Utopian Socialism

 Is it possible to mobilise people to fight oppression without fashioning models for a socialist economy for people to fasten on to? The capitalist slogan ‘There is No Alternative’ was answered by ‘Another World is Possible’. We need to know and say much more about this other world.

Socialist thought has to deal in prediction, but only in broad terms. We live on dark days.  One often has to aim at objectives that one can only very dimly see. Socialism is a vision of the future, while its advocates are actively at work in the present. Socialists have typically avoided the tactic of the utopian blueprint. One reason for this was that no matter what your utopian vision is, you won’t be able to achieve it under capitalism. The other reason was that after capitalism is overthrown, it will be up to the people to determine how to run their society. Some people may prefer a return to Nature. Others may want robots tending to their every need. Why should one person’s utopian preference determine how society should be run for everybody else?

Marx and Engels avoided "the politics of dreaming," yet scattered throughout their works are numerous references to life in a communist society. Marx and Engels differed from the utopian socialists not in terms of their visionary goals, but on the basis of how such goals might be achieved. The "utopian socialists" were "utopian"  in the way that they believed socialism might come about. For Marx capitalism does not collapse thereby necessarily bringing about socialism. Marx's breakthrough was to wed such utopian visions to a concrete, scientific analysis of the dynamics of capitalism and class struggle. As Marx observed, no society has imagined itself into existence, which is to say, women and men do not set out to build their society according to some pre-conceived blueprint. The social relations resulting from human action appear to us in later times as the preconceived ideas of the creators of those social relations when, in fact, the ideas never existed until the social relations had already come into being.

In their critique of Utopian Socialism, Marx and Engels made two charges. First, that the method was wrong: socialism imposed from above, reliant on altruistic benefactors. Second, that it was not sweeping enough, and it failed to recognise the need to replace the system as a whole.  They disagreed with Fourier that a new society could be broadly realized without class struggle, and those ideal projections could come real in capitalist society. In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels points out that early socialists were Enlightenment rationalists who sought not "to emancipate a particular class, but all humanity at once." Thus, the revolutionary theory of Charles Fourier is largely without a concrete revolutionary agent to carry out the revolution. Claude Henri Saint-Simon was explicitly counter-revolutionary. He did not want to "excite the poor to acts of violence against the rich and government." Most utopian philosophers differed greatly in their ideals, but they all strove to create a world that is utopian in its nature, a paradise for people to live in. For Marx and Engels, as worthy as such communal experiments might be, projections like Owen's New Lanark were doomed to eventual failure. They were propagators of political and economic fantasies. of the "wouldn't it be nice if..." type. 

Robert Owen wanted compassionate capitalism with some collectivity. He built a neighbourhood in and around New Lanark Mill, which had schools to train the young and a place where the older generation could retire.  Owen tried to set up small communities of workers’ cooperatives. Unfortunately, these co-operatives were not economically self-sufficient and were dependent on the rest of the world economy, which was still based on capitalism. The result was that the co-operatives either collapsed or abandoned their ideals. This same problem has his such movements as the kibbutz movement in Israel and the various hippie communes in the 60s. Marx socialism is very much a science, and he gives many guidelines to achieve the ultimate goal that he writes about. He teaches not only the happy ending but the work to be done in between. Socialism comes about through revolutionary struggles, not as the result of action inspired by flawless plans. The main difference between Marxism and Utopian Socialism is the 'getting there'. The utopians do not think of the long term, or how difficult it will be to create the worlds that they envision.

 The reason for the upsurge in utopian thought is in some ways similar to that of the early 19th century. There was a lot of change and a lot of societal growth. The utopian thinkers, for the most part, were responding to a social disconnect, and a society that no longer held traditional values. The industrial working-class was not a powerful actor in politics. Engels observed when Saint-Simon’s Geneva letters appeared in 1802 “the capitalist mode of production, and with it the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat was still very incompletely developed.” The revolutionary capacity is not there to execute ideals that have been represented abstractly. Isn’t this in a way similar to the problem we face today? Even though the working-class makes up a larger percentage of the world’s population than ever before, we have not seen a radicalized working-class in the advanced capitalist countries. In the absence of a revolutionary working-class, utopian schemas are bound to surface. In the absence of genuine struggles, modern re-hashed utopian fantasies such as Parecon are seductive. They have to construct the outlines of a brave new world out of their own hearts and heads rather than in the real world of real struggles.

While there are dangers in utopian thinking, there exists a danger in their absence. The truth is that we on the Left don’t "talk utopia" nearly enough. We need the attraction of a possible future as well as being repulsed by the actual present. If people are to make the sacrifices required by any struggle for social justice, then they need a compelling idea of the world they’re fighting for. Utopias provide a perspective from which the assumed limitations of the present can be scrutinised, from which familiar social arrangements are exposed as unjust and irrational. We need utopian thinking if we are to engage successfully in the critical battlefield of ideas over what is or is not possible if we are to challenge what is presented as immutable economic realities. Without a clear alternative – the outlines of a sustainable society – we are we cede the definition of the possible to those with a vested interest in shutting our eyes to a better future.

Utopias tend to be the target of derision. And yet, despite being subject to dismissals, utopia never goes away, partly because the criticism of the present draws on the notion of a future that has eliminated the conditions of the present that make life so difficult, sometimes impossible, and unfulfilling for so many. Here utopia operates in disguise, not going by its own name but providing a resource against which to measure a present that fails to match up, either to its own ideal expression of itself or to the inspiring visions of the future for which people have struggled throughout history.

You cannot simply interpret people's consciousness from their material conditions, or really understand people unless you understand their particular utopian projections -- because such projections, while they are not material, are a real component of people's lives, part of the "now" in which they live. The materialist philosopher Josef Dietzgen frequently stated ideas are concrete. The "utopian" tendency provides us with an understanding of those visions of a better world that people have been fighting for and will continue to fight for. We can draw on a rich tradition of history going back to the Diggers and Gerald Winstanley, William Morris and even John Lennon.

Utopian visions of communism are presented as powerful critiques of actually existing capitalism. Projecting the communist future from existing patterns and trends is an integral part of Marx's analysis of capitalism. Marx knew that something would come after capitalism and he made some projections about what it could be like, and those are very famous pieces but they're very small compared to the majority of his work, which is just about understanding capitalism. Marx constructed his vision of communism out of the human and technological possibilities already visible in his time

Marx never actually provided a blueprint for how a communist community was supposed to look like. He did not even impose some necessary model of the unfolding class struggle on the class struggle. He decried sects and sectarianism within the working-class movement, which he described as those who, “demanded that the class movement subordinate itself to a particular sect movement.” By not leaving a blueprint, Marx thought that people would be able to create a communist community free from the prescriptions of an antiquated era, that people would eventually evolve away from capitalism once it had reached its peak and instead search for a better way of living.

At this point in human history, (for the most part) communism cannot work -- people are greedy, desiring capital. Save for those various pockets of communalism around the world (such as traditional Inuit communalism), communism cannot efficiently and effectively be put into place as a viable economic system. For now, capitalism reigns, but a collective consciousness change things. In the past, some ideas seem far-fetched. The idea that civilization would reach a point where slavery was not commonplace may have seemed unlikely. The thought of having civil liberties and not living under a monarch was once far-fetched, but humanity evolved. The idea of basic civil rights for women and minorities was also unimaginable. But a gradual, historical shift in consciousness changed things. One of our last hopes for a better planet in the future may very well rest in a maturing, developing human consciousness. In light of changes in class consciousness, we may one day find a socialist society on the immediate agenda. What is important to see is that the fact that many of us prefer capitalism does not give capitalism any greater credibility.

"We make our history ourselves, but, in the first place, under very definite assumptions and conditions. Among these, the economic ones are ultimately decisive." As Marx once wrote, "History is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims." The question then remains: After capitalism what will be the aims of humanity? Only time will tell. Marx intended to present his views on communism in a systematic manner in the final volume. The plan changed, in part because Marx never concluded his work on political economy proper, and what Engels in a letter to Marx refers to as "the famous 'positive,' what you 'really' want" was never written.

A socialist is of necessity social – hence the name. We wish to be social – that is, to live in a society formed of social beings like ourselves. Socialism means a reconstruction of society. It is a product of social evolution. We have slavery, feudalism, capitalism and – socialism in the next stage. Marx and Engels did not see revolution as the inevitable triumph of a would-be ascendant class. Sometimes revolutions issue in "the common ruin of the contending classes" whether it be by nuclear annihilation, ecological suicide or barbarism. Socialism, for Marx and Engels, was not inevitable but very possible. It's never over until it's over.

What would the genuinely socialist society of tomorrow look like? The utopia that any group of people project depends to some extent upon the exact material conditions in which they exist. Trying to predict what socialism would be like in the future to that of a serf on his Lord's manor in feudalistic times trying to think of what capitalism would be like. If we want to play the role of the serf on his lord's manor predicting what the next stage of history would be like, socialism could very well end up looking a lot like capitalism. We might see skyscrapers, helicopters, and mass-transit systems as we do today. This would be like how a late-feudal society might look a bit like an early-capitalist society. Later on, a socialist economy may look completely different from very different other structures, just like how our contemporary society looks very different from the 1600s in Great Britain. Just as the serf would have probably been unable to see highways, automobiles, and computers, there are, of course, probably other elements to the next epoch that we are missing.

 We lack a meaningful sense of the future, and as a result, we lack hope, because hope demands a future envisioned as an achievable immediate possibility on which may be realized. Utopia is not the "no-place" of the word's Greek origins, but rather something present in the here and now, although available only in glimpses. The power of utopian images radiate. Urban industrial or office workers may be attracted by the escapist fantasy generated by peasant modes of life, even though they themselves certainly cannot simply take up a peasant life. The oft-derided pleasures as window-shopping provide people with fragmentary access to those greater pleasures and fulfillments only to be realized in a post-capitalist, post-scarcity world. In so far as these pleasures are enmeshed within capitalism, they are irrational. We need to find ways to connect to the utopian yearnings that move millions of people, and which the advertising industry know too well how to exploit. We have to offer something more participatory, that will be a process and a journey. By describing how people would live if everyone, utopian socialism does two things: it inspires the oppressed to struggle and sacrifice for a better life and it gives a clear meaning to the aim of socialism. However, the main difference between socialists and utopians is the getting there. The utopian socialists do not think of the long term, or how difficult it will be to create the worlds that they envision. 

The SPGB take a maximalist position accepting and understanding where the majority consciousness is now and trying to, as a magnet attracts iron filings, slowly attempt to draw the masses in our direction. It refuses to outline exactly how the revolutionary transformation would take place, or what the new society would be like because it was the workers who were the revolutionaries. They would create a socialist society themselves.

Who we are and what we do

  

The class struggle is a political struggle. It cannot be fought successfully by the workers unless they have a political weapon, which means, their own political party. The capitalist class has its own political parties and interest groups and sees to it that they remain committed to its basic interests, the maintenance of the capitalist system. The capitalists see to it that they remain under their control. They provide them with media exposure, provides them with funds, running into millions each year. In some places, the capitalists are in direct control of these parties, in others, its allies are in control.

Although a political party committed to using elections to capture political power the Socialist Party surprisingly does not regard vote-getting as of supreme importance. We do not present a programme of attractive promises as a lure for votes. We seek only an actual vote for socialism and our manifestoes do not flatter the electorate but simply endeavour to convince them of the case for socialism. 

We make it clear that the Socialist Party wants the votes only of those who want socialism and disparages vote-seeking for the sake of votes and we hold in contempt those political opportunists seeking election for the sake of office or personal advancement. The Socialist Party stands squarely upon its principles. The Socialist party buys no votes with false pledges.

The ballot expresses the people’s will. The ballot means that the worker is no longer dumb, that at last has a voice, that it may be heard and if used in unison must be heeded. The appeal of the Socialist Party is to the exploited class, the workers in all trades and professions, from the most menial to the highest skill, to rally together and put an end to the last of the barbarous class struggles by conquering the capitalist government, taking possession of the means of production and making them the common property of all, abolishing wage-slavery and establishing the co-operative commonwealth. As individuals we are helpless but united we represent an irresistible power.

The Socialist Party will not unite with any other party that does not stand for the democratic overthrow of capitalism and if it were ever to compromise and make such a concession, it will have ceased to be a socialist party. We are not here to play the filthy game of capitalist politics. the Socialist Party condemns the capitalist system. In the name of freedom, it condemns wage slavery. In the name of modern technology, it condemns scarcity and poverty. In the name of peace, it condemns war. In the name of humanity, it condemns the murder of little children. In the name of enlightenment, it condemns ignorance and superstition. The battles of the workers, wherever and however fought, are always and everywhere the battles of the Socialist Party. The education, organisation and co-operation of the workers is the conscious aim and the self-imposed task of the Socialist Party. There is no party leader or bureaucracy within the Socialist Party boss and there never can be unless the party deserts its principles and ceases to be a socialist party. Each member has not only an equal voice but is urged to take an active part in all the party’s administration. Each local branch is an educational centre. The party relies wholly upon the power of education, knowledge, and mutual understanding.

The Socialist Party proposes to use all the legislative and administrative machinery within the state and which the working class endeavour to take into its possession as the method of emancipation. We accept the vote and parliamentary action as revolutionary. The value of political action to the socialist movement is called in question by anarchists who suggest what they consider to be more speedy means or more effective methods to be adopted. They expect nothing and never expected anything from parliamentary action. They maintain that participation in parliamentary action is a waste of time and effort, and they relish the disappointing and poor results parliamentary action has so far has achieved for the Socialist Party. We cannot expect results unless voters themselves get the understanding and the spirit of the organisation, which has yet to develop. Where people cannot imagine a way out of intolerable conditions there cannot be a great political movement and no amount of political propaganda can produce a movement.

Our primary function, however, is to organise as a political party, independent, class-conscious, and democratic. The function of anarcho-syndicalists lies with the unions. These two functions are not absolutely distinct and separate, they are coordinated, and to some extent interdependent. Yet they are not identical. The trade unions can help us, we can help them. Socialists should be the subordinate partner in the matter of supporting industrial disputes. The Socialist Party declines to dictate the policy of the trade union in conducting the strike, nor do we expect the trade unions to abandon the immediate objects and demands in order to make the socialist revolution.

Empathy and Altruism

 

Altruism has more of an evolutionary advantage than selfishness. Scientists say they have proved that doing good things for no personal gain can have an evolutionary advantage in the long run. Altruism is real and developed because it confers an evolutionary advantage that is ultimately greater than the benefits of selfishness.

If you have two groups of people, one of whom was very altruistic and another group that was more selfish, it’s the altruistic, more social guys, who are better able to survive the bad winter or the drought…But if it’s always better to cheat, why doesn’t everybody cheat? The answer is it brings you bad luck, in a sense…altruistic behaviour is favoured by chance when the benefits of cheating are sufficiently small compared to a, how well the population would do without any cheats, and b, the typical size of random fluctuations in the population.”

Research suggests if society goes down a more selfish route, then it’s going to be less able to do well and survive the harsh realities of the world we live in. Take the behaviour of the banks leading up to the 2008 financial crisis … people were able to cash in on bad decisions before the big event that triggered the crash in the system. The bankers were partly influenced by the desire to get annual bonuses. That short-term thinking means they are not exposed yet to the random fluctuations that would drive the increase in altruism. 

Rats display human-like empathy and will unselfishly go to the aid of a distressed fellow rodent, research has shown. Rats opened a door to free trapped cage-mates. No reward was needed. There was no other reason to take this action, except to terminate the distress of the trapped rats. Rats still prioritised their cage-mates when offered the option of ''freeing'' chocolate chips. They could been lured away by the distraction and have eaten the entire chocolate stash if they wanted to, and they did not.

Empathy requires an ability to understand others. Economic inequality, however, by radically separating the rich from the poor and shrinking the middle class, literally physically isolates us from each other and provides few opportunities for connection or understanding. If you spend your time in limos and gated communities and first-class travel, you aren't likely ever to meet poor people who aren't there to serve you; outside that context, you won't know how to relate to them. And then, if you know nothing about someone's real situation, it's easy to caricature it as being defined by bad choices and laziness, rather than understand the constraints and limits the economy itself imposes. Seeing yourself doing so well and others doing poorly tends to bolster ideas that "you deserve your wealth," simply because guilt otherwise becomes uncomfortable, even unbearable.

In reality, self esteem doesn't come from thinking positive or telling yourself that you are special or worthy--though telling kids they are rotten and selfish can surely destroy it. And, sadly, you can be optimistic all you like in an economy with 20% unemployment and still not get a job through no fault of your own.

If the split into "us" v. "them," "haves" v. "have nots," continues the empathy decline will undoubtedly continue and it will be a meaner, nastier world in which ideas about humans being selfish and competitive rather than caring become a self fulfilling prophecy by crushing the tendency toward kindness with which we are all born.

Averting a planetary-scale destruction demands global cooperation, becoming more efficient in using energy, increasing the efficiency of existing means of food production and distribution, and enhancing efforts to manage our biodiversity and ecosystem systems. Humanity has not done anything really important to stave off the worst because the social structures for doing something just aren’t there. We all have to summon the political will to radically change the way we live. If we can do that, we might have a chance to avert disaster.  A socialist's task is to tell it as it, is as much as one can bear, and then all the rest, whether we can bear it or not. To proclaim hard-to-hear truths.

The economic system assumes you care only about yourself yet we become fully human only through embracing our humanity when care for each other and care for the larger living world. Our chance of saving ourselves depends on enough people willing to act. We must throw everything into the endeavour to remake the world into what we say we want it to be.

Stand by Principles

 

“The word Revolution, which we Socialists are so often forced to use, has a terrible sound in most people's ears, even when we have explained to them that it does not necessarily mean a change accompanied by riot and all kinds of violence, and cannot mean a change made mechanically and in the teeth of opinion by a group of men who have somehow managed to seize on the executive power for the moment. Even when we explain that we use the word revolution in its etymological sense, and mean by it a change in the basis of society, people are scared at the idea of such a vast change, and beg that you will speak of reform and not revolution. As, however, we Socialists do not at all mean by our word revolution what these worthy people mean by their word reform, I can't help thinking that it would be a mistake to use it, whatever projects we might conceal beneath its harmless envelope. So we will stick to our word, which means a change in the basis of society." —William Morris in How We Live and How We Might Live.

The world is crying out for change. Millions of children die each year of starvation while those with millions spare themselves no indulgence. People say that we in the Socialist Party are utopian because we hold to the view that a new society is the only lasting solution to the mess we're in and because we dare to suggest that we could run our lives in a much more rational and harmonious way. Some people on the "Left" decline to define socialism because they think that any account of a future society is a waste of time and that we should concern ourselves with present-day struggles. But unless you do talk about where you're going, how will you know when you've arrived? 

More and more people today recognise that the present system of production for profit makes our lives needlessly painful and is ruining the planet.  Unless you do have a clear idea of socialism then anyone can claim it, defame it and say it doesn't work. And unless we keep the idea of working directly for a worldwide cooperative community on the agenda people will always be sidetracked. It is essential that the ideal of the new society should always be kept at the fore.

It cannot be stressed enough, that without a widespread and clear idea among workers of what a socialist society entails, it will be unattainable. The reason is simple. The very nature of socialism—a money-free, wageless world of unrestricted access to the goods and services provided by voluntary cooperative effort—necessitates understanding. There is absolutely no way in which such a sweeping fundamental transformation of social relationships could be thrust upon an unwilling, unknowing majority by some minority, however enlightened or well-meaning.

The Socialist Party is not prepared to associate with organisations that carry on propaganda for the reform of capitalism, recruit members on that basis and seek the votes of reformists. Our case is that work for socialism is the essential end and it cannot be combined with reformism. Socialism cannot be achieved without a social revolution, that is a change in the property basis of society, from private ownership to social ownership and democratic control.  Alone, we have stood for a social revolution to overturn capitalist society and replace it with socialism.

We envisage socialism as being established globally and almost simultaneously. As far back as 1847, Engels wrote:

“Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone?

 No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.

Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.

It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace.

It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.”

Ideas are social and cross borders. How music genres arise and then travel the globe, or how fashions are adopted across cultures?

 The importance of labour in creating all wealth was a fact recognised long before Marx and was acknowledged by Adam Smith. But why heed classical economists. Didn't Abraham Lincoln say "Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed."?

Why not study "the Enclosures" of England (a similar process took place worldwide and is still going on) Stealing common land from the poor and driving them to seek work in the cities as factory fodder. The 19thC industrialists were rightly called "Robber Barons"

"The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common from the goose.

The law demands that we atone

When we take things we do not own

But leaves the lords and ladies fine

Who takes things that are yours and mine."

 

When a so-called self-made man says hard work brought him riches, ask whose hard work?

We are for the abolition of private property and the implementation of one of the oldest customs and traditions humanity has developed for its collective survival, the principle "from each according to ability, to each according to need.", an end of the exchange economy and the introduction of free access this means the abolition of wage and money and those working in occupations related to commerce/capitalism transferring to socially productive work. And the emphasis is on socially productive and not simply shifting money around to benefit a small minority of people, or speculating which is very basic...buying cheap and selling dear...yet ignoring the fact that the value of the object is in its manufacture, not its circulation. We stand for the free commonwealth...or as another put it

"Store-houses shall be built and appointed in all places, and be the common stock...And as every one works to advance the common stock, so every one shall have a free use of any commodity in the store-house, for his pleasure and comfortable livelihood without buying and selling or restraint from any." - Gerrard Winstanley in the 17th C

It may be easy to dismiss the term "wage-slave" so easily...countless numbers of people follow their hobbies without payment because they enjoy it. People have their gardens and their allotments and happily tire themselves out working...but place that person on a farm and demand he or she exhausts himself for a wage by denying any other way to support him or herself and their family and that the fruits of this work are taken from him and the rewards of placing it on the market to be sold and bought then ask if that person is not a slave. Someone who well knew what it meant to be a chattel slave and a wage slave explains it thus

 "The difference between the white slave, and the black slave, is this: the latter belongs to ONE slave-holder, and the former belongs to ALL the slave-holders, collectively. The white slave has taken from his, by indirection, what the black slave had taken from him, directly, and without ceremony. Both are plundered, and by the same plunderers" - Frederick Douglass

This is class warfare

 

The workers’ only real bargaining power is their ability to stop production. Capital can create nothing without workers – labour creates all wealth. And to do this, workers must fight as a class. Class solidarity means that no scabs are allowed to cross picket lines, and it means blacking goods and products. When class solidarity was solid, it was difficult to defeat the workers. Class solidarity gained workers real social power in the workplace and in society. However, capitalism cannot function unless it subdues workers, so the employers close ranks and build their own class solidarity which is backed by the power of the State.  Employers can use parliament and the judiciary against workers because the capitalist State always has, and always will, serve the capitalist class, until the day that the working class capture the machinery of the State.

There can be no common interest between bosses and workers, only war. The power of workers lies in their ability to stop production. If they don’t use this power, they have nothing with which to bargain. Workers must unite as a class and disregard the boundaries of job type, workplace and industry. Workers must go beyond the boss’s rules. When workers challenge the employers’ right to dictate what happens in the workplace, they challenge capitalism itself. Workers must also challenge and work around the laws laid down by the State.

 

If the rank and file of the unions seek success, they must drop their apathy, take an interest in its actions and, above all, elect representatives from their own ranks instead of the bureaucratic officials with their dirty tricks and personal ambitions, who use the unions to crawl further into the graces –and the jobs – of the master class. Only by so selecting men from their own ranks, men who have no "official" interests to support, and over whom the members have complete control, can the organised workers ever get these problems of organisation settled in their own interests, and achieve the unity vital to the successful struggle on the industrial field. They must elect their officials to take orders, not to give them. Organised on that basis, refusing to be tricked and bluffed by promises, and recognising for themselves the hostility of interests between themselves and their masters.

 

While union members must understand the strength of unity they must also realise their weakness in the economic field against the power of the employers, then it will turn to the facts of its situation for a solution and find that the way to salvation lies through an organisation for control of the political power. Not until that is assured can the workers own the means of life and operate them for their own benefit. When that lesson is learnt the day of socialism will be dawning. The sentiment of solidarity must be embodied in the practical organisation based, not upon the mere transient necessity for wage claims, but upon the permanent need of the workers for the abolition of the wages system. To that end, the workers must organise as a class, not merely industrially, for the capture of supreme power as represented by the political machine.

 

Capitalism creates the conditions under which undemocratic business unions are reproduced and by which even the most well-intentioned leaders are co-opted. We must prepare to defy any bureaucracy that protects its assets more than its members. We must be willing to shed the union superstructure in order to rediscover and reclaim our power as a class. The siren song of “labour/management partnership” spells the death of genuine unionism where the only say workers get is finding more ways to deepen their exploitation.

What’s good for management is not always good for workers and helping the company compete and offering concessions means putting your head in a noose, for shared sacrifice is never shared and companies profit by gutting their workforce and pensions for our old age security is a vanishing mirage. The traditional union principle that capital can create nothing without workers – that labour creates all wealth – has been turned on its head, so that capital is now revered as the source of jobs and prosperity. Even more shocking is the extent to which union bureaucrats accept this lie and use it to pressure workers to accept concessions, in essence, to surrender to the market. Many union leaders believed that the interests of workers were linked with the interests of the corporations so allied themselves with capital and the State, even though this partnership put unions in direct conflict with the interests of workers. Union leaderships appear to equate patriotism with support for their nation's prevailing foreign policy. Class solidarity means nothing if workers back their State in destroying the lives of workers in other lands. Challenging this pro-management bias is key to reviving trade unionism

Over the past decades, the employers’ offensive has been fierce and unrelenting. Companies laid-off workers attacked unions and demanded concessions. Governments of both parties supported this assault by eroding labour standards, de-regulating industries, privatising social services and permitting job out-sourcing. The union bureaucracy was used to negotiate wages and benefits. It recoiled from the prospect of fighting an all-out class war to challenge the right of employers to profit at workers’ expense. So it accepted employers’ demands for concessions, no matter how deep, in the hope that once profitability was restored, the lost ground could be regained. Emboldened by the weakness of the unions, employers demanded more concessions, even as the economy boomed and profits soared. In essence, the union bureaucracy imposed the employers’ agenda on their own members. Workers who fought back were fired and black-listed. With few notable exceptions, strikes were defeated, union drives failed and workers became demoralised. The proportion of workers in unions sank. As a result, workers continue to lose ground.

Employers could not have defeated the working class without the support of the union bureaucracy. All traditional trade unionists, radical and conservative alike, understood that an effective strike had to stop production. However, many union officials had adopted “a management-inspired view” of striking, where workers abide by the law, rely primarily on moral pressure, and are easily defeated. Without the traditional tactics of solidarity and stopping production behind them, none of these strategies have proven powerful enough to make an employer suffer economically and resulted in a weak labour movement that functions within the existing system instead of trying to break free of that system. Over the decades, employers have relied on the compliance of union leaders to drive down the living standards of the entire working class. Seeking to protect their power base, and unwilling to fight the employers, union bureaucrats choose instead to sacrifice the class they profess to represent and to their everlasting discredit, union officials adopted the capitalist model of a turf war,  each set of union bureaucrats fighting to increase its membership and dues share, to grow its own union at the expense of other unions and the labour movement as a whole. Millions of dollars of union funds and countless union hours were squandered on lawyers, consultants and advertisers not to fight for workers’ rights but to battle other unions and to dominate the rank and file. Applying management union-busting tactics, bureaucrats attacked any local branch and any militant who fought for democratic control of their union. The many were sacrificed to benefit the combined power of the capitalist class and the union bureaucracy.

The union bureaucracy is a structure apart from the working class and with a separate interest – preserving itself. The union bureaucracy cannot lead the fight against the employers, not because of wrong ideas, but because (unlike its members) the bureaucracy has a stake in the capitalist system. Breaking laws would bring fines that would deplete union funds and threaten officials’ salaries and careers. Union bureaucrats cannot challenge the labour laws that hold workers down without risking the union assets that fund their careers. In other words, protecting their wealth and social status is more important than protecting their members. Bosses scheme to put union bureaucrats in their pockets and make them tools of management. Many union officials have become full partners in the exploitation of workers. You expect the boss to shaft you. You don’t expect your union leader to stab you in the back. 

Fortunately, unions are more than buildings and bank accounts. All of these could be lost without losing the essential core of unionism – class solidarity. If fighting to win means sacrificing union “assets,” then that is what must happen. Unions cannot allow themselves to be held back by a bureaucratic structure that protects their wealth more than its members. However, unions cannot be democratised, or remain islands of democracy, in a class-divided society. All capitalist social institutions are constructed to prevent the working-class majority from exercising any real control over the matters that shape their lives. The demand for democratic unions can only be realised in the context of the fight for a truly democratic society – one that is collectively controlled by the majority working class

 We’ll get change when we break all the rules that keep us chained to the machine that extracts money out of poverty, illness and war. We’ll get change, real change when workers lead the way.

Know the Enemy

 

Capitalism is defined in many ways. Each of these definitions of capital leads to a specific political conclusion. The term capitalism has been increasingly replaced by the more clever-sounding “free enterprise,” or "free markets". One definition of capitalism is based on private property. This definition equates capitalism with private ownership and is also defined in terms of market economy and competition. That is a mistake. Those who define capitalism as private property ownership think that to abolition capitalism, state ownership must replace private property. Some others think that we can do away with capitalism if we abolish the market and institute a central planning system. Capitalism can just as be run by the government through state-owned companies as privately-owned enterprises. Defining capitalism by market and private property ownership is a misleading characterisation of Marx's criticism of capitalism that led to the failure of the revolution in Russia. Nowhere does Marx says private property ownership is an essential characteristic of capitalist exploitation.

What he says is that capitalist exploitation requires that productive labourers be separated from the means of production and it is irrelevant whether the state owns the means of production or a person or a group of people. Many take disparity in income level as a way of defining a capitalist society and unequal political power can be also taken as a criterion to defining capitalism. Those who define capitalism as unequal income level seek redistribution of wealth via taxation reform. All these definitions of capitalism are alien to Marx.

 What is socialism? Marx defined socialism as the abolition of wage slavery and the creation of a society based on common ownership.  Socialism is humankind's liberation from all forms of deprivation and bondage.

Marx’s theory of surplus-value is the cornerstone of his analysis of capital.  For him, class means the production of surplus-value by the worker and its appropriation by the industrial capitalist. When Marx talks about exploitation, this is what he has in mind. When Marx talks about class exploitation, he has in mind the extraction of surplus-labour from direct labourers by the capitalist enterprise. This surplus is the unpaid labour of the labourer that the capitalist lines up in his/her pocket. Marx's entry point to analyse capitalism was neither private ownership nor market but rather exploitation of labour-power and appropriation of surplus value by industrial capitalists. 

Capitalist exploitation does not occur in the market. Buying and selling of  labour-power is a "fair and equal exchange." Buying and selling of other commodities produce no surplus-value. Whether means of production are owned privately or owned by the state is irrelevant to capitalist production. Capitalist production is the production of surplus-value and its appropriation by people other than the productive worker.

Marx’s theory of surplus-value identifies non-surplus-value producing capitalists, for example, merchants and money lending capitalists (the bankers) and where they stand in regards to the production and appropriation of surplus-value. To expand his/her production, the capitalist may have to borrow money from a money lender who in return gets a portion of the surplus-value in the form of interest. Moreover, the industrial capitalist can sell his/her products to a merchant to speed up the capital turnover. The merchant, in return, receives a part of the surplus-value in the form of a discount, and the capitalist enterprise can concentrate on the production of surplus-value rather than being involved in the commodity exchange process. Another part of the surplus-value goes to the state in the form of tax to secure the necessary stability and protection for capital, and so on.

While the capitalists whose capital is directly engaged in the production of surplus-value,  the industrialist, is engaged in the production of surplus-value, the merchant performs the transformation of the commodity into money.  In other words, merchants do not produce surplus-value, for buying and selling a commodity simply represents the exchange of value between two equals. However, merchants make the realisation of surplus value possible because they turn products of labour into capital. Similarly, the moneylender does not produce any surplus-value, but he/she may lend his money to the industrial capitalist who may lay it out for the expansion of production and creation of more surplus-value.  In other words, the financiers transfer their money to capitalist enterprises only temporarily.  By putting their money at the disposal of industrial capitalists, money lenders provide the condition of existence of production and appropriation of surplus-value.  Therefore, merchants and money lenders neither are the appropriators of surplus value nor its distributor.  They are recipients of portions of the surplus-value in the forms of discount and interests, respectively.  Therefore, neither buying and selling, whether in domestic or international markets nor lending or borrowing money, creates surplus-value.  In other words, Marx uses his theory of surplus-value as a principle tool in locating various segments and groups of people in the capitalist society and where they stand in relation to production and appropriation of surplus-value.   

The last bricks of the Welfare State are being dismantled and even the existing basic level of society's responsibility towards the individual, in terms of social welfare and economic security, is being challenged by employers and politicians. In many parts of the world nationalism and religion are on the ascendance. Yet in other regions of the globe workers are gradually emerging out of their previous political apathy. The world is entering a turbulent period of intensified worker protest movements. Today the destructive results of the recession and government austerity policies for the workers - unemployment, loss of social services, etc. - are felt more than ever. In the whole of Europe questions such as unemployment and lack of job security and so on are becoming a focus for a renewed surge of workers' movement, and the ruling class is losing its capacity for the political intimidation of the workers' movement through its once tried and tested populist mobilisation of the "middle-class" strata. The decline of trade unionism, while having immediate detrimental effects on the life of millions of workers, has created an environment for new thinking and alternative practices in worker organisation in Europe. The workers' movement has already moved towards more radical actions organised outside the traditional union structure, creating alternative organisations, as witnessed by the recent wildcat strikes. The worker is realising that it is the worker and worker alone who should take care of his economic interests and political rights, without hoping for anything to come from the politicians who fill parliamentary seats or the bureaucrats in their professional union posts. The era of workers' strength on the political stage is once again arriving.

Many political activists shrug their shoulders at socialism and socialist organization, preferring participation in the host of one-issue struggles and while socialists should actively be involved also in these fields, this doesn't preclude theoretical work for communism. Capitalist society will assimilate protests and re-formulate them after its own image, incorporating them into the establishment. To resist this requires the existence of independent socialist parties. The issue of the primacy of theory over movement, or vice versa, has little meaning. They are the different levels of a single social movement. Socialism is a movement for the working-class and communist revolution. We regard this revolution as possible and on the agenda right now. But as a class that is under pressure, we also fight for every improvement in the social situation which enhances workers'  political and economic power and promotes their human dignity. We also fight for every political opening which may facilitate the class struggle. We are activists of the worker's protest movement. We are fighting for the establishment of the worker's social and economic alternative as a class. The worker's position in production does not change. The economic foundation of society does not change. This class's alternative for the organisation of human society does not change. The worker still has to sell his or her labour-power daily in order to live, and thus views the world from the same standpoint and offers the same solution to it. Socialism is the worker's movement to destroy capitalism, abolish wage labour and do away with exploitation and classes.

There is a need to express the socialist vision in more concrete terms where more practical models of economic and political organisation in socialist society are elaborated. Many socialists say it is not for us to devise blueprints and utopias, that our task is to organise a revolution against the existing system, to make our goals clear but it is the process of workers' revolution itself that will provide the practical forms of their realisation. Nevertheless, to some degree, we must offer positive alternatives. Socialists should, firstly, communicate the precise meaning of socialist aims, and, secondly, show the feasibility of their realisation. It must explain that the abolition of bourgeois ownership does not mean the introduction of state ownership, and show how the organisation of people's collective control over means of production is practical. It must stress that socialism is an economic system without money and wage labour, and then show how organising production without labour-power as a commodity is possible.

 Our job is not to make models and utopias and prepare a detailed blueprint of production and administration in a socialist society but to show in what ways a socialist society differs from the existing one. For example, we show the process of the withering away of the state following a socialist revolution by explaining the material basis of the state in class society and its superfluousness as a political institution in a classless society, and not by producing a step by step guide programme for the dismantling of state institutions and its departments.