THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE FUTURE

 

It is good that workers are prepared to demonstrate their international solidarity, but it should be a demonstration of really understanding solidarity. Not mere words and emotion that, like a weathercock, can be changed with every wind. Lack of genuine understanding of the workers' unchanging wage-slavery while capitalism lasts, enables the capitalist rulers to line up the workers against each other.  We take very seriously the human condition in capitalism — so seriously, in fact, that we are engaging in the political action we think is necessary not just to patch up capitalism but to abolish it and replace it with socialism. That, and not "theoretical purity", is our sole objective.

We also think that those involved in meaningful political activity do need theory — in the sense of an understanding of why society is the way it is, what could be achieved given what we know about the world and an idea of how that objective is going to be attained. Without such a conceptual map to guide political action then many sincere political activists become hopelessly lost or find themselves somewhere very different from where they intended. This is not a question of "religious belief" in theoretical purity, but a matter of practical political necessity.

What we understand by the term class consciousness is a recognition among workers that they are indeed members of the working class and. as such, share common interests with other workers worldwide — interests that are in direct opposition to those of the owning class. Class consciousness also means a recognition that those collective class interests cannot be met within the present system of society and therefore political action is necessary to abolish capitalism and bring about socialism. Our conception of socialism is of a society in which all wealth is held in common and is democratically controlled. In other words socialist society will be based on voluntary cooperation. For that to be possible, people would have to want socialism and be prepared to actively participate in making it work. Class consciousness within capitalism is therefore a necessary pre-requisite for socialism.

How does that class consciousness come about? We think that class consciousness arises for all sorts of different reasons. Some workers may well gain a greater insight into their position in society from reading the works of Marx and Engels or other socialist propaganda. Many are likely to be driven into becoming socialists as a result of their daily experience of life in capitalism — its contradictions, deprivations, insecurity and so on.  We do not think that it can suddenly arise and then subside again so that workers drift back into an unconscious' state. 

It is certainly not the view of The Socialist Party that the time is not yet ripe for change. On the contrary socialism is an urgent and immediate task and the technology, knowledge and skills exist to make socialism a practical possibility now. However the sad fact remains that what is lacking is the political will to make socialism happen, among a majority of the working class.

We do not think that capitalism has provided democratic institutions for the benefit of socialists; neither do we think that the capitalist class will "go out of its way" to assist us to get socialism; we insist that socialism must be established democratically and we agree that propaganda for socialism can be made in all areas of life. Eduard Bernstein and his revisionist followers destroyed the German Social Democratic Party as a revolutionary socialist organisation not because he believed in parliamentary methods, but because he was willing to sacrifice the party's revolutionary socialist principles in order for the party to achieve political power on the basis of a reformist programme.

The Socialist Party thinks that it is essential for there to be a majority of socialists before we can have socialism, then it is necessary to have some kind of measure of support.

 Elections (for all their limitations) are one way of finding out whether sufficient support for socialism exists. There is the added advantage that contesting elections provides a useful platform from which to make socialist propaganda. But let us make it quite clear. We do not propose to form a socialist "government" (which is a contradiction in terms); neither do we believe that parliamentary elections are the only kind of political activity socialists should engage in. Indeed most of The Socialist Party's energy goes at present into talking to people at meetings, on the street, in trade unions, at work, in schools and in colleges with the intention of trying to persuade them about the need for socialism.

We do not believe that it is either inevitable or desirable to form alliances with other "progressive” forces. We certainly do not think that we hold the monopoly on truth, but what we do think is that we have a coherent set of ideas which both explains capitalism and makes the case for a socialist society. It makes sense to us. Why then should we compromise those ideas by forming alliances with other groups whose views we don't share? While we are always willing to discuss our ideas and debate with other political organisations, we have not as yet found any which shares our view of what socialism is, let alone how to achieve it. Surely for a political alliance to be forged there must at the very least be broad agreement about ends and means.

Finally, even though there is a majority of socialists, we do not believe that the capitalist class will necessarily give up without a struggle. For that reason we take the view that in order to establish socialism it will first be necessary to take control of the state machine to prevent its forces being used against the socialist majority. And we do not rule out the possibility of force being used to defend socialism from attack by a minority of capitalists and their supporters. What we do not accept is that socialism can be established by means of insurrectionary violence undertaken by a small minority who claim to be acting in the interests of the majority. Action of this kind — no matter what the declared intention of the insurrectionists might be — could not lead to socialism since, if there was not majority support for the new society being established, the minority would be forced to use coercion and repression. Such a society would not be the cooperative, harmonious and democratic society that The Socialist Party is working for.

To-Day's Society

 

The basis of present society is the ownership of the means of living by one class. This compels the other class that makes up society to sell its only possession—labour-power—in order to live. The labour-power commodity is like all other commodities in that it is bought and sold upon the market, its value determined by the cost of production around which the haggling of the market allows its price to fluctuate. It is unlike all other commodities in that it is the commodity of a particular slave class sold to a particular dominant class; and further in that the standard of living, a historical element, enters into the question of its cost of production. It is these two distinctions that make the matter a class conflict different from the ordinary matter of the competitive buying and selling of commodities. The class struggle, therefore, presents two aspects. On the one side the struggle on the part of the workers to sell labour-power under the best conditions—the industrial struggle for wages and hours of labour; on the other side the struggle for the overthrow of the wages system—the political struggle for socialism. The class-unconscious worker takes part in the former, but only the class-conscious in the latter. The class struggle is, consequently, both industrial and political—the latter is its ultimate, its revolutionary form.

The term "socialism" has been abused and distorted by countless opportunists who have sought to run capitalism.  The name of socialism has been dragged through the mud of capitalist politics. Socialism has come to be associated with a way of running capitalism and an unappealing way at that. If the bosses had to think of a method of putting the workers off socialism they could not have done much better than the fake “socialist” leaders have done. Yet still, socialism stands as the only practical alternative to this system of minority ownership and control and production for sale and profit. Instead of producing goods and services for sale and profit and denying people access to what can be produced if they have no money with which to buy it, socialism will produce solely for use. There will be free access to the common store of social wealth. No longer will men and women be employed (exploited, to be more precise) by bosses for wages: instead people in a socialist society will work according to their abilities and take according to their needs. Indeed, we are talking here about a fundamentally different way of running our society and consequently a revolution in the way we live. It is a revolution long overdue, for who but a boss, or a wage-slave who has been conditioned to poverty and fear, can be contented as we are living now? The capitalists can only continue with this insane system as long as the workers let them. Without us they are nothing. When enough men and women who do not own the world - the vast majority of us — decide consciously that the way we live now is neither inevitable nor desirable, then socialism will be established. 

To establish socialism a social revolution is necessary. Violence is not only not necessary, but, under favourable conditions, will not occur in such a revolution. Even if violence did appear it would be due to the folly of the opponents of socialism—the capitalists and their allies—and not by the wish of the socialists. The role of The Socialist Party is to "make socialists" by discussing and acting on ideas. The ruling class continues to propagate their message that there is no alternative to capitalism.

The alternative does exist — it is socialism. 

In the world today we have the resources, the technology, the skills and the knowledge to satisfy everyone's needs — in food, clothing. shelter and everything else several times over; no informed person would deny it. But we cannot fully use those assets in a society where the fundamental aim of production is profit. We can only use them in a society where the fundamental aim of production is human needs.

This means establishing a society without money — where we don't use bits of metal and pieces of paper to needlessly ration ourselves, and don't all walk around with a cash register in our heads.

This means a society without wages — where we aren't forced to work for an employer just to get by, but where we can choose the work we want to do for our own satisfaction and for the benefit of the community as a whole.

This means a society without frontiers and nations — where the world's resources and knowledge are used rationally and not in the crazy, haphazard way determined by "market forces" or governments, causing millions to die of starvation or go short while food and other essentials are stockpiled in huge quantities.

This means a society without wars or the threat of wars — because wars in the modern world are caused by economic and trade rivalries between nations, and in a world that is united there won't be such rivalries to fight over.

A lot of people will say that this sounds nice but it's impossible because human beings are naturally lazy, greedy and aggressive, and "you can't change human nature". We'd reply to this that human beings can certainly be lazy, greedy and aggressive. But that they can also be (and they usually are in their day-to-day relations) co-operative, generous and caring. They are what their situation makes them. We are not, for example, usually greedy or aggressive about the thing that is most essential above all else to our survival — water. We don't fight for it, refuse a glass of it to a thirsty stranger, or hoard it in our baths or in buckets under our beds. Nor do we needlessly waste it. Why not? Because we know that every time we turn on the tap. it's there. And if we organise society — and we can do it easily — so that everything we need to live comfortably is there when we turn on the tap (in other words we have free access to all goods and services), then we are more likely, in these circumstances, to behave in a generous and co-operative way. We will also be providing for ourselves the secure material framework within which we can attend to all the inner, non-material needs we may have.

Wage slavery. What to know

 

A capitalist is one who owns wealth in the form of capital: A socialist is a member of the working class who realises his or her slave position and works for socialism. Like the rest of the workers, he or she is poor. It is his or her class whose wage labour applied to nature’s minerals provides the wealth which the capitalist class dissipate in luxury, spend on wars, armies, navies, etc., or accumulate in the form of capital in order to further exploit the workers for profit. Wage slavery never permits more than a continued poverty existence. The workers’ accumulation is one of misery and insecurity. The socialist doesn’t deny the “right” of the capitalist to possess capital because he knows that “right” is backed up by the political control of armed forces. When the workers organise to control that might the masters will be welcome to the right. We stand for the common ownership of the earth and its control by the whole people, i.e., the abolition of capitalism and its corollary capital.

Immediately after the Bolshevik seizure of power, there was some excuse for the misconceptions of the significance and causes of that event, which were prevalent. Reliable information on Russian affairs had been lacking. People outside Russia erred in crediting the Bolsheviks with achievements that were hardly dreamed of by Lenin and others. No story of what happening behind the wall of censorship was too fantastic to be believed.

 At the end of the war, there were sections of the ruling class which had lost their grip on a situation which they could not control. The moment passed.

 

The Socialist Party is organised in the interests of all working people regardless of gender, sexual orientation age, nationality or colour. There are two classes: those who seek jobs (the working class) and those who own the factories, workshops, and mines and have the jobs to offer (the capitalist class). Now it is in the interest of that class (the capitalists) that have jobs to offer, to have more job-seekers than there are jobs to be had. Consequently, these workers with labour-power to sell are constantly underbidding one another for these jobs to be had so that they can live.

As there are more job-seekers than there are jobs to be had, this causes a glutted labour market. The job owners want to hire workers as cheaply as possible, and the job-seekers want to get as high a wage as possible for their labour. This is what is called the class struggle because the interests of both these classes are directly opposed to one another.

The job-seekers to protect themselves against the job-owners and make it possible for them to get a higher wage, have organised themselves into unions. However, bricklayers are not as numerous as printers, therefore they can get a higher wage from the job-owners. And the printers are not as numerous as the machine-operators, consequently, they are able to get a much higher wage than the machinists.

We must lay aside what keeps us divided among ourselves. When we go on strike, we all go on strike together. And then we must all get into a political party that stands for the principle of unity within its organisation. The Socialist Party is organised for this very purpose: the social ownership of all the tools of production and distribution.

 

To be truly meaningful, socialism can no longer be conceived as just the liberation of the existing productive forces from the fetters of capitalist social relations, nor an expansion of consumption but rather as a qualitative growth remaking of existing forms of production and consumption. Socialism against capitalism cannot but have an ecological dimension. Capitalist accumulation is limitless in the pursuit of profit and leads to daily misuses of the environment. Nevertheless, the reforms advocated by many in the green movement leave us disarmed for the struggles needed to create an environmentally sustainable society.

The World Socialist Movement offers some of the answers to important questions such as the way to the satisfaction of needs for all, the levelling of living standards between the developed nations and the rest of the world, and how humanity can keep expanding production.

We need revolutionary change

 

We live in a system of society which by general agreement is known as capitalism, and whose outstanding features are private property and wage-earning. A few fortunate individuals are the owners of the land, transport, factories and other means of production, and the non-owners have to work for a wage in the service of the owners of property. Society is divided into a class of workers who must work to live, and a class of capitalists who can live without working. We know from everyday experience that there is no wealth without work, yet the workers are poor and the non-workers are rich. The Socialist Party says that the poverty of the poor and the riches of the wealthy are the results of the system of private property, and the only remedy is its abolition. We do not condemn the capitalists as “wicked” because they live by exploiting the workers, but we do regard private property as no longer necessary to society. We shall, therefore, deprive them of their property. Whatever services the capitalists may have rendered in the early days of their system in directing industry and as the medium through which accumulations of capital were made, they render needful services no longer. Society can manage now without them, but they still continue to levy tribute on production to which they make no active contribution. It is now a quite normal capitalist practice for the property owner to be, in fact, and in the eyes of the law, a passive investor without knowledge of the industry or the right to share in the management. Occupying this position it is possible for the wealthy to live in luxury and yet grow continually wealthier. The capitalist is interested in production only from the point of view of the dividend-receiver.

A proletarian is one who possesses nothing but the power to labour and who, in order to live, sells that power to those who own and control the means of production and distribution, that is to the capitalists. As power to toil is bound up in, and cannot exist apart from physical being, we sell ourselves in the form of wages just sufficient to maintain a standard of life. Competition for jobs ensures that we shall not be able to demand more except for a limited period. The wage we receives includes not only the cost of living for oneself but also the cost of rearing a family, of providing children to replace us down the mine, in the factory or office for to-day the family is still the unit of society generally, and calculations of maintenance costs are made with reference to it, not to the individual. If a worker remains single, or limits the size of  family, slight improvements can be made but these are of small account.

This is the position of economic dependence in which the working class finds itself, but while the people who fancy they are the “middle class” would probably admit this as a correct description of the position of the other workers they do not recognise its application to themselves. But wherein does their position differ? Consider the small shop-keeper who regards him or her as independent, yet usually as much bound as any employee or sub-contractor. If a confectioner, for instanc, in effect, the employee of the producers, Cadburys or Nestles, just as much as if a worker in one of their factories being dependent on them continuing to supply goods to sell for a living. The publican, whose independence is even more illusory, is particularly dependent on the brewery company on the one hand and the condition of the labour market on the other. Lower wages mean less business.It is true that there are some workers do enjoy dividends from relatively small investments, but this does not alter their position in society, although it may colour their outlook on social questions.

The fundamental question is whether the individual is or is not compelled to sell one’s labour power in order to live. If compelled to sell services, then the position is that of the worker who must work or suffer privation, not that of the capitalist who is able to please himself, and who may, in order to escape the boredom of doing nothing, add to income by taking employment. The fact that money wages vary does not relieve the better paid worker from the same compulsion that presses on the lower paid. It may be mentioned that the tendency is for the variations between the different grades of workers to become less with increasing competition for employment. The simplification of labour processes, consequent on the introduction of improved machines and their standardisation, makes it easier for labour to be trained for any kind of employment, and this levels out wages.

The members of the so-called “middle class,” to the degree that they are really better off than other workers, therefore have just the same interest in destroying the evils consequent upon the wages system. As for the suggestion that the “middle class” are distinguished from the workers in being owners of property, statistics will show how much exaggerated the claim is.

 Socialism will terminate once and for all the right of any individual to receive rents, profits, or interest by virtue of being an owner of property. The Socialist Party does not, of course, believe that it is possible to improve materially the workers’ position inside capitalism. That is the deadly work done by the Labour Party and reformists in making the workers contented with the private property system.