Our Socialist Stand

  "It is necessary to suffer to achieve wisdom" 

While class consciousness often shows up in some form or other in the class struggle, the class struggle, in the main, is singularly lacking in class consciousness. Socialists cannot but draw attention to and participate in the class struggle until such time as capitalism is defeated

The working class, in fact, is not only all-important but, with education and organisation on class-conscious lines, will ultimately be all-powerful. The workers, as a class, know not yet their own colossal might. Alone producing all the wealth of the world, the very fabric of society is maintained by their active energies of mind and hands. A section of them strike, and the withholding of their labour frequently disorganises industry. Many sections strike concurrently, the wheels of production cease to revolve, and a serious crisis is precipitated. Labour has not yet learnt its strength.

As time goes on, the class struggle itself, in which the workers are involved, inflicts suffering through the inevitable evils of capitalism — pitiful wages and chronic poverty. At the mercy of their exploiters and profiteers, they frantically turn this way and that to cope with the evils of capitalism, and try futilely to set things straight. But the SYSTEM that produces their sufferings they do not dream of attacking. They see neither a definite goal nor the way to it.

Yet a small minority there is who, by experience, thought, and study, is clear-sighted enough to see the way before them. These are the class-conscious and revolutionary proletarians. They know that no palliatives or tinkering reforms of any kind will, or can remove the blighting effects of the present system or emancipate their class from wage slavery. Only the destruction of capitalism itself, and the establishment by the workers of the socialist commonwealth in its place ever can.

We have seen an accentuated and ever-increasing class struggle, growing out of the essential antagonism between the wealth-producing workers and their exploiters. And that conflict of interests produces an increased class consciousness in some, whilst it illuminates and reveals for others the essential clash of the classes that is the outcome of the capitalist system, and of which they probably had not been otherwise aware. Also, the development of a predatory and ruthless system of capitalism automatically not only produces its antagonists but drives them to combat it. And the result is that weapon after weapon will be tried and discarded—because they are no good.

At best, the function of the trade unions is simply that of collective bargaining for a better price for their members’ labour-power, and better conditions, not to abolish the system under which they are daily robbed. It all finally reduces down to the matter of class consciousness—an exact knowledge of their position, importance, and potentialities, on the part of the workers AS A CLASS in relation to society as a whole, and especially to to the capitalist class, to whom they stand as propertyless, wealth-producing slaves. Class consciousness must be the basis of all revolutionary political action, and it is a tremendous driving force, wherever it is developed. It germinates from a mixture of experience and the study of Marxian economics. Without class consciousness as arriving force all the varied activities of the proletariat to better their conditions must necessarily be weakened in power.

Our exploiters, the capitalist class, hold and will continue to keep as long as they can, the whole edifice of society as a means to conserve and further their own class interests. It is only because they have the POLITICAL POWER that they wield such force as they do. It is obvious, then, that no action whatever on the part of the long-oppressed proletariat will emancipate the workers from wage-slavery other than the capture of political power for the purpose of overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism.

An unbreakable sense of working-class solidarity can only spread at the same rate as socialist understanding develops among all sections of the workers. The Socialist Party constantly attempts to foster this unity in its work of analysing capitalism and its class structure and presenting the socialist alternative to present society. Now so long as the working class think that socialism is impossible, then it is impossible. And as they accept the very existence of capitalism, and the priorities and fundamentals of the system, as evidence in favour of keeping it in being, they continue to think that socialism is impossible, undesirable, insane 

The Function of Debt (video)

 He keeps referring to the so-called National Debt being “our” debt and that “we” have to pay the interest on it. But it is not our debt, something the working class owes.

 It is the debt of the capitalist state. Its function, within the capitalist economy, is to cover government spending which would otherwise have to be covered by higher taxation. Parenti seems to imply that it could be covered by the government simply creating more money. The government could do this — and governments have — but this doesn’t create any new wealth. If overdone it depreciates the unit in which wealth is expressed (inflation) and so causes a rise in the general price level. Which, if tax thresholds remain the same, amounts to an increase in taxation. More info at:

Cooking the Books II: The National Debt: whose debt? – worldsocialism.org/spgb

Class War Battleground

Capitalism has become a very complicated affair, far too complicated to allow of the personal management of the capitalists. Hence various institutions necessary to their maintenance have come into being. The most important of these institutions is Parliament, through which all the other institutions are controlled—for example, education, the media, and the armed forces. The capitalists propose certain representatives for Parliament, and the workers, carefully educated by the capitalist media to believe that they really represent working-class interests, obediently vote them in. These capitalist henchmen— Tory or Labour, it makes not the slightest difference—proceed to pass laws for the safeguarding of their employers' interests.

It should be quite obvious that the whole power of the capitalists lies in a government that can summon the inevitable deciding factor, force, when needed. Therefore the only logical thing for the workers to do is to capture that government, and so in a constitutional manner gain control of the armed forces. This can only be accomplished when the majority of the working class have reached class-consciousness—in other words, when the bulk of the workers have arrived at a complete understanding of their position as wage-slaves under the existing system of society. They will then utilise their powers of voting to further their own interests instead of the interests of a class that has always ruthlessly oppressed them.

Socialism can only be realised by the success of the working class in its struggle against the owning class. The socialist movement is built upon the facts of this class struggle, a struggle to uphold the interests of their class in the daily conflict with employers.

It does not depend upon the workers’ state of mind. The struggle is bound to exist whether it is recognised or not. The existence of a body of the population with no means of living but that of working for the group of owners —that fact alone denotes a class struggle. The workers cannot take action to seek work and wages without displaying the conflict of interests between them and employers, and the inevitable struggle that is involved in it. The never-ceasing battles over details of wages and hours are the actual result of the conflict of interests, and are inseparable from the struggle of the working class to live as wage-slaves in a society which allows them no other way of living as a class. Around the question of the job and work-place conditions, the workers are always compelled to struggle, and always will be while there is a working class dependent upon employers for existence. The economic battleground of the class struggle is limited to a guerrilla warfare. The employing class maintain their supremacy in the struggle because they have control of powers which enable them to defeat the workers. That power is political.

The workers are in the class struggle, but are not conscious of their interests. Hence they fight, blindly and vainly to improve their condition. Inside the unions, in political parties and in their everyday actions they do things which work to the capitalists’ advantage. They continue to act on lines which perpetuate the system that enslaves them, and support leaders and parties that work against the workers’ interests. The workers must recognise that the class struggle exists. They must become aware of their slave position, and the way out, if they are to prosecute the struggle to a victorious conclusion for themselves.  If the working class become conscious of their class interests and welfare, they will refuse to take actions which injure them.

Class consciousness was never more needed than now. To the Socialist Party, class consciousness is the breaking down of all barriers to understanding. Without it, militancy means nothing. The conflict between the classes is more than a struggle for each to gain from the other: it is the division which reaches across all others. The class-conscious worker knows where he or she stands in society. Their interests are opposed at every point to those of the capitalist class; their cause can only be the cause of revolution for the abolishing of classes. Without that understanding, militancy can mean little. It is not mere preamble that the Socialist Party’s principles open by stating the class division in capitalism: it is the all important basis from which the rest must follow.

Working Girl Blues

 

Most People and Socialism

 

Most people think that whichever government is elected it will make no real difference to their lives. Most people are right.

 

Most people think that political leaders are dishonest careerists. Most people are right.

 

Most people think that the world is in a mess: millions unemployed, homeless and house repossessions, kids on the streets, a collapsing health service, wars, ecological destruction, countless millions starving while farmers are paid to let food rot. Most People are right.

 

Most people think that little can be done to change it. They’re wrong.

 

Society does not have to be like this. We live under a system where:

· Production is for profit, not primarily for need.

· The richest 10 per cent own over half of all personal marketable wealth.

· The richest one per cent own three times as much as the poorest 50 per cent added together.

· The economy is run to make the rich stay rich at the expense of the poor.

 

The world market can never be run in the interest of the majority of us who produce the wealth but do not possess the major resources. No tinkering with the profit system by any government can ever make it comfortable, secure and happy for the majority of us.

 

All of the politicians in this election are asking you to vote for them so that they can run capitalism—continue the mess—carry on putting profit before needs—piling on the misery. 

It is all very well being against austerity but the cruel fact is that, when capitalism is going through one of its recurring crises, there is no alternative within the system to austerity. It is not the government that is to blame but the capitalist system. In imposing austerity all that governments are doing is what is required by the way capitalism works.

Of course austerity should be resisted to the extent that it can be – that’s what trade unions and such organisations are for – but without illusions. The most that can be achieved is a few mitigations here and there or a different distribution of the cuts, but they cannot be avoided. This is not defeatism. It is realism. The only alternative to the present austerity is neither a change of economic policy nor a change of government. It is a change of system. Socialism is the only realistic alternative to the present austerity. That’s what those who call themselves socialists should be advocating. Whatever job a worker does, and whatever the pay for it, does not change the facts of their class position in capitalist society. Capitalism is divided; on one side are the workers, who sell their abilities for a wage, and on the other the capitalists, who buy those abilities.

The interests of those two groups have always been opposed, and that will stay as long as capitalism lasts. Only a basically different society can bring us social harmony.

 

What we need is a new way of running society based on:

· The common ownership of all resources by the whole community, not just a rich minority.

· Democratic control of the community by everyone, without distinction of age, race or sex, instead of rule by unelected company directors or state bureaucrats.

· Production purely for use, not profit.

· Free and equal access to all goods and services—an end to the market and to money.

 

Only the Socialist Party stands for genuine socialism.

 

Support for  the Socialist Party means that:

· You reject the policies of the profit system.

· You understand and want the real socialist alternative.

· You do not need leaders to do your thinking and run society for you.

All Hail to the Market (music)

 

Trapped in Wage Slavery

 

The more a person ponders the present social system, and the facts of working-class existence under capitalism, the more its realities show that the root cause of the many evils of to-day is nothing else but the class-ownership and control of the means of living. It is out of that class-ownership spring the wage-slavery, exploitation, misery and poverty, and the innumerable evils that arise from this system of production for profit.

Our chief function in life to-day is to work— and that to produce a surplus-value for an idle and parasitic class of exploiters. We work to live, but to most of us, it seems as though we live chiefly to work. Our masters, owning the means of living, own and control our lives.

Under capitalism, the means of wealth production—factories, farms, mines, media, means of communication and transportation—are owned and controlled by a small minority of the world's population. The world is run for the purpose of accumulating profits for that capitalist minority. In the pursuit of profit, the needs, feelings, hopes and dreams of the vast majority will inevitably be neglected. 

In socialism, people will be free. The most basic social freedom of all is free access to the goods and services we need. Socialism means that the common store of global wealth, including all services and the widest artistic opportunities, will be free to all. There will be no money. Each will take from what is available according to their needs, just as all will give to society according to their abilities. Co-operative, democratic human freedom will prevail.

With this economic freedom from the shackles of the market will come a profound emotional freeing of people from the burden of living in fear of powers beyond them. No more bosses, no more gods, no more money-worship, no more State, leader-free and class-free humanity will be liberated to explore what we want to make of ourselves. The dreams which had previously been confined to utopian visions will be on the social agenda.

Why just fight against the attacks of austerity and cutbacks which are continual and relentless given the present way of organising society? Instead let’s work together for a totally new system, one where the resources of the planet belong to everyone rather than to a tiny class of super-rich (the one percent as they’re often called nowadays). Where production takes place to meet human needs rather than the profits of the few. Where effort is put into producing food, housing, clothing and the other things and services we need, rather than wasted on advertising, armed forces and the paraphernalia of the money system, such as credit cards, banks and insurance. Where people are free of the oppression and exploitation caused by class and state.

Don’t be satisfied with reforms. If you think the arguments above show that the present system, capitalism, does not serve the interests of the vast majority, consider supporting the Socialist Party in our fight to replace capitalism with a global socialist society.

It is all very well being ‘against austerity’ but the cruel fact is that, when capitalism is going through one of its recurring crises, there is no alternative within the system to austerity. It is not the government that is to blame but the capitalist system. In imposing austerity all that governments are doing is what is required by the way capitalism works.

Of course, austerity should be resisted to the extent that it can be – that’s what trade unions and such organisations are for – but without illusions. The most that can be achieved is a few mitigations here and there or a different distribution of the cuts, but they cannot be avoided.

This is not defeatism. It is realism. The only alternative to the present austerity is neither a change of economic policy nor a change of government. It is a change of system, from minority ownership and production for profit to common ownership and production directly to meet people’s needs, in a word, to socialism.


Socialism is, quite literally, the only realistic alternative to the present austerity. That’s what those who call themselves socialists should be advocating. Enough of ‘People’s Budgets,’ ‘Tax the Rich,’ ‘Make the Bosses Pay’ and other such reformist nostrums. Let’s campaign for socialism.

It's My Union (music)

 As the government prepares legislation to curtail the power of trade unions to take industrial action, this song reminds us where our loyalties should lie. 

The Socialist Party Agenda

 

Most people do not know much about the Socialist Party. Certainly, many people have heard the word “socialist" and imagine that it has something to do with the nationalised industries or dictatorships such as the former Soviet Union and China. It is understandable that many people regard “socialism" as just another political cliché, used to win votes for Labour politicians, but has very little meaning.

The Socialist Party stands solely for socialism because we do not think that the present social system — capitalism — can ever be made to work in the interests of the majority of people. This is not the fault of government policies, but of the present social system in which they are operating. Capitalism always puts the needs of the minority who own and control the factories, farms, offices, mines, media, and the means of wealth production and distribution, before those of the vast majority — we, the working class — who produce the wealth, but own little more than our ability to work, which we have to sell for wages or salaries.

It is a hard but undeniable fact that no political party — including the Socialist Party — can legislate to humanise capitalism or make it run in the interests of the wage slaves. That's why it’s time for you to stop giving your votes to politicians who stand for the profit system. None of them can solve unemployment, which has increased steadily under both Labour and Conservative governments, despite their proclaimed recipes for economic success. None of them will provide decent housing for everyone. None of them will end with hypothermia. None of them will prevent thirty million people from starving to death each year. None of them will end the threat of human annihilation as a result of war, because militarism is inevitable within a system based upon the market, trade and ferocious competition. Why waste your vote on parties that cannot make any of these urgently needed changes? Why go on in the hope that a miracle will happen and the insanity of the profit system will be put right?

So what's the socialist alternative? We say that the resources of society must be taken into the hands of the whole community — and by that, we don't mean the state, but all of us, organised together, consciously and democratically.

In a socialist society, we will produce for use, not profit. This means producing food to feed the world's population, not dumping it if it cannot be sold profitably. Producing for use means ending the colossal waste of resources on armies, armaments, trade, banking and insurance, and all the other social features which are only necessary within capitalism; it means devoting human energies and natural resources to producing the best of what people really need and want. By running society on the basis of common ownership, democratic control and production for use we can all have free access to all goods and services.

Two points must be made clear to you.

 We have made no promises; we have not asked for your support. Indeed, the Socialist Party does not want your support unless you are convinced that the case for socialism is a sensible one and is in your interest. Socialism can only be established when a majority of workers understand and want it, so there is no point in seeking support on any other basis.

Secondly, you will have noticed that what we are advocating is different — it has never been tried. Starmerites have nothing new to offer. The Labour Party, if elected, will continue its futile exercise of trying to reform capitalism. The Tories, if given a chance, will pursue their vicious policy of dancing to the tune of profitability while human needs are ignored. Thatcher’s “Victorian values”, Starmer’s “consensus politics" and Corbyn’s “Keynesian” reformism have all been tried — they’ve failed. This is the only organisation which is making a proposal to transform world society from the chaos and waste of the market into the co-operative democracy of production for use.

The socialist idea can be summarised. Do you agree with the following statements?

★    CAPITALISM puts profits for the few before the needs of the many.

★ LABOUR governments and proposals to reform the profit system cannot establish socialism.

★ SOCIALISM means a society of common ownership and democratic control where production is solely for use — not profit.

★ WHEN a majority of workers — including the quarter of the electorate who did not vote last time, the disillusioned members of the old parties and those who have turned to the nationalists — understand and want socialism, the new system can be established immediately.

If you think that the above statements are wrong, please take the trouble to tell us why. If you agree with us, then why not take the next step and contact the Socialist Party?

Where is our James Connolly (music)

 A song reminding us of the union organiser James Connolly and not the nationalist insurrectionist