Work for Socialism—Now

 

One of the chief causes of the disagreement between the Socialist Party and other political parties claiming to be socialists is that we tell the workers that there can be no solution except by the establishment of the socialist commonwealth; that the capitalist politicians, of whatever label, desire to maintain the capitalist state.  Under no circumstances will we beg or appeal to them—our class enemies—to do something which we know they will not do. Working people must accomplish their own emancipation, organised as a socialist party, independent of and hostile to all other parties. That emancipation will never be obtained otherwise. Capitalism is hell for the workers. There is only one way by which they can get out of it, and that is by organising for the revolution, by joining the party of the revolution, The Socialist Party.

Search long enough and you’ll find other political organisations which mouth off once a decade about free access or the abolition of the wages system, but you’ll search a lot longer before you find any which never align themselves with some attempt to rearrange capitalism.  Our opposition to reformism is well grounded because reforms are by their nature divisive and therefore work against the vital condition of working-class unity. The only interest guaranteed to be shared by all is an interest in ending their position as wage slaves.

The Socialist Party holds that parties which advocate reforms attract reformists, not Socialists; perpetuate the illusion that capitalism can be reformed satisfactorily; and end up being swamped by reformist elements.

We define a reform as a politically-implemented measure and so don’t include wage increases as a “reform”, or wages struggles as “reformist”, even if these are still changes within capitalism. We are all in favour of workers struggling to get the best deal they can for the sale of their labour power to employers. The Socialist Party in declining to put forward a programme of immediate demands does not take up the untenable position that the position of the workers under capitalism is such that they could not be worse off if they gave up the struggle to defend their wages and working conditions; nor do we maintain that reforms are valueless. What we do maintain is that reform programmes inevitably attract reformists, and produce reformist organisations incapable of working for socialism; that only by working directly for socialism will it be achieved; that parties lacking solid socialist support and depending on reformists cannot achieve socialism even if they obtain control of the political machinery; that reforms cannot end the subject-position of the working class although they may be of small temporary or sectional benefit; that the small value of the reforms obtainable by reformist political action is In no way commensurate with the years of work and the volume of effort required to achieve them and that incidentally, the capitalists will give concessions more readily in an endeavour to keep the workers away from a growing socialist movement than they will in response to the appeals of bodies based on programmes of reforms.

There are but two classes in society—the producers of wealth and the master class. If by a trade union or any other effort the working class succeed in securing a larger share of the product of their labour, it must necessarily be at the expense of the master class. Competition among the latter compels them to be always on the lookout for means whereby the cost of production may be reduced and profits increased. Under capitalism the working class are poor. Some get a “fair” wage and are poor; some get a sweated wage and are poor; others are unemployed and get no wage at all. They are all poor.

We assert that the working class has no concern with the advocacy of reforms. If it is claimed that reforms, temporary though they may be in their effect, are needed, then the surest and quickest way to secure them is to organise for socialism and for socialism alone. Then the master class will throw reforms to the working class as an “antidote.”

The work of the socialist is to build up a socialist party, clear in the knowledge of the irreconcilability of the interests of the wage worker and the master, ever warning the working-class of the pitfalls in the shape of “labour” parties strewing the path which leads to emancipation from wages, ever teaching the slaves of capitalism that only by the overthrow of the present system of society and the establishment of the socialist commonwealth can the various evils confronting the working-class be removed. In this country, The Socialist Party of Great Britain alone stands for the Revolution. The Socialist Party is the only Party which at its formation and ever since has declined to side-track the working class by advocating palliatives.

We will sing one song (music)

 

This is our planet. We want it back

 

We need to abolish the out-moded and old-fashioned division of the world into nation states. Instead we need to cooperate on a world basis to meet our material needs and energy requirements. Only in a socialist society will the community be able to make decisions about energy production which are based on what is safe and in the human interest instead of decisions based on, and limited by, economic considerations. Only in a socialist society, when human beings can relate to each other as one family and not as units of labour to be exploited or national enemies to be destroyed, will the threats of environmental or military destruction really be removed. Socialism needs mass understanding and support — and then the world will be changed.  We in the World Socialist Movement can envisage a socialist party growing in the future along with many other expressions of working class organisation including trade unions and workers’ councils. We have never stood aloof from the industrial scene and class struggle, as our critics keep repeating until such claims have become an urban legend for many on the Left. However, what we strictly adhere to is that decisions about industrial disputes and work-place agreements are to be made by those directly involved and not by outside-the-union political parties.

The working class will organise itself to expropriate those who live parasitically upon it. It will link itself with the workers of every country, to achieve this internationally, when the workers understand their class-interests. Force is the foundation of capitalist domination, and that force is obtained through Parliament; capitalist control there means capitalist control everywhere. The workers therefore have nothing to gain by supporting any party which seeks to maintain that control. Concessions and reliefs may have been granted in the past by both parties, but none of these concessions, none of these vaunted reliefs have altered the general position of the workers in society. They are still slaves, and while Conservatism, or Labourism has their loyalty they will remain slaves. The workers alone can free themselves from the burden of their condition—this they can do when they wish by organising on a class basis. The SocialistParty preaches the abolition of the private ownership of the means of life. That is the only way of ending the war of classes.

‘The Socialist Party seeks to build an inclusive united working class movement as the next stage in the class struggle. Socialist Party members understand that a shorter work week and the creation of a new union organisation will not topple the capitalist system. But, as a first step, it would provide an example and a base of operations. The object is to continue the education of the worker, to secure badly-needed immediate improvements in working conditions, and, thus, through the organisation, to further the solidarity of the working class and to prevent premature violence. The workers’ revolt can commence on a regional basis, the socialist revolution must be national, continental, and, ultimately, world-wide. Let us determine that that demand for a new idea in the workers’ minds shall not be the sterile idea of nationalism but with the one fruitful conception for humanity, the idea of socialism, the aim will be to make the whole earth a common human possession.

The immediate task is to make socialists and the conditions for propaganda have never been more favourable. After the most devastating war in history, capitalism is still torn by dissension and struggle. It is as useful to write in dust as to work for peace on a capitalist basis. The way to prevent war is to establish socialism. Let us not bow our heads and complain of betrayal; let us organise together for the establishment of a worldwide society—Socialism. A socialist world is possible now, to-day. Make it a certainty by joining the Socialist Party to-day. Workers, for your own sakes and for humanity's sake study socialism. Then, when you understand it, you will organise to establish it and so emancipate yourselves from the shackles of wage-slavery. Clearer than ever before stands out the great fact that there is no hope for real peace in the world until these various sections of workers recognise the common fundamental character of their slavery and set to work to remove it, thus ending the enslavement of the human race by the establishment of socialism.

Chomsky on wage slavery (video)

 

The Workers Will Decide

 

We live in a society which is dominated by the principle of competition and divided into the capitalist class and working class. Just as there is struggle between workers and capitalists there is also struggle between capitalists of one country and capitalists of another. We therefore find antagonistic nation states all competing with each other to secure and expand their national economic interests and political ambitions. To do so. one state must gain at the other's expense. This leads to conflict and, when diplomatic methods have failed, to war. Humanity needs to scrap the artificial division of the world's people into social classes, national states, political units and economic blocs — to scrap the social system which is the cause of war in the modern world.

In socialism there will be no money, no buying and selling at all, nor any system of barter. Instead people will be free to go into the shopping malls and take whatever they want, without payment and without being rationed.

The world can be run in this way because we already have the technical know-how to produce more than enough of the things people want and need. But for the moment money still functions as a form of rationing. If you can't afford something, you go without. That is why people starve, why families are condemned to live in slums, and why men, women, and children throughout the world are deprived and have their lives ruined. Yet the stupid thing about it is that the money system is not the result of scarcity in the world today but it is the cause of that scarcity. All the evidence shows that food, for example, is not produced in sufficient quantities to adequately feed the world’s population not because man lacks the resources to do this but for the disgusting reason that no profits can be made out of hungry people.

Of course, socialism involves such a complete change in the way in which the world is organised that it can only be put into practice when all the factories, mines, transport systems, shops, and so on are owned by mankind and used for the benefit of the entire world population. That is why we say that in socialism unemployment will reach such massive proportions. The whole system of employment, of a class of bosses buying our energies with wages and then setting us to work for themselves, will be replaced by voluntary, co-operative effort by all members of society. At the same time one of the first priorities in a socialist world will be to get rid of the boring and repetitive tasks which today make so much work unpleasant and replace them with alternative methods.

Socialism must be a world community without frontiers. It can not be set up in one country or even in one part of the world. This means that, just as there will be no buying and selling between individuals in Socialism, so there will be no trade between different countries. Production in socialism will involve a worldwide effort to produce what is wanted and since every region will be working towards this end (and will participate in the democratic processes used to decide what is needed and in what quantities) naturally every group of people will have free access to what is produced.

Perhaps you think that mankind is 'too lazy’ or 'too greedy' to make socialism work, or you might imagine that everything we suggest conflicts with 'human nature’. But, of course, such views are just prejudices unless you have some evidence to show that humanity is unsuited to live in a socialist society. Socialists are always open to reasoned argument but all our investigations so far have led us to the conclusion that socialism is not just a good idea but also is urgently needed to solve many of the problems which now worry us.

People are social and our capacity for cooperation and adaptation allows us to envisage and build a world beyond the current economic and political system which many regard as unchangeable. Capitalism is beginning to become a dirty word again. People have begun to protest against the profit system and the effect it is having on the quality of life. An unorganised anti-capitalist rebellion can only end in disaster out of which, either the present elite reassert their control or a new ruling class would take advantage of the chaos to gain power. If we are going to get rid of capitalism, the people have to do it by a democratic structure. We need to organise ourselves collectively to create a state-free world society, one without passports and borders.

Should I ever be a soldier (music)

 

The Class War - The Greater War

 

The Socialist Party devised the slogan 'One World" as a concise description of the society we are striving for. Socialism means that the whole world will operate as a single productive system where goods and services will be produced so that people can use them freely without resorting to buying and selling. It also means that the people of the world will be united on the only solid basis for achieving this end—by the resources of the world (the means of producing wealth) being owned in common and democratically controlled by mankind as a whole. "One World”, then, represents an entirely different vision of the future to such schemes as the “United Nations" or "Internationalism” which, as their names imply, attempt to improvise a patchwork from the fragments that capitalism makes of the world.

The world socialist commonwealth will be a social relationship of equality between all people with regard to the use of the means of production. No longer will there be classes, governments and their state machinery, or national frontiers.  There never has been, and never can be, socialism in just one country because its material basis is the world-wide and interdependent means of production that capitalism has built up. The bulk of the wealth produced in the world today is produced by the co-operative labour of the millions employed to operate these means of production. What is needed now, to establish socialism, is a conscious political decision on the part of these millions across the world to run society in their own interests.

Democratic control will involve the whole community in making decisions about the use of the means of production. Instead of government over people there would be various levels of democratic administration. from the local up to regional and world levels, with responsibility being delegated if necessary to groups and individuals.

Production for use will bring production into direct line with human needs. Without money, wages, buying and selling there will be a world of free access. Everyone will be able to contribute to society by working voluntarily, according to ability. Everyone will be able to take freely from whatever is readily available, according to self-defined needs. A democratic system of decision-making would require that the basic unit of social organisation would be the local community. However, the nature of some of the problems we face and the many goods and services presently produced. such as raw materials, energy sources, agricultural products, world transport and communications, need production and distribution to be organised at a world level. Corresponding to this, of course, there would be a need for a democratic world administration, controlled by delegates from the regional and local levels of organisation throughout the world.

Because political power in capitalism is organised on a territorial basis each socialist party has the task of seeking democratically to gain political power in the country where it operates. If it is suggested that socialist ideas might develop unevenly across the world and that socialists of only a part of the world were in a position to get political control, then the decision about the action to be taken would be one for the whole of the socialist movement in the light of all the circumstances at the time. It would certainly be folly, however, to base a programme of political action on the assumption that socialist ideas will develop unevenly and that we must, therefore, be prepared to establish “socialism” in one country or even a group of countries like the European Community.

For a start, it is an unreasonable assumption that socialist ideas will develop unevenly. Given the world-wide nature of capitalism and its social relationships, the vast majority of people live under basically similar conditions: and because of the world-wide system of communications and media, there is no reason for socialist ideas to be restricted to one part of the world. Any attempt to establish “socialism” in one country would be bound to fail to owe to the pressures exerted by the world market on that country's means of production. Recent experience in Russia, China and elsewhere shows conclusively that even capitalist states cannot detach themselves from the requirements of an integrated system of production operated through the world market.

Working Folk Unite (music)

 

We Call It Socialism

 The alternative to the present capitalist system of profit-seeking and monetary accumulation involves:

· the absence of any property rights, private or state, over natural and industrial resources needed for production;

· the existence of a non-coercive democratic decision-making structure;

· the guaranteed access for all to what they need to satisfy their needs;

· the orientation of production towards the direct satisfaction of real needs in a flexible and self-regulating way without the intervention of money and buying and selling;

· the organisation of work as a voluntary service under the democratic control of those working in the various production units.

We call this system “socialism”, but it is the content, not the name, that is important. In any event, it obviously has nothing in common with the state capitalist regimes (as in the former USSR or China) or proposals for state control (as by the Labour left) which are often erroneously called “socialist”.

The means by which the new society can be achieved are determined by its nature as a society involving voluntary co-operation and democratic participation. It cannot be imposed from above by some self-appointed liberators nor by some well-meaning state bureaucracy but can only come into existence as a result of being the expressed wish of a majority—an overwhelming majority—of the population. In other words, the new society can only be established by democratic political action and the movement to establish it can only employ democratic forms of struggle.

Because the present system is, as a system must be, an inter-related whole and not a chance collection of good and bad elements, it cannot be abolished piecemeal. It can only be abolished in its entirety or not at all. This fact determines the choice as to what we must do: work towards a complete break with the present system as opposed to trying to gradually transform it.

Gradual reform cannot lead to a democratic, ecological society because capitalism is an economic system governed by blind, uncontrollable, economic laws which always triumph in the end over political intervention, however well-meaning or determined this might be. Any attempt on the part of a government to impose other priorities than profit-making risks either provoking an economic crisis or the government ending up administering the system in the only way it can be—as a profit-oriented system in which profit-making has to be given priority over meeting needs or respecting the balance of nature. This is not to say that measures to palliate the bad effects of the present economic system on nature should not be taken but these should be seen for what they are: mere palliatives and not steps towards an ecological society.

The only effective strategy for achieving a free democratic society in harmony with nature is to build up a movement which has the achievement of such a society as its sole aim. We recognise a huge mistake among those wanting to see changes for the better — not that positive changes are undesirable but simply that tinkering with a mechanism can't be the best way to fix the problem. Anyone drawn to the idea and principles of socialism will not be looking to 'fix' any problem caused by capitalism, whether technological, scientific, or whatever, but will be wanting and seeking because it's obviously necessary if the planet is to remain a viable planet for survival, the end of capitalism.  Socialism has no borders. It is essentially global. It cannot be otherwise. The abolition of nations will not mean that cultural variety will be destroyed. Indeed, it is nationalism which all too often suppresses minority cultures. In a socialist society the richness of cultural customs will make the world a better place, just as the absence of armies and bombs and passports — all features of a world divided — will make the world secure.

 A socialist world will not be one in which there will be no problems left to solve. But, free from the fetters of production for profit, the sole basis of creating goods and services will be the satisfaction of human needs. Without several nations competing to make the same product, without rival research institutes in different nations each trying to make a discovery without others knowing what they know, the world will be able to unite its energies for the first time ever. The waste, duplication and tension of a society cut up into nations will give way to one world, one people and one common aim of mutual survival and comfort.

Mick Mcgahey - A working class man (music video)

 

A Needs-Oriented System

 Socialism is a vision of a world shared among us all, a world of common ownership with free movement for all. We live on a planet that is capable of providing all its inhabitants with the food, housing, health care, education and the other amenities of life that they need. But this does not happen. The economic system that exists all over the world today is capitalism where productive resources are owned and controlled by a few rich individuals, corporations states and whose rules of operation are ‘no profit, no production’ and ‘can’t pay, can’t have’. It is this system of production for profits that is the root cause of the world’s problems as it imposes that making profits has to take priority over meeting people’s needs and protecting the planet. It is clear that there can be no national solutions to these problems. The only way-out is global. It’s the world’s natural and industrial resources becoming the common heritage of all humanity so that they can be used to directly meet the needs of the world’s population on the basis of ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need’. Free of ownership by the few and the rule of ‘no profit, no production’, this is the only framework within which problems such as global warning, growing inequality and wars can be tackled for good.

All across the world the capitalist system plunders and pollutes the Earth’s non-renewable mineral and energy sources. All across the world it poisons the sea, the air, the soil, forests, rivers and lakes. All across the world it disturbs natural balances and defies the laws of ecology. Clearly this environmental destruction and waste cannot continue indefinitely, but it need not; it should not and must not. It is quite possible to meet the basic material needs of every man, woman and child on this planet without destroying the natural systems on which we depend and of which we are a part. 

We can adopt:

· Farming methods that preserve and enhance the natural fertility of the soil;

· The systematic recycling of materials obtained from non-renewable mineral sources;

· The reduced use of non-renewable energy sources (such as coal, oil and gas) while increasing the alternative sources based on natural processes that continually renew themselves (such as solar energy, wind power and tidal);

· The employment of industrial processes which avoid the release of toxic chemicals into the biosphere;

· The manufacture of durablegoods made to last and be repairable, not to be thrown away after use or deliberately to break down after a calculated period of time.

What stands in the way? Why isn’t this done? The simple answer is that, under the present economic system, production is not geared to meeting human needs but rather to the accumulation of monetary wealth out of profits. The whole system of production, from the methods employed to the choice of what to produce, is distorted by the imperative drive to pursue economic growth for its own sake and to give priority to seeking profits to fuel this growth without consideration for the longer term factors that ecology teaches are vitally important. The result is an economic system governed by blind economic laws which oblige decision-makers, however selected and whatever their personal views or sentiments, to plunder, pillage and pollute.

Not only are basic needs far from satisfied but much of what is produced is pure waste from this point of view—for example all the resources involved in commerce and finance, the mere buying and selling of things and those poured into armaments. If needs are to be met while at the same time respecting the laws of nature, then this capitalist system must go.

If we are to meet our needs in an ecologically acceptable way we must first be able to control production, to able to consciously regulate our interaction with the rest of nature—and the only basis on which this can be done is the common ownership of the means of production.

By common ownership we don’t mean state property. We mean simply that the Earth and its natural and industrial resources should no longer belong to anyone—not to individuals, not to corporations, not to the state. No person or group should have exclusive controlling rights over their use; instead how they are used and under what conditions should be decided democratically by the community as a whole. Under these conditions the whole concept of legal property rights, whether private or state, over the means of production disappears and is replaced by democratically decided rules and procedures governing their use.

A fully democratic decision-making structure must be an essential feature of the system that is to replace private and state capitalism. The centralised, coercive political state must be dismantled and replaced by a decision-making structure in which everyone is free to participate on an equal basis. It is possible to envisage, the local community being the basic unit of this structure. In this case people would elect a local council to co-ordinate and administer those local affairs that could not be dealt with by a general meeting of the whole community. This council would in its turn send delegates to a regional council for matters concerning a wider area and so on up to a world council responsible for matters that could best be dealt with on a world scale (such as the supply of certain key minerals and fuels, the protection of the biosphere, the mining and farming of the oceans, and space research). Given the replacement of the coercive political state by such a democratic decision-making structure, the network of productive units could then be geared to meeting needs. We deliberately use the word “geared” here because what we envisage is not the organisation of the production and distribution of goods by some central planning authority but the setting up of a mechanism, a system of links between productive units, which would enable the productive network to respond in a flexible way to the demands for goods and services communicated to it.

In the needs-oriented society we are describing here the concept of “profits” would be meaningless while the imperative to “growth” would disappear. Instead, after an initial increase in production needed to provide the whole world’s population with an infrastructure of basic services (such as farms, housing, transport and water supplies) production can be expected to platform off at a level sufficient to provide for current needs and repairing and maintaining the existing stock of means of production. What is envisaged is a society able to sustain a stable relationship with nature in which the needs of its members would be in balance with the capacity of nature to renew itself after supplying them.

In a socialist society all the resources of the earth, including the factories, mines, offices, land and the means of communication and transportation, will belong to everyone, regardless of colour, sex, age, or where one happens to live. All people will have free access to the goods and services which the world is able to produce.

There is power in a union (music)

 

A World to Gain

 

It is in the interest of all workers whatever their colour, nationality, or sex to recognise that the root of their problems lies in capitalism itself. The problems cannot be cured without its abolition. All workers must unite to bring to an end a system that sentences them to a lifetime of poverty, insecurity, conflict and hardship. Then, world-wide, all will work together, co-operating in producing everything that humanity requires to satisfy its needs. All mankind will live in harmony. National frontiers will be superseded, workers of different states will realise their identical economic interests as producers.

Competition under capitalism leads to false ideas about the burden of newcomers to native-born workers, who claim first pick on ‘our’ hospitals, ‘our’ housing, ‘our’ social security benefits. In fact, bad housing, hospital waiting lists, low pay and bad working conditions are universal problems. They are a consequence of the essential poverty of all people who depend on being employed in order to live. There was never a time when life was easy. Migrants did not create the problems. They arrive here with the false hope of escaping the same misery in their home countries, but find when they arrive here they have to share it and take the blame for it.

Since its inception, capitalism has drawn workers from poorer parts of the country and from abroad to more developed regions in order to satisfy its labour needs. And, as Marx said, capitalists require to also build up an industrial reserve army for the bosses to maintain their dominance in the job market and to control wage levels. All those people migrating are simply obeying the imperative that they must try to find a place to work. No amount of restrictions will change that fact.

The resentment against migrants is a class matter and such prejudice is inflamed by the many sections of the ruling class. Capitalism has sometimes been against immigration restrictions by promoting the free movement and availability of wage labour. But, at the same time, the capitalist social system is a fertile breeding ground for anti-foreigner policies. This may seem like a contradiction, but that is how it is, for capitalism is riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It cannot be a system of human harmony - division and conflict are in its very nature. Capitalism is a ‘dog eat dog’ world and will remain so until it is abolished.

The solution to the immigration crisis lies not with building fences, but with creating the conditions that do not necessitate people leaving their homes, their family, their friends and neighbours. The reality is that the solution is socialism. In the meantime, instead of undermining the ability of migrant workers to cross borders in search of work, migrants need to be unionised, uniting migrant workers alongside local workers in a collective struggle to maintain and improve upon wages and conditions. As long as workers are viewing migrants as the cause of their problems, they leave themselves divided and distracted.

The concern of working people over wages, unemployment, welfare and public services is totally legitimate. However, placing the blame on migrants does not address the causes of these problems or bring improvements to the situation. The problem is the capitalist system itself. The path to beginning to solve these problems is workers’ unity across ethnic, religious and national lines. It is vital that the trade unions make the recruitment of migrant labour a top priority.

 No worker, solely by birthright, has a guarantee to a secure, decent life under capitalism. It is wishful, utopian thinking to believe otherwise.

The Socialist Party stands for a system of society based upon the principle of each individual having access to what they need, as a pre-condition of social activity. That is, securing for each human being the food, healthcare and housing they need, as well as the cultural and social goods of life, should be the first priority of any sane society. Of course, each person getting what they need means that different people will get different things. People are, of course, born with different needs, so it is not a question of everybody getting the same. What the Socialist Party proposes is a different world. Wherein everyone could have more than enough of the things they require, so they need no longer fear to lose it; where meeting and exploring our different needs becomes a past-time and an end in itself; where without conflicts of power and dominance – because we co-operate voluntarily and democratically – there is no limitation set on, nor distortion of, our endeavour to understand what it means to be a part of the human race. In short, socialism will allow us to be treated as unique individuals. Only where we can equally and freely participate in the community can our own personality become harmoniously enriched. That is why in answer to this antagonism-ridden, people-divided, class-divided, nation-divided society, we proclaim the alternative, socialism, one world, one people.

Salt of the Earth (video)

 A Hollywood blacklisted film from the 1950s that contains a contemporary relevance to unions, strikes and the role of women.