Reforms change little

Eugene Debs once said, “It's better to ask for what you want and not get it, than ask for what you don’t want and get it.” 

If you really want socialism, join the Socialist Party. Ask for what you do want.

After over a century of reform activity, and the sincere efforts of a multitude of reformers, the world is in a greater mess than ever it was. We, socialists, are often accused of being opposed to reforms, social legislation designed to ameliorate some intolerable situations. Not so. We of the World Socialist Movement are not opposed to reforms per se, any more than we advocate them. The really vital reforms of capitalism were won a long time ago, for instance, the vote that gave the working class the opportunity to take its fate into its own hands. The position of a revolutionary is to reject reformism - the advocacy of reforms - which is not the same thing as opposing reforms themselves. Reformism is the promotion of reforms and it is this that we revolutionaries should not be engaged in. Trying to mend capitalism is incompatible with trying to end capitalism. For ourselves, radicalisation entails the conscious propagandistic of the communist alternative under each and every circumstance thrown up by capitalism. It an interactive process between thought and practice are driven by a clear and unambiguous conception of what we are to replace capitalism with. Nothing less will do. Unless we know what to replace capitalism with, capitalism will not be replaced. We will be stuck with it. It is literally a case of one or the other

We make a very clear distinction between reformist struggle and other forms of struggle. We are 100 % behind the militant industrial struggle. fully support militant struggle by workers as a class and as individuals in the economic domain to resist the downward pressures of capital. In fact, in our view, the trade union movement has largely compromised and weakened itself by blurring this distinction as for example in the UK where many unions are affiliated with the capitalist Labour Party. Trade unions should stick to the economic domain where they work much better as militant organisations of the working class. Reformist struggles are qualitatively different in kind to industrial struggles since they are of a political nature and seek to impact the way capitalism is administered in terms of policies. What those who are essentially advocating is reformism in the belief that it entails some kind of progressive dynamic that will lead us somewhere closer to achieving a socialist society. In fact, all the historical evidence shows that your progressive changes lead to the abandonment of revolutionary socialism and the co-option of erstwhile revolutionary socialists into capitalism In any case it is nonsense to suggest that revolutionary socialism means "standing outside of the political process". This is a terribly mechanical not to say narrow-minded, concept of what the political process actually is.

Nor can we automatically assume that crises help to radicalise workers. In fact, there is strong empirical evidence to the contrary, recent studies show that a crisis tends to make some workers more fearful of the future, more conservative and more conformist even though it might well radicalise others. One must never forget the lessons of pre-war Germany and the depression which helped to fuel the growth of the Nazi movement. Revolutions are not simply the result of social crises and class struggle, they are mediated by consciousness. The ideas themselves don't stand alone but are drawn from the class struggle and in turn reciprocally influence the struggle. It's a two-way interactive process, not a one-way street. As far as a communist revolution is concerned while we may not know what shape the working class is in when it happens we do know that a significant majority must understand and want communism in order for a communist revolution to happen. Communism absolutely necessitates conscious majority support and therefore a revolution that does not have this conscious majority support will not be a communist revolution because the outcome will not be communism. The revolution is effected by the communist minded working class seizing power and declaring capitalism null and void. This is fully consistent, with the point about the seizure of political power by the proletariat being the precondition for the "historical process of revolutionary change". But in order for the proletariat to seize power and effect a revolutionary change, it has to be substantially communist-minded in the first place. This is absolutely essential and is integral to the Marxian perspective. Engels points this out in the introduction to Marx's Class struggles in France "Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for [with body and soul]."

Of course, socialist consciousness comes through struggle not just propagandising. This is not an either/or situation. It is actually mutually reinforcing. The struggle gives rise to the ideas and the ideas in turn help to clarify and strengthen the struggle. Part of my argument against reformism is that it actually weakens the position of workers. It doesn't radicalise them at all. It ties them politically to capitalism via capitalist political parties that aim to garner support through the advocacy of reforms. This is what workers need to reject. They will actually become much more militant in my view if they completely rejected the reformist illusion that capitalism can be moulded to accommodate their interests and if they came to recognise that the interests of workers are diametrically opposed to the capitalists. This is what revolutionaries should be doing - saying how it actually is not trying to dishonestly socially engineer workers into coming over to them by dangling reforms in front of them which they know full well are not going to modify the position of the exploited class. In the end, if you do not break with the logic of capital completely and in ideological terms, if you do not explicitly advocate a genuine alternative to capitalism, there is no way on earth that you will ever create an alternative to capitalism. You will remain forever stuck in the reformist treadmill going nowhere. Although the ultimate aim of the radical fighting for reform may be the self-emancipation of the working class, it will never ever come to self-emancipation of the working class precisely because fighting for reforms is a trap from which you will never ever escape unless you stop fighting for reforms and raise your sights higher. Capitalism cannot be reformed in the interests of workers so fighting for reforms in the interests of the workers is foredoomed. It is simply a treadmill that will never lead on to anything else. "Radicalisation" is the result of an interaction between material struggles - workers organising on the industrial and social terrain - and communist ideas. Above all, it involves the explicit and conscious embrace of the communist goal - a non-market non-statist alternative to capitalism. This is what truly constitutes radical in the sense of a root change.

There is no real evidence that it does lead to a communist outlook. Many radicals ultimately end up in the ghetto of worthy liberal causes which only serve to fragment working-class solidarity in a plethora of separate struggles each demanding attention at the expense of others. Or they become disillusioned old cynics in later life and join the establishment. We don't say socialists need to stand on the sidelines and tell workers to drop their illusions and follow us. Firstly we reject the whole principle of vanguardism and leadership. Secondly, we don't say we should stand on the sidelines. No revolutionary ever is on the sidelines anyway. This is a meaningless way of looking at this anyway. We are all involved in the class struggle whether we like it or not or whether we are aware of it or not. As workers, we will join with our fellow workers in a union to fight the bosses in the industrial field. We are simply members of the working class who has come to communist conclusions. We don't exist in some sense outside of the working class telling the working class what to do. This is an elitist Leninist perspective which we abjure. As communist workers, we will therefore put across communist ideas - about communism, about rejecting nationalism, racism and sexism and so on and so forth. Spreading ideas are essential. Everybody without exception believes their ideas are the right ones - otherwise, they would not hold or express them. Its got nothing to do with "leadership". It's what human beings do - talk, discuss, argue. If it is elitist in and of itself to express an idea then what you are trying to say is that we really should not express ideas at all. We should keep mum about our political views. That is quite absurd. If everyone followed that advice there would be a discussion about anything. People do develop their ideas as a result of hearing other ideas. This is not "idealist". Materialism does not deny the role of ideas, what it denies is the "independent" role of ideas, that social developments are completely explicable in terms of the impact of ideas alone. This is false but nevertheless, it is quite true that all social developments involve an exchange of ideas between historical actors and could not happen without that.

Radicals talk of the need to have the ear and confidence of the working class. They want to say to workers "yeah, great carry on with your reformist struggles. We're with you all the all way" even though in their heart of hearts they know that this is a recipe for failure. This is not honest and dishonesty does not pay in the end. It is far better to say what you really think and feel to be the case however unpopular or out of touch, it might make you seem at the time. Workers will not thank you for trying to lead them up the garden path and you will certainly not gain their confidence as a result. You stand to lose their confidence completely and this is in fact the story of the Left in general. It has marginalised itself precisely because of its opportunistic relationship with the working class.

Some on the Left have a kind of fetishised view of "action" that there is something latent or inherent in the acts one carries out that somehow drives one forward into becoming a communist. This is wrong. Strikes, protests demonstrations and all these sorts of activities don't carry any necessary communist implications whatsoever. It is the interaction of ideas and actions which is what is needed. This is the point we are trying to make about radicalisation. If you ignore the importance of ideas and the necessity for a clear and explicit alternative to capitalism you will never ever pose a serious threat to capitalism. Never. Reformist struggle does not necessarily imply a passive working class. This is the point. Workers can be actively engaged in reformist struggles to get governments to introduce measures that they perceive to be in their economic interests. But in the end, they actually help to weaken not strengthen the working class by tying it ideologically to capitalism, fostering the illusion that capitalism can be run in the interests of workers and entrenching their dependence on capitalist governments to do it for them.

Isn’t Capitalism Wonderful?

 

All of Canada’s six biggest banks have raised their dividends.  

The BMO Financial Group raised its dividend 25 per cent and beat expectations as it reported a fourth-quarter profit of nearly $2.2 billion, up from $1.6 billion in the same quarter last year. Analysts expected a profit of $3.21 a share, but it was $3.33 per share, isn't capitalism wonderful? 

All of Canada's six biggest banks have raised their dividends and announced plans to buy back large numbers of their shares as they reported their fourth-quarter results. 

Surely it would occur to anyone capable of reason, that there must be something fundamentally wrong with a society where so few could hoard so much wealth while the majority live in poverty. 

Reformers would argue that so much of that money could be used to help the poor while we socialists stand for a world of no money and no poor.

S.P.C. Members.

The Capitalists Ignore the Aboriginals Protests.

The Wet'suwet'en Indigenous nation of about 3,200 members have lived on their land in B.C. for thousands of years. They call it their yintah, which is 22,000 square kilometres in parts of the Nechako watershed and the headwaters of the Wedzin Kwah River. 

Now an Alberta based company, TransCanada Energy wants to lay the Coastal GasLink gas pipeline through their territory, including drilling under the river. 

This, not surprisingly, has met opposition from them and has provoked calls from hundreds of urban protesters in Montreal and Toronto.

 Already 30 Indigenous land defenders and their allies have been arrested while they were trying to block work on the pipeline.

 It never changes; if the capitalist class want land for whatever reason, they won’t give a shit about the aboriginals who've lived on it for an eternity.

S.P.C. Members.

A new road towards the future

 

It is rather disappointing to admit that working people still do not hold the slightest inkling about what to do to reverse the driving force behind their problems and plight, the inescapable consequences of capitalism’s harsh economic power. The politicians and intellectuals keep conjuring up their quack cures and our fellow workers keep falling for their trickery.

 

The propaganda of “freedom” and “democracy” makes a deep impression upon those Wilhelm Reich describe as the “Little Man”, although victims of the capitalists, they lend a receptive ear to the right-wing “crusaders” of liberty. They willingly conform to the economic interests of the ruling class that shaped their ideas, enthusiastically submitting to the “Fuhrer principle”, the hierarchy of leaders commanding them from the top. “Freedom” means to run society as the owning class sees fit and “democracy” is whatever method they deem applicable to impose their will.  If our fellow workers cannot break with the tainted past, its corrupted thinking and its poisoned practices, we will merely see working people sink deeper into the political swamp.

 

  The early demise of the Socialist Party was repeatedly and confidently predicted by its left-wing rivals but it has been the Independent Labour Party, the Socialist Labor Party and a host of Trotskyist parties that have disappeared from the political scene.

 The Socialist Party of Great Britain has survived because its ideas have passed the test of experience and events. Far from facing extinction the SPGB today is preparing for future growth. We may indeed be a tiny grouping but the heart of the socialist case we present remains to beat while the Left are the living dead, refusing their burial. Our record of longevity does not lull us into smugness nor offer any false satisfaction. We are confident of our ability to master the questions posed to us by our fellow workers and as in the past, confident of our progress as long as we remain committed to Marxism. That cannot be accomplished overnight, admittedly. We require political action, undertaken by us as a class entirely independent of the capitalist class and its politicians. We cannot be swayed by arrogant academic intellectuals strutting about pitifully confused, painfully ignorant and shamefully biased unable to lead themselves anywhere, let alone lead others, incapable of setting alight the minds of the youth but rather now repelling them by their debasement of the socialist ideal. This is not said in self-glorification. The capitalists find their political henchmen seek to paralyse the workers.

The capitalist ruling class is a brazen group of exploiters. They had their way during the pandemic and made billions in profits and distributed billions in dividends and interest to themselves. They get away with it too. They are successful. They succeed because they have a government of their own. They have a president or prime minister of their own choosing. They own the courts to protect them and theirs. They send their people into the Cabinet. Later they take their people out of the government and bring them back to the Corporations. 

Let there be no misunderstanding, the Socialist Party’s purpose is to reconstruct a global movement based on the ideas of Marxism, in opposition to others’ narrow, national limitations. Some people claim that to vote for a candidate representing the ideas of socialism means to throw away one’s vote. In actuality, the person who votes for a pro-capitalist lesser-evil is throwing his or her vote away, because this means preferring one corrupt political party as against another. A vote for socialism means that you protest against a system that utilizes its tremendous productive capacity only for profit, for war, for death and for destruction. Have the satisfaction of protesting against a system based on exploitation, greed and racial and national hatreds. Socialists will not be coerced or intimidated. There is no other road for workers other than socialism which leads to freedom and security. 

Scotland's Unsung Heroes

 

Peter McDouall (1814 – 1854) was a significant figure in Chartism. Imprisoned twice, dying at a relatively young age, it is not an exaggeration to say that McDouall gave his life for Chartism. The Chartist newspaper, the Northern Star said of McDouall ‘When he came among you, he had good property in Scotland, a profession and a practice, which realised him several hundred pounds annually, besides a large sum of accumulated money in the bank. All of which has been spent long ago in the advocacy of the rights of the people.’

Peter McDouall was born in Newton Stewart, and served as an apprentice to the local surgeon before going on to study at Glasgow and Edinburgh. He subsequently moved to  Burnley practice and then to Ramsbottom. He came to Chartism radicalised by his exposure to the bleak factory conditions becoming involved in the Chartist movement as a delegate for Ashton under Lyne, a militant Chartist centre with which McDouall was to be closely associated for the rest of his life.

McDouall was a foremost advocate of physical force and, later, of the ‘sacred month’, the Grand National Holiday (or General Strike). He was a proponent  for the arming the people, in defence of their constitutional rights.

He also became a staunch advocate of the power of the ordinary worker. He explained:

‘The Trades are equal to the middle class in talent, far more powerful in means and much more united in action’ and again ‘The agitation for the Charter has afforded one of the greatest examples in modern history of the real might of the labourers. In the conflict millions have appeared on the stage and the mind of the masses has burst from its shell and begun to flourish and expand.’

In August, he was sentenced at Chester to twelve months’ imprisonment for sedition. On his release he married the daughter of a warder at Chester Castle, where he had served his sentence.

McDouall spoke at many  meetings around Scotland. Supporters of moderate persuasion  refused to sponsor McDouall’s meetings where he would denounce any alliance with the middle class. McDouall, however, reined in his revolutionary rhetoric.  McDouall understood the need to avoid riots and premature uprisings which culminated in defeat and demoralisation.

This did not mean that he had renounced the use of force if the authorities resorted to violence in an attempt to crush Chartism.

McDouall sought to turn to the newly-forming trade unions and win them over. However, some Chartists saw the trade unions not as possible allies but as rivals.

McDouall was also an opponent of the British Empire.

‘Let all who have possessions in India, or all who profit by what you call ‘our Indian possessions’ be off to India, and fight a thousand battles for them as they like…but let them not mock our degradation by asking us, working people to fight alongside them, either for our ‘possessions’ in India, or anywhere else, seeing that we do not possess a single acre of ground, or any other description of property in our own country, much less colonies, or ‘possessions’ in any other, having been robbed of everything we ever earned by the middle and upper classes… On the contrary, we have an interest in prospective loss or ruin of all such ‘possessions’, seeing they are but instruments of power in the hands of our domestic oppressors.’

 As the principal supporter of the general strike movement the government offered a £100 reward for his apprehension, but he escaped to France, where he lived for two years returning to Britain without prosecution during 1844 to resume his life as an activist.

In 1848 he spoke at Glasgow, and then in Edinburgh, where there were shouts of ‘Vive la Republique’ and ‘Bread and Revolution’ after the meeting.

He then again unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary seat of Carlisle.

Charged with yet another insurrectionist conspiracy he ended up doing two years’ hard-labour gaol for his part in the abortive Ashton-under-Lyne rising. His family suffered badly during his incarceration, and a daughter, aged 10, died. After his release McDouall took his family and emigrated to Australia in 1854, but died soon after arriving.

 

Determinists - not us

 

The term “economic determinism” and the interpretation of Marx’s Materialist Conception of History as economic determinism is found in a mixed collection of opponents of Marx. Those who did hold that view were necessarily committed to the automatic “collapse of capitalism” concept. Some said rather mechanically  that all we had to do was to sit back with folded arms and watch it happen. The S.P.G.B. never subscribed to the belief which was popular among so many social democrats before the First World War that ‘history’ would bring capitalism to a point where it would be forced to collapse.

Marx of course did not hold such a view, as his summary statement of the Materialist Conception of History in his Introduction to his “Critique of Political Economy” makes quite clear. He did indeed hold that “The mode of production of the material means of existence conditions the whole process of social, political and intellectual life” and that “with the change in the economic foundations the whole vast superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed”, and that there are in history “progressive epochs in the economic system of society” (the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal and the modern bourgeois), and that “bourgeois productive relationships are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production”, and “with this social system, therefore, the prehistory of human society comes to a close”. But vital to the whole conception for Marx was that it proceeds through periods of social revolution in which” men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out”.  In the “Communist Manifesto” it was put in the phrase that history “is the history of class struggles”.

In the Socialist Standard (August 1910) Fitzgerald in debate with a Tory is reported as follows:

“his opponent still persisted in saying that Marx stated that the economic was the only factor, and that man was determined by his surroundings, and in view of that he would read Marx’s own words which were: “The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society – the real foundation upon which rests the legal and political superstructure. Marx also said ‘Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth”.

There were many articles in the Socialist Standard on the Materialist Conception of History and none put the view attributed to the S.P.G.B. an economic determinist.

“Karl Marx in Current Criticism” by Adolph Kohn Socialist Standard, March 1913 went over the whole of Marx’s contribution to Socialist thought, including the M. C. of  H. That part reads like a paraphrase of Marx’s summary in the “Critique”. It did not put the ” automatic process” “economic determinist” point of view but instead, as Marx did, on the vital element of class struggle. Among the statements made by Kohn are:

“History since the passing of Primitive Communism had been a history of class struggles”. This class struggle is the cardinal principle of the socialist party”. So for Kohn, a decisive factor was the class struggle. 

“Marx rescued Socialism from the hands of the Utopians and placed it upon a foundation of scientific fact. Not moral appeals but organised political action was the way to fight the capitalists. Society, said Marx, moved not because of changing morals, but under the pressure of growing economic forces making a change in social forms inevitable”.

How completely the S.P.G.B. rejected “economic determinism” is shown in the pamphlet “Why capitalism will not collapse” (1932), as for example in the passage:

“The lesson to be learned is that there is no simple way out of capitalism by leaving the system to collapse on its own accord. Until a sufficient number of workers are prepared to organise politically for the conscious purpose of ending capitalism, that system will stagger on indefinitely from one crisis to another”.

Craig Murray and Saughton Gaol

 Your Man in Saughton Jail Part 1 - Craig Murray

An account of the political activist's time behind bars

Dictatorships

 

Many equate socialism with dictatorship, yet, with the coming of the modern industrial state, most of the world’s population has lived under dictatorship. In the world today there are many countries under dictatorships of varying degrees of ruthlessness; that is to say countries in which the government is not responsible to the electorate, and in which political parties and trade unions are suppressed, or are allowed to exist only as organs of the government itself, and in which freedom of speech and opposition propaganda are denied. 

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, in conformity with its adherence to democratic principles, is opposed to all dictatorships. The Socialist Party has always insisted on the democratic nature of socialism, and on the value that the widest possible discussion of conflicting political views has for the working class. We do not minimise the importance of democracy for the working class or the socialist movement.

Under a dictatorship the traditional forms of working class political and economic organisation are denied the right of legal existence. Freedom of speech, assembly, and the Press is severely curtailed and made to conform to the needs of a single political party that has for the time being secured a monopoly in the administration of the State machine. Under political democracy the workers are allowed to form their own political and industrial organisations and, within limits, freedom of speech, of assembly and of the press is permitted, also the possibility of the electorate choosing between contending political parties.

Dictatorship in various forms exists at the present time, basically because of the political immaturity of most of the working class all over the world. Instead of being united by world-wide class consciousness they are everywhere divided: divided between the nations by the poison of nationalism; divided inside the nations by religious, racial and other superstitions; divided also by the failure of many to appreciate the importance of democracy. Nationalism plays a powerful role in thwarting the growth of class consciousness; by inducing workers in the newly created countries of Africa to accept oppression for the supposed benefits they will later receive when industrial development has been speeded up; by the readiness of the workers in countries holding colonies to condone what is in effect a dictatorship imposed on the colonial peoples.

Dictatorship does not exist in a vacuum: like every other social phenomenon it is related to, and has its origin in, a social background. That background is capitalism which inevitably gives rise to working class problems, consequent frustration, prejudices and bitterness which can be exploited by the opponents of democracy. With equal inevitability it also gives rise to problems of a specifically capitalist nature: such as maintaining the profitability of production; securing new and retaining old markets; the necessity of forging 'national unity' when faced with war with rival capitalist groups, and so on. It is precisely in an attempt to solve these problems that the ruling class in certain circumstances has recourse to dictatorship. As long as the workers support capitalism and capitalist policies they will be tempted ultimately to give their support to the policy best calculated to meet the political and economic needs cf capitalism, though that policy may be one of dictatorship.

We are said to have democracy in that we have free elections which allow us to choose whatever form of government we wish, unlike countries where a single-party dictatorship exists. Such dictatorships usually allow elections where the people may approve or disapprove of given candidates within the dictatorship but have not the freedom to vote for any other parties or for independent candidates. In other words the people have imposed on them by force, corruption or the control of information a specific political regime and have not got the necessary democratic machinery to challenge that regime.

We we are convinced that democracy cannot be defended by an adoption of the 'lesser evil', that is, a policy of concessions to and compromise with non-fascist parties and elements of capitalism. We do not unite with non-socialist organisations which claim to be defending democracy. Democracy for the working class can only be consolidated and expanded to the extent that the workers adopt the socialist standpoint. To renounce socialism so democracy may be defended, means ultimately the rejection of both socialism and democracy. Looking at the vast sums of money involved in our allegedly democratic elections we can hardly claim that they are "free"! In fact in most of the so-called democratic countries it could be said that the astronomical costs of challenging for political power have been deliberately manipulated in order to ensure that those who cannot attract rich backers will be denied meaningful access to the democratic process. Effectively this means that in the same way as people in dictatorships are denied the right to make real political changes, in Britain and other allegedly democratic societies prohibitive financial restrictions are placed in the way of the working class organising politically to effect real economic change. The idea of fair and free elections would give the ruling class political apoplexy. This does not mean that socialists equate dictatorship and bourgeois democracy. Within the latter we are free to organise politically and to develop our support to the extent where we can eventually overcome the embargoes and impediments that capitalism’s restricted democratic forms impose on us, whereas in the former any socialist work is necessarily clandestine and can invoke severe penalties.

The democratic state has been forced, against its will, to bring into being methods, institutions, and procedure which have left open the road to power for workers to travel upon when they know what to do and how to do it. In this country the central institution through which power is exercised is Parliament. To merely send working-class nominees there to control it is not sufficient. The purpose must be to accomplish a revolutionary reorganisation of society, a revolution, in its basis, which will put everybody on an equal footing as participants in the production, distribution and consumption of social requirements as well as in the control of society itself. So that all may participate equally, democracy is an essential condition. Free discussion, full and free access to information, means to implement the wishes of the majority which have been arrived at after free discussion, and the means to alter decisions if the wishes of the majority change. Socialist production needs to be organised democratically-a dictatorship organising production for use would not be socialism.