Changing the World

 Organise, agitate and educate for a better world

 

There is something wrong in our social and economic life, and ignore it as we may, its problems don’t disappear. The system which has thus been evolved is known as the capitalist system. That is to say, a comparatively few individuals own the capital, including land, factories, mines, transportation, and machinery of production, and by virtue of such private ownership control the destinies and the very lives of the toiling millions of our population Without this capital labour is helpless. The working-person is denied access to the land, and machinery of production, unless he will agree to the terms fixed by capitalists, and as they invest their capital solely to make profits, the wage allowed the worker is, as a general proposition, no larger than is required to maintain his or her subsistence. And even were the capitalist disposed to allow a liberal wage, he is in competition with other capitalists, and the wage of the worker tends irresistibly downward to the point of subsistence. The great body of wage workers, the active producers of wealth, are at its mercy. They are essentially slaves under this system. They are compelled to accept what is allowed them, and must work under such conditions as capital imposes or pay the penalty of idleness, starvation, and death. There is no possible escape from, economic servitude under this system.

 

We live in a world dominated by capitalism, a system which allows a small minority of capitalists to oppress and exploit the great majority of humankind. It is capitalism that brings about great inequalities in living standards with more poor people now in the world than ever before, starts murderous wars to steal the resources of other countries and causes the growing devastation of our natural environment. Either we get rid of this outmoded and decrepit system or it will devastate humanity.

 

We, the homeless, the benefit claimants, the employed, the precariously employed and the unemployed, – in a word, the dispossessed – must fight back if we are to survive. We are reaching out to all from all walks of life. We have no choice but to create a new society free of expoitation and want. In order to do so, we need an organisation that can educate and agitate. The prescription for the cure is nothing less than democratic control of production by the working people. The real power must be exercised through assemblies, committees, councils freely elected and with the right of recall of any delegates at all levels by the manual and intellectual workers of city and country.

 

Under capitalism, where everything enters the field of exchange and becomes the object of buying and selling, a person’s worth comes to be estimated, not by his or her really praiseworthy abilities or actions, but by their bank balance. A person is “worth” what he or she owns and a millionaire is “worth” incomparably more than a pauper, all genuine human values and standards are distorted and desecrated. The working class anthem, the Internationale, says: “We need no god-given saviours.”  

 

 The only viable way forward is to achieve socialism, a class-free and state-free worldwide society where people do not oppress and exploit each other and where we live in harmony with our environment. Socialism is a system of real, popular democracy that sets about the reconstruction of society.

 

To create world socialism it is necessary to overthrow the rule of capitalism. Although many recognise capitalism as no good only a few can see a way forward to a better type of society.

 

Societies without a state do not lack social regulation; life within them can be orderly. We keep each other ‘in line’ by various forms of social pressure. Socialists who wish to maintain the state are simply not socialists.

 

Within the World Socialist Movement there exists a widespread sincere belief in and commitment to equality and justice. There is absolutely no room for any discrimination, based on race,colour, ethnicity, caste, gender, or other such considerations. Top priority of a socialist society should be given to meeting the essential needs of all people, respecting the dignity of all people.

 

Socialist Progress

 

We live in a world rife with misery and oppression. We suffer from hunger, poverty, unemployment, racial and sexual discrimination, and many forms of repression, from the restriction of the most basic democratic rights like freedom of speech and association to hideous barbarism like state torture and genocide. The gulf between the rich and the poor is steadily widening. The various forms of exploitation endured by the working people are growing.

 However, we all aspire to a better life where the living conditions of all would be in keeping with society’s ability to use the wealth of nature. We yearn for a society where all injustice will be banished forever, a society in which the weak would no longer be oppressed by the strong, a society in which one class would no longer be exploited by another. The dreams of the past have become real possibilities for a future and this sort of society can only be achieved through proletarian revolution. Capitalist relations of exploitation are now the fundamental obstacle to further progress for mankind and a society of abundance, of justice and of freedom: world socialism.

Capitalists have only one raison d’etre – to accumulate more and more capital. They are therefore always looking for ways to increase the productivity of labour. This stimulates the development of science and technology and leads to an ever greater division of labour. It also results in very keen competition among capitalists themselves; many are reduced to bankruptcy, while a minority get richer and richer. The existence of modern society depends on the work of millions of individuals whose roles in production are increasingly interdependent. At the same time, a minority, the owners of capital, continues to control production. This contradiction between the social character of production and the private character of the appropriation of the fruits of production is the fundamental contradiction of capitalism. This fundamental contradiction is the source of the anarchy of production under capitalism. This explains the enormous waste of productive forces lost through drops in production and plant shutdowns, and the resulting social misery, notably unemployment. This also explains why, alongside this waste, millions of people lack the basic necessities and why even famine still strikes in various parts of the world. Capitalists seek to increase the productivity of workers. They impose speed-ups and compulsory overtime. They multiply their attacks on the democratic rights of working people and continually try to control their organisations and even to destroy them.

Capitalism has created the very conditions for its own destruction. The spread of capitalist production has resulted in the growth of the size, cohesion, and revolt of the working class. With the abolition of capitalist exploitation, working people have everything to gain and nothing to lose but its chains. Socialist revolution is the only way that the working people can ensure the abolition of all exploitation. The working class cannot free itself without freeing all of humanity at the same time, because the ultimate goal of its struggle is not to replace the power of one class with that of another but rather to abolish all classes. This is the only way to put an end to all the social divisions and inequalities that have characterised class societies thus far. A socialist society will permit a steady reduction in the human work needed to produce goods. Socialism is based on the free association of all individuals who work together to produce the goods necessary for their collective well-being. All will work according to their capacities and their needs will be fully satisfied. Thus, individuals will no longer be governed by the division of labour and all opposition between city and countryside and between manual and intellectual work will be eliminated.

Only socialism can fully realize the material and ideological conditions for a society of plenty. The expropriation of the capitalists and the socialisation of the means of production will lead directly to the abolition of society divided into classes with opposing interests. The abolition of classes will in turn lead to the withering away of the State, and ultimately to its extinction for the State is not, and can never be, anything other than the instrument of dictatorship of one class over others. The world is in the midst of change. The assembly lines no longer dominate our factories. The jobs we once knew are slowly disappearing. We are being replaced by robots, computers, and other new technologies in our workplaces. The capitalists are defending their profits and domination by being ever more ruthless in their policies towards the workers. The system can no longer feed and house us or provide us with jobs. At every opportunity we must go on the offensive and expose the capitalist system and uncloak our class enemy.

The way out

 

Socialism will conserve the natural resources of our planet which are now being ruthlessly wasted in the mad capitalist race for profits. Socialism will end waste, inherent in the unplanned, competitive capitalist system. Many socially unnecessary useless industries and occupations will disappear. Socialism will turn production to useful social purposes. War, with all its agonies will cease. Where there is no capitalist class to demand its profit before production and distribution take place the welfare of everybody becomes the primary concern of the community. The purpose of the Socialist Party is to conquer political power for the workers so to fundamentally improve the economic and social conditions of the producers. The needs of the people will be met. 

The abolition of the robbery of the workers by the capitalists in all its myriad forms; the liquidation of the capitalist economic crises, with its mass unemployment and general crippling of the productive forces; the development of an industrial efficiency and a volume of production now hardly dreamed of; the careful consumption of natural resources; the abolition of war— these revolutionary measures will provide the material basis for a well-being of the working people of field and factory now quite unknown in the world. Poverty with its terrible misery and suffering, will become a thing of the past. With the deadly limitations of the capitalist market removed, members of socialist society will engage in constructive and fruitful work to the benefit of all society. The socialist transformation will clear away the mess of exploitation, inefficiency and shortages, and will open the road for such an industrial development and general rise in material and cultural standards of the people as now seems only the stuff of dreams. Already the technologies are at hand for an enormous increase in the well-being of everybody. Such a prospect is not a matter of mere speculation. Socialism will bring a new era for humanity, the building of a new world. The overthrow of capitalism will bring about the immediate or eventual solution of many great social problems which have have plagued mankind for centuries, war, religious superstition, famine, pestilence, crime, substance abuse, racism and national chauvinism, the repression of woman, and every form of slavery and exploitation of one class by another.  Only a system of developed world socialism can fully uproot and destroy all these evils and banish these menaces from the affairs of humanity. Capitalism stands as the great barrier to social progress. The day is not so far distant when our children, immersed in this new life, will look back with horror upon capitalism and marvel how we tolerated it so long.

Socialism destroys the whole accompanying capitalist baggage of ignorance, strife and misery and frees humanity from the stultifying effects of the present competitive struggle for existence to open up before it new horizons of joys and tasks. The day is not so far distant when productive forces can provide plenty for all.

We are living in a crazy, disordered, unplanned system, whose functions lead to so many contradictions that mankind must find a solution to the problems or go under.  Socialists seek not a happy Utopia, which we OUGHT to establish but a future system which we MUST achieve is social evolution is to continue to progress. Capitalism is tremendously wasteful and destructive of mankind and the land. Under capitalism goods are not produced to be consumed, but for profit, and if a greater profit can be made by destroying the goods, the destruction takes place. As capitalism develops, larger and larger factories are built, thousands of workers co-operate in the production of a single article, yet the article does not belong to them but to the owner of the means of production. The workers are merely paid wages for the use of their labour power, wages which constantly grow less and less in proportion to output. We are ruled by  by the wild forces of the market which we cannot control and of which we can be only the victims. The fluctuations of supply and demand, “decides” and “plans” what is produced and where it is allocated to. Even in times of economic  “prosperity” the lives of workers are not happy ones.

The capitalists and their agents in the seats of government are blinded by their self interest, by the profits which they make as beneficiaries of the present system. The workers, on the other hand, having nothing to lose. We are free to see that the present society must evolve into a new one; we see that nothing can free society except the change in the mode of production from a capitalist one, of private ownership of the means of production, to a socialist one, where the ownership of production is socialised and classes are no more.

Who, then, can offer the way out? Certainly not the capitalist class, the beneficiaries of the present system. The capitalists want to keep the old relations of exploitation. The interest of the workers is diametrically opposed to the interest of the capitalists and exploiters of the workers who, controlling the government and the social educational agencies, strive to keep the workers down. 

 As the working class fights against its increasingly worsened position it comes to the realisation that the only way out is for labour to take what it has produced for itself. To take over the means of production, the mines, mills, factories, resources, utilities and run them for their own benefit. Then we will have production for use and not for profit. Then we will end both despotism in the factory and anarchy in the market. Then society will allocate its resources and labor power according to a social plan that will benefit all. The victory of the workers cannot be forever delayed. The old relations must be burst asunder. And if the capitalists, blinded by their interests, try to stop the wheels of progress they are ruthlessly pushed aside by the workers just as in the past they themselves pushed aside the feudal lords.

When we have accomplished world socialism we will have done away with disorder and humanity will have reached a rational system of society where mankind will no longer be choked by oppressors, where society will be a free one and mankind emancipated.

Peter Kropotkin and Aberdeen

  I have had the pleasure of visiting the Gordon College at Aberdeen...under the direction of Dr. Ogilvie.

While receiving substantial scientific education, the pupils are also trained in the workshops — but not for one special trade, as it unhappily too often is the case. They pass through the carpenters’ workshop, the casting in metals, and the engineering workshop; and in each of these they learn the foundations of each of the three trades, sufficiently well for supplying the school itself with a number of useful things. Besides, as far as I could ascertain from what I saw in the geographical and physical classes, as also in the chemical laboratory, the system of ‘through the hand to the brain,’ and vice-versa, is in full swing, and it is attended with the best success. The boys work with the physical instruments, and they study geography in the field, instruments in hands, as well as in the class-room. Some of their surveys filled with joy my geographer’s heart. It is evident that the Gordon College’s industrial department is not a mere copy of any foreign school; on the contrary, I should permit myself to suggest that if Aberdeen has made that excellent move towards combining science with handicraft, the move was a natural outcome of what has been practised long since, on a smaller scale, in the Aberdeen daily schools.

Peter Kropotkin. Brain Work and Manual Work (marxists.org)

World Socialism - Roots and Shoots

 

What kind of society do we want as we harness the technology of artificial intelligence and robotics which could provide an era of abundance for all, releasing us from the drudgery of monotonous toil and enrich our lives. 

The Socialist  Party is the party of the dispossessed and oppressed, organised to build a new world but we do not offer a blueprint to a better future. But offer an invitation to all fellow-workers to join us in our  efforts to eradicate a social system based on exploitation, discrimination, poverty and war. The capitalist system must be replaced by political and economic democracy. That is the burning issue of our era, the only hope of humanity. A socialist society must be founded on true solidarity, on true cooperation.

Socialism is the only option to consider if you seek to avoid a dystopian nightmare where global crises are inevitable as long as profits dictate the course of humanity. Attempts to reform capitalism has failed. That failure puts a campaign for the socialist alternative once again on the immediate agenda. A world confronted by a political, social and economic emergencies  demands straight-forward solutions. Half-measures cannot meet the challenge. We need a socialist economic system based on common ownership. We will replace private ownership with collective control. The needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of a socialist society. This wholesale reconstruction will be accomplished by democratising all levels of society. We believe in the ability of working people to manage society democratically.

The Socialist Party’s task is not to convert the world. Our task is only to point out as widely as possible what should be self-evident to every person sufficiently educated to be able to read the book of history. It is not enough to point an accusing finger at the greedy and evil men who are running the government today. Their individual avarice and lust for power are important factors, but not the decisive ones. They are driven to desperate measures not merely by some quirk in their individual or collective minds or hearts, but by the very needs of the capitalist system itself. Many “reasonable” people suggest the answer is to put in good men and women to reform or patch up the system. In a rational world there would of course be no poverty or lack of resources which would be accessible to all and collectively used for the common welfare. But a world dominated by capitalism is not a rational world. Capitalist rivals competing in the long run undermines the system they seek to maintain.

History has taught us to be on guard against capitalist reformism. Fundamentally, the reason is that you can’t end all the social ills we suffer from without ending its cause, capitalism. No matter how sincere are the intentions, as long as the reformist’s influence is able to dissuade the people from replacing capitalism with a socialist system, then the reformist is our enemy. The Socialist Party cannot support any individual or group dedicated to the maintenance of capitalism. The oppressor and oppressed, stand in constant opposition to one another in a fight for the revolutionary reconstruction of society, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.  The essence of the capitalist system is the ownership and control of the materials and technology of production and distribution by a small class whose legal title to the lands, forests, mines, transportation, offices, factories, and other industrial and  utilities gives the people. Workers survive in a form of slavery, wherein labour power is paid for by wages, and the bare chance to live depends upon some capitalist master.

The socialist revolution cannot be achieved by direct seizure of industry by the workers, without the workers first having conquered the power of the state. The Socialist Party seeks to abolish a society which cannot constructively apply technological advances. Since capitalism produces for profits, it is indifferent to the fate of those workers thrown out of employment because of technological progress. A socialist society, however, would welcome such progress and would merely shorten the work week to give the workers the benefits of the new advances in machine production. The more successful the researchers, inventors and cooperators are, the greater becomes the profit of the wealthy who can take advantage of a new development greater the menace to the little people despite that this is the age of plenty

Socialism is all for all, not all for the few

 

The capitalist class does not change its greed for profits any more than the leopard changes its spots. When a corporation closes down its factories and stops production, it is no proof of the indispensability of capitalists in the production processes. It only points up the folly of the workers in allowing capitalism to stand between them and the plants of which labour is the heart. The working class should be controlling production in the interest of all the people. There can be plenty for all – but only by socializing the means of production and placing production under control of community committees. The working class today stands at a crossroads of history. The workers cannot afford to be lulled into a false sense of security. The empty gesture of capitalism to save itself must be repudiated. The admission of top capitalists that their system cannot provide security for the workers is an admission of abysmal failure and defeat, from the workers’ point of view. At the same time it is a challenge to the workers to take over production themselves for the benefit of the whole people.

 The material and technical resources for a socialist society unquestionably exist in the world today. It is capable of satisfying the needs of all its people. A handful of capitalists control our planet and make vast profits off the labour of the working people. All the major means of production - the factories, forests, farms, fisheries and mines are in the hands of a few hundred capitalists. Capitalism is a system of exploitation. A handful of parasites live off the backs of the workers and care little about their conditions. For workers, the future is less and less certain. The exploitation and oppression gets worse every year. All our misery is created so a small clique of very wealthy individuals can continue to line their pockets. The capitalists get rich by appropriating the fruits of our labour. At the end of a work week the worker collects his pay. The capitalists claim this is a fair exchange. But it is highway robbery. In reality, a worker gets paid for only a small part of the value he produced. The rest, the surplus value, goes straight into the boss’s pocket. The idea that everyone can get rich under this system is a lie invented by the rich themselves. Under capitalism, the only way to get rich is to trample on someone else. This is why workers have only one choice: either submit to this wage slavery or fight it!

 The only solution for humanity is the socialist revolution. Apathy will not bring such a revolution, but empathy may well do. Our drive to cooperate is greater than the desire for us to compete. Socialism is coming. The last phase of human slavery, called the “wages system,” is nearing its end. The conflict between worker and capitalist can never be permanently settled except by socialism.

The unparalleled development of industry, science and technique, particularly in the course of the last few decades, means that for the first time the material conditions for socialism now exist on a world scale. The sustainable and harmonious application of the new technology—robots, automation, artificial intelligence—the resources of the whole planet could be utilised to the full to provide a better life for all. Contrary to the pessimistic assertions of some environmentalists, there are ample resources potentially to guarantee a full and happy life for every human being on the planet. We have to-day ample resources for producing all the things we need. On a world scale, there is no shortage of resources. The only thing which stands in the way of the attainment of these things is the outmoded ownership of the means of production and distribution based on the exchange economy by a privileged handful, and the narrow limitations of the national state which has now become transformed into an absolute fetter on the development of the productive forces.

 A world socialist movement would usher in a new and qualitatively higher level of civilisation. Mankind would be freed from the horrors of war, hunger and disease.