Socialism and Mutual Aid

 

Socialism is a doctrine which gives an adequate explanation of the whole course of civilisation. Thus destroying the fallacious arguments of the capitalist theoreticians, the doctrine was essential to the interests of the working class. Not only did this doctrine give a clear demonstration of the inconsistencies of the opponents of socialism, but furthermore when showing their mistakes it supplied a historical explanation of these errors.

Just as Darwin enriched the natural sciences with his work on the Origin of Species, a theory simple and scientific, so the founders of socialism showed that in the development of the forces of production, and in the struggle of these forces against the social condition of production, there was implicit the principle of the transformation of social species. It must not be supposed that socialism is an absolute truth. Obviously even today the development of socialism is not finished. That development did not come to an end with the writings of Marx and Engels, any more than the theory of the Origin of Species was worked out once and out for all. Socialism is based upon the Materialist Conception of History. This means that it explains ethical and moral history as the outcome of the development of social relations, partly influenced by the natural environment.

To hold the view that mankind is a product of one's environment, that humanity is moulded by its surroundings, is not enough to account for the social differences. The environment itself is a complex of contradictions. It is not the consciousness of men which determines their existence, but conversely their social existence which determines their consciousness; so that people by acting on natural forces outside themselves and changing them at the same time, change their own nature.

Capitalism with its tremendous potentiality has made it possible to provide all members of world society with their needs of life to transform this potentiality into an accomplished fact. This is the historic mission of the working class. To change the basis of society from its present capitalist form to one of common ownership and democratic control, and so harmonise the present form of social production with one of social ownership in order that goods and services shall be freely available to all mankind. To bring about this change in the basis of society it is imperative that the working class (that is those who are dependent on wages or salaries in order to live) shall take control of political power in order that this power, at present being used to maintain capitalism, shall be so shaped and altered to the needs of the new society.

When we see how slowly the majority of workers the world over learn the facts of capitalist life and the need to end the system and establish a worldwide class-free society in its place, we can take comfort in the fact that there must be magic in the very name of socialism. Even if it is used up to now only to cloak the hideous reality of capitalism, there are many rulers who realise that the time has come to pay lip-service. There are still many people who will tell you that the British NHS offers the best medical attention, for patients of all social strata, in the world. In fact, nearly all its original claims have proved to be miserably false.  It was once boasted that the NHS would provide free specialist treatment for all and that the needy would not have to suffer ill health anymore because of their poverty. But now, with waiting periods of months for specialist appointments and years for routine operations, this is an empty promise. When told of these waiting lists workers often ask how much it would cost to “go private” and so have their case dealt with much sooner. When told the probable fee, some struggle to find it and others turn away amazed and disappointed. 

Taking over political power under these circumstances will be a revolutionary act. Nevertheless, it must be a democratic act, a deliberate act by class-conscious men and women, a class scorning the idea of leadership, a class which will instruct its delegates to work for the abolition of the working class, and thus abolish class society, and bring into being the new society. Capitalism will continue. And continue it will until you and a majority like you take the revolutionary step of deciding to abolish capitalism in all its forms and to bring into being a new society.

For a better world (video)

 

Where Our Principles Stand

 There is not one single country in the capitalist world which is not suffering either from a political or economic or military crisis. Some have all three. 

The capitalist world is like fermentation, but this is a second fermentation. The first produces the wine — the second vinegar. The system has outlived its usefulness and is no longer a progressive force developing the powers of production and distribution. The market, or the mode of exchange, is in conflict with the mode of production. The forces of production are capable of producing an ever-increasing abundance of wealth, but the mode of exchange forbids any production of wealth beyond that which can be sold or exchanged. The social relations of production, wage-labour, capital, money, are restricting and fettering the means of production and distribution. Capitalism has become reactionary. When the social relations of production are in contradiction to the powers of production, and when society demands that these powers of production shall fulfil social needs, a revolutionary situation has developed.

The Socialist Party has always taken the view that revolutionary ideas which seek a social change can only arise when such a change is possible, and that the means and conditions are ripe and success can be guaranteed. Revolution is not a change of government or system of administration; i.e. dictatorship or democracy — state capitalism or private enterprise. These are superficial changes but they are not revolutionary because they do not change the social basis of capitalist society, or the social relations which hold it together. Russia and China are included in this category of non-revolutionary systems. The establishment and maintenance of capitalism through the State machinery as exists in these countries, and others with similar false socialist pretensions, is not revolutionary because they retain the same social basis of capitalist production and distribution. The Socialist revolution cannot be achieved by force of arms, by violence, whether in the form of armed revolt or industrial sabotage. Neither can it be achieved through strikes and general strikes. We are opposed to all these methods advocated by the variegated groups of the Left, who style themselves as the leaders of working-class emancipation.

Paying lip-service to socialism they have managed to sway millions of workers to support régimes and systems of administration which are alien to the whole concept of socialism. What’s more, they have turned the administration of capitalism into a profession. The old ruling class has been superannuated; the part-time aristocratic gentlemen rulers have been replaced by a new breed of self-seeking ambitious professional politicians, only too eager and anxious to prostitute their abilities, and who are ruthless in their determination to get to the seats of power.

Reformist propaganda is one of the main reasons why the workers do not understand socialism and in fact, is harmful to socialist propaganda in that it detracts from the issue.

There are so many forces working against socialism that it is a wonder that a Socialist Party can still survive. It does survive because Socialist society will be the result of historical necessity. That is, that it is the inevitable result result of the course of social evolution. There is a social law of development which traces the birth, growth and decay of social systems. This law was discovered by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels and is known as the Materialist Conception of History. Its scientific validity has been demonstrated repeatedly. Broadly, it maintains that all history has been a struggle between social classes for control of political power. That social systems change when all the productive forces for which there is room within any given society have been developed and are prevented from developing further. Revolution occurs when men become conscious or are aware of this situation.

Socialist ideas are indestructible because they are born out of the social conditions and cannot be destroyed any more than you can abolish the Law of Gravity. The inevitability of socialism is a historical necessity based on a historical cause. But we are not mechanical puppets moved around by historical necessity. The existence of the conditions will not, in themselves, produce the desired social change. This is the argument of the economic determinists who wrongly claim the authority of Marx for this erroneous proposition. The inevitability of socialism must be a combination of two things; conditions and ideas. The social conditions are present, the socialist ideas are not. Again, if we refer to human history we shall see that men do eventually become conscious of the need for social change, and provided the conditions are present will successfully accomplish that change. Socialism will be no exception to this historical law. Socialism is inevitable because men will seek and gain socialist knowledge, and change society. Socialism cannot arise from a collapse of capitalism through crises or unemployment — it can only arise through international working-class consciousness.

The means of production have been developed to the point where universal social needs can be satisfied. This is beyond dispute. Capitalist society cannot use the productive forces at its disposal, including the greatest productive force of all — the international working class.

Society must, therefore, move on to a higher stage of production. Social problems must be dealt with fundamentally. To achieve this socialist consciousness must be created and this is the work of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. The class struggle can only be successfully fought on the sole issue of socialism or capitalism.

 

That workers struggle is not in question, but what are they struggling for? One thing is certain. They are not struggling for socialism, but for better conditions within capitalism. There is the never-ending clamour for full employment and high wages instead of the abolition of employment and wage-labour. And yet something useful has emerged, and that is that the so-called vanguard of the international working-class movement, the Labour, Social-Democratic and Communist parties everywhere, have been thoroughly discredited and exposed for what they really are — the agents of class exploitation and the natural enemies of socialism. That lesson will be learned by workers sooner than later.

Scotland, the Bereaved (1959)

 From the No. 6 — 1959 issue of the Western Socialist

“Baith faither and wee Willie oot o' a job . . . It’s worse than a death in the hoose.”

This piece of ungrammatic but nevertheless heartrending conversation happened to catch my ear one night while travelling in one of Glasgow’s tram cars, that ancient mode of transport which most of the city’s workers are obliged to use despite the “cheap” family automobiles now on sale. Although at first glance the wee Glasgow housewife’s remark may have seemed a peculiarly dramatised one it is undoubtedly true that a household that finds its two bread-winners unemployed is a pretty cheerless place.

The television and probably the furniture has been procured on the “never never” system and, with nothing but a few pounds coming in from the unemployment benefit and national assistance, the house in all probability will not only be a sad one but pretty soon — an empty one. The agonising round of cap-in-hand job-hunting commences and soon men who had a passionate pride in their skill

as shipwrights, carpenters and electricians find themselves thankful for the chance of a couple of days’ work as labourers in casual employment on a building site, as part-time workers in bar rooms and cinemas.

And with the edge of poverty and insecurity sharpening day by day, the home that was a haven of sociability becomes a place where frayed nerves lead daily to bickering and squabbling. Soon the nagging thought, that perhaps it is due to some failing on his part as a worker that he can’t find a job, drives the breadwinner, bit by bit, to lose confidence in himself and gradually his self respect is destroyed. So desperate is the plight of the unemployed worker that not only is his physical condition denuded of virility by denial of the barest necessities of life, but his moral fibre is destroyed by conditions which degrade him to the extent of losing his self respect. He becomes in fact a mere shadow of a man, a shell whose substance has been torn from him by the monster that is present-day society.

It is at this point, that the most objectionable of social disease, unemployment, throws up to the surface its cancerous, parasitic growth — the Labour leader — that detestable embodiment of all that is unscrupulous, insincere and unprincipled. The emotion-filled speeches fill the air as workers are coaxed, implored and railroaded into giving their support to this or that great man. Later when the worker has been wooed and won and the political honeymoon is over, the disenchantment occurs. The great men turn out to have feet of clay, "right up to the elbows.” It is then that phrases such as "sold up the river” and "stabbed in the back” become the every day parlance of embittered working men.

The history of working class politics in the west coast of Scotland serves as an object lesson as to how much faith workers should place in the promises of silvery tongued "rebels.” The old days of the "Red” Clyde are past but if the working class can learn from the disastrous mistakes of their fathers then some of the blood which has been spilled by the old misguided fire-eaters of yesteryear will not have been spilled in vain. If the problems of unemployment, insecurity and poverty are to be solved it is obvious that a knowledge of how these problems arise is necessary. Instead of calling on the "assistance” of the political witchdoctors to solve these problems, we must seek the cure on our own behalf. We must wave aside the "nationalisation balms” and the "state control incantations” as these "remedies,” these political prescriptions have proved not only inadequate but injurious when applied to the body politic.

Whether you, as a worker, are engaged in a shipyard, a mine or a factory you cannot ignore the threat of unemployment. This threat hangs like a cloud over the heads of all workers whether they produce tankers, coal or papier mache dolls. If there is no longer any profit to be realised from your particular product, the owner of that industry will dispense with your mental and physical energies. You will in fact be unemployed although, in Britain, there is a tendency in the press to call it "redundant” rather than unemployed. However a garbage heap by any other name would still stink.

All commodities today are produced for profit — no profit. . . . no production. . . . no work. It is an undeniable fact, difficult as it may be to realise, that goods are not produced for use; coal is not mined in order that your house may be warm, clothing is not tailored to be worn nor are houses built to be lived in.

Recently miners in Scotland have become unemployed because, as officials of the National Coal Board assure us, there is too much coal; but go into any house in Scotland and ask if there is too much coal and you will receive dark looks from the inhabitants who will in all likelihood be huddled around a pathetic fire which could well do with some of this surplus coal that is piling up. It is because we live in a society where production is carried on for profit that we have to endure such insane situations as thousands of people homeless, or ill housed, and an army of building tradesmen out of work.

The Glasgow housewife, with whose comment I started this article, will probably never read this but hundreds who have the same fear of the insecurity of modern society will and it is to them that I say, let us, the working class, the only people of any consequence, get to the cause of this insecurity and by our understanding change society from Capitalism to Socialism where the good things of life will not be produced for profit but for use. For then, and only then, fellow workers, will such a plight as can be described as " . . . worse than a death in the hoose” be a part of man’s prehistoric past.

Dick Donnelly 

Glasgow Kelvingrove Branch

Social Waste

 

We are only too well aware that progress towards the establishment of socialism is slow. Nevertheless, progress is being made. We know of no short-cut around the necessary task of agitation and education for socialism. Capitalist propaganda cannot remove or whitewash the problems suffered by the working class; neither can it solve the basic contradictions within society. In their efforts to solve the problems and contradictions the workers must eventually turn to socialism as the only solution. Since the Socialist Party was formed we have seen a seemingly endless array of attempts at alleviating the problems thrown up by capitalism, and we have seen them fail as they must. If all those who in the past said that they admire our objectives had joined with us in our task of making socialists that task would have been made easier. Unfortunately such workers still persist in futile reformism, or in advocating minority action by “enlightened” leaders.

 

Despite years of hard effort by the Socialist Party, two myths remain. The first is that state capitalism or some form of nationalisation is of benefit to the workers. The second is that those countries that have a high degree of state control have in fact introduced socialism or are at least in the process of doing so. Both these delusions are held by various sections of the political "left” despite the mass of evidence against them.

There are two fundamental conditions for the establishment of socialism (which must be a world-wide event). The first is the technology capable of production in abundance. This patently was not possible in Russia in 1917 or in China in 1949. The second is the desire of the working class, based on knowledge and understanding, to establish and run a social system where all wealth is owned in common by the whole of mankind, where production takes place for use, and where all that is made by man, is freely available to man. This condition never existed in Russia or China and as yet exists nowhere in the world. But the measure of the political awareness of the working class, is their level of understanding of socialism. Without socialist knowledge, socialism is no more possible than walking on water. Those that claim they are introducing socialism for the working class (or have introduced it) are hoodwinking humanity.

Without the development of potential for adequately meeting the needs of a world community Socialism could not be possible. This might be called the economic factor, and is, in our opinion, already here. What has not yet developed is the socialist majority, understanding their class position under capitalism, and ready and willing to undertake the transformation of society from capitalism to socialism. This is the political factor. In its absence capitalism will continue to exist because workers, lacking the necessary socialist knowledge, will continue to support political parties dedicated to the continuance of present day society. Both factors are equally important for in the absence of either socialism is not possible.

 

The outcome of minority-led revolutions, even if ostensibly to establish socialism, must inevitably lead to some form of capitalism. In the absence of a socialist majority consciously understanding the implications involved in the establishment of Socialism, there is nothing the leadership (no matter how enlightened) can do other than administer capitalism. The Russian and other state-capitalist revolutions (e.g. China, Cuba etc.) have set back the World Socialist Movement by side-tracking workers. Only now is the realisation that they have nothing to do with socialism—something we said at the time.

 

The existence of wages is the hallmark of capitalism. Capitalism implies a certain relationship between people, depending on whether they own capital or merely the ability to work. The workers in selling themselves day after day to the capitalist enrich not themselves but the owners of capital whose wealth their work increases.

Socialism cannot be established in one country at a time. As capitalism is the dominant form of society today, the problem created by it are also apparent throughout the world. Members of the working class internationally are therefore having similar problems to one another. However, they are constantly misled by non-revolutionary political organisations that capitalism will, at some time, begin to work in their interests.

We can see no fundamental differences in the problems facing the working class in, say, the United States, Russia or Australia, but assuming that large numbers of workers in one part of the globe began to reject the false arguments of the capitalist parties and recognised the need for socialism ahead of other workers, there is every reason to believe that interest in their ideas would be generated in a very short space of time among members of the working class in different parts of the globe.

One of the techniques which capitalism has developed to a tremendous degree is the facility of high-speed global communications. Socialist-conscious workers would use such facilities to the full in order to propagate their ideas to workers in other countries. They will do so by recognising that socialism can only be introduced by a united international working class. They will also do so in the knowledge that the solution to capitalism’s problems is the same for themselves as for fellow workers throughout the world. The only escape from exploitation and subjugation remains socialism.

Common Ownership or Capitalism.

 

We in the World Socialist Movement base our political and economic ideas on the writings and teachings of Marx and the implications of those teachings in twentieth-century capitalism. Marx discovered the laws of motion of human society and formalised these in the Materialist Conception of History; he showed the beginnings and development of class conflict and the role it would play in the future development of society; he dissected the nature of commodity production and demonstrated that, as long as the wages/money system continues to exist, there will be an enslaved class condemned to want, or dire misery.

Marx amply demonstrated that among the hallmarks of capitalism is the existence of a working class divorced from ownership of, and control over, their means of life; a class obliged to sell their mental or physical abilities for a wage or salary. The amount of wages, existing or achievable, were not his direct concern: he was concerned with the fact of wage slavery and not the temporary condition of the slave—thus, his advice to workers, in opposition to the ignorance conjured up in the slogan ‘A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work’ was to inscribe on their banner ‘Abolition of the wages system!’

This entails the conscious and democratic establishment of a world-wide system of common ownership and production for use. in which all humankind would have free and equal access to the bountiful potential of the earth. It entails a world free from capitalism’s wages/money system; a world where the material basis for conflict and violence could not exist; an emancipated, frontier-free world where the complex and despotic government of people will give way to the simple administration of things.

Abolition of the wages system. That’s what Marxism is about! That simple, straightforward statement of aims, exposes political  liars, or fools.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY has only one object — Socialism, which briefly means the common ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution, democratically administered for the common good. The Earth, with its untold riches would be harnessed and utilised for the benefit of all mankind. This means that human needs take priority and production centres around these. From each according to ability — to each according to need would be the guiding principle. Simply put, it means that all those sinews of life previously mentioned, and the thousand and one other things that mankind needs, would be produced to meet human satisfaction.

Socialism cannot operate in one country or on one continent. It is a world-wide concept to deal with world-wide problems. It cannot be established by any leader or so-called intellectual Left Wing group. Its very democratic nature demands that people will have to understand both the capitalist and the new society so that they play a full and responsible role in its administration. Its establishment will result from political action based upon understanding: a class-conscious act to take control of the reins of Government; then strip the capitalists of their power, their wealth, and found a new way of life.

While we claim that socialism alone can solve the basic economic problems that confront mankind, it is not a society just concerned with “belly problems”. Its new economic basis will give rise to a new set of social relationships. Mankind, no longer a wage slave or an appendage to a productive machine, will be able to utilise all his potential, to blossom as a full human being.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY offers itself as your instrument for the establishment of socialism. We offer an understanding of capitalism and some concrete ideas on how socialism will work. But we are not leaders. You join our Party on the basis of your socialist knowledge. We would welcome you and what you have to contribute to the only question worthy of consideration—common ownership or capitalism.

Away with all the trappings of capitalism — tariffs, customs duties, monetary union, competition, buying, selling etc.