the practical forms of their realisation. To clarify the precise meaning of socialist aims, and to show the feasibility of their realization, it must be established, for instance, that the abolition of private ownership does not mean the introduction of state ownership, and that the organization of people’s collective control over means of production is practical without waged labour power as a commodity.

Socialism is a politics that cares about the future, about our species, about our planet. What cannot be done is to prepare a detailed blueprint of production and administration in a socialist society. Our job is not to make models and utopias, but to show in what ways socialist society differs from the existing one. For example, we show the process of the withering away of the state following a workers’ revolution by explaining the material basis of the state in class society and its superfluousness as a political institution in a class-free society, and not by issuing a programme in which the party has elaborated the step-by-step dismantling of state institutions and departments.

Capitalism is not just an economic system, but also an ideological and cultural system that functions as a powerful indoctrination force. displayed daily in the rise of the corporate-controlled media that has accelerated a culture of distraction. We live in a world that appears to have descended into Dante’s version of hell, an authoritarian nightmare of uncertainty, apprehensions, anxieties, the fearmongering nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiment and bigotry  and the possibility of a civilisation abyss. The pandemic terror of rising infections, body counts and the daily risk of contamination, sickness and death cannot be separated from a broader plague of capitalism and relentlessly subjugation of workers, the elderly, the homeless, the poor, children, people of color, subjecting them to lives of despair, precarity, danger and death. The inequality, compulsory austerity, defunding of public health systems under capitalism are finally being acknowledged as the fundamental super-spreader behind the current pandemic. Capitalism cannot protect and maintain public health and safety because it pursues profits at the expense of more urgent social needs and values. This pandemic is now bringing that truth home to working people. All major political parties function as cheerleaders for capitalism under all circumstances.

 Capitalism has produced an age of uncertainty, fragmentation, despair and a dire foreboding about the future. Hope and dreams have been replaced by fear and dread. Capitalism is a toxic system that destroys lives. COVID-19 has exposed the cult of capitalism. Amid the corpses produced by capitalism and coronavirus, there are emerging signs of hope another deep longing for a collective movement of resistance to the capitalist system, a search of a new economy that benefits us all and not just a wealthy financial elite. It is a movement that refuses to accept consumerism, greed and self-interest that places profit over people, a movement attempting to reclaim a collective political vision for a more compassionate, equitable, just and inclusive society. Central to the task is the necessity to break through the corrosive belief that “there is no alternative.” We need to act en masse to bring about the end of capitalism. If a new understanding of politics and social and economic justice and equality is to be born, it is crucial to wage a war of ideas against those of the old order. 

For revolution to be re-born, it needs to resurrect the vision of socialism, re-think the politics of protest, to re-imagine the future. The issue is to breathe life again into the working class militancy.