The middle class

Marx uses the term “middle class”. In the Victorian period this term was used to refer to the bourgeoisie or capitalist class. In modern Marxist terminology the words “middle class” would be replaced by “bourgeois” and “bourgeoisie“ as appropriate.

Class is defined by the position in which you stand with regard to the means of production. In capitalist society there are two basic classes: those who own and control the means of production and those who own no productive resources apart from their ability to work. The job you do, the status it might have, the pay you receive and how you chose to spent it, are irrelevant as long as you are dependent on working in order to live. This means we are living in a two-class society of capitalists and workers.

The existence of a “middle class” is one of the greatest myths of the twentieth century. In the last century, the term was used by the up-and-coming industrial section of the capitalist class in Britain to describe themselves; they were the class between the landed aristocracy (who at that time dominated political power) and the working class. However, the middle class of industrial capitalists replaced the landed aristocracy as the ruling class and the two classes merged into the capitalist class we know today. In other words, the 19th century middle class became part of the upper class and disappeared as a “middle” class. The term, however, lived on and came to be applied to civil servants, teachers and other such white-collar workers.

Having to work for an employer was how Marx defined the working class. Commodities express the amount of labor time embodied in them and that is how Marx has defined money.

The traditional division between “working class” and “middle class” implies that there is a conflict between these two groups, with the middle class being better paid, educated and housed, often at the expense of the working class. In order for the left liberal politics to maintain its appeal, the enemy had to be found, not in the abstract workings of a social system, but in the concrete everyday realities. The owning class is too remote to be tangible, and certainly too remote to be vulnerable. So the left reformers dragoon the “middle-class” into the role. Their immediate enemy is the “middle class” ie the lower /middle echelons of management, civil servants, social workers, teachers and all the other functionaries of capital. Making a supposed middle-class into an enemy is as divisive as anything dreamed up by the owning class.

Revolution! Not Reforms!

Capitalism is a disgusting social system. Tens of millions of people have been killed in capitalism’s wars and countless hundreds of millions more have died from preventable disease, starvation, and poverty. This toll of human life and misery has had the sole purpose of keeping a tiny minority of the population in wealth and privilege.  Experience has shown that for all the fine talk of reformists wanting to make the system fairer, the system has ended up changing them. Revolution means getting rid of the bosses, getting rid of working for a wage or salary, getting rid of the whole rotten buying and selling system. It means that people will freely come together to produce what is needed and will freely take from the abundant products of their labour. It will involve the abolition not only of the ruling class but also doing away with their protector, the State.

In order to accomplish the socialist revolution, the working class must have a political party. There are several parties around that call themselves “communist” or “socialist”. The Socialist Party has important disagreements with them. These parties all have one thing in common – they employ fine-sounding revolutionary Marxist phrases but underneath they are defenders of capitalism, either as a mixed-economy or a centralised command economy. Socialism is our programme for the working class. First of all, there is no “common interest” between the workers and the capitalists. What we mean by class is how the person makes a living. The two classes in our society are the employing class, which owns the factories, banks, stores, etc., and the working class which, of course, works for them. 

The idea of socialism is powerless without a social force powerful enough to see to its implementation. There is but one such force in modern society – the working class (the proletariat.) the working class cannot escape its exploitation by capitalism without socialism. Without socialism, the working class is reduced to a constant struggle against the effects of capitalism because without socialism the system of capitalism remains intact. Socialism is powerless without the working class and the working class cannot advance without socialism.

The working class’ struggle for survival and an improved standard of living is a constant threat to the employer’s search for profits. The interests of the owning class is acquiring profit from our labour. We create a surplus which goes to the owning class and gets recorded in the annual reports as profits and dividends. The struggle between the working class and the owning class, are opposite interests, is a fact of life regardless of how the media try to mask it. As workers, our task is to make sure that our class isn’t forever on the losing end of this class struggle. The bosses, landlords, and politicians are organised to take from us and keep us in place.  Likewise, we must be united to defend ourselves, supporting each other’s battles in the class war and creating mutual solidarity against all the racial and sexual prejudices that divide us. The capitalist class fears unity within our class more than anything else. A united class, clear on its goals, is unstoppable, and the capitalists realise this. This is why they constantly seek to promote divisions in our class. The old are pitted against the young, men against women, the native-born against the foreign-born.

We cannot learn all we need to know from our direct experience.  Sound socialist knowledge and understanding is needed. The Socialist Party calls for study and discussion but let’s not confuse education with book worship. Workers learn from their own experience but this education does not happen spontaneously. Agitation must not be mere phrase-mongering “calls to action” based on little or no political analysis. We exist not as something separate from the working class, not as some leadership for others to follow, but as part of the class working for our own liberation. If you agree with what we have to say, why not join with us to hasten the day of capitalism’s destruction? The goal of the Socialist Party in the electoral field or any other one, is to raise consciousness for revolution and socialism. A revolution that overthrows capitalism and establishes socialism is the only way to solve problems facing workers. A revolution of this kind requires a mass socialist party that only the working class can form. It is not a business-as-usual political party under a new label. We are told that a vote for the Labour Party or Democratic Party is a vote for working people. Experience of history tells us otherwise. We need a real socialist party to fight for our political and economic freedom. Then, we’ll be on our way to a better future.

In our numbers and in our hands lies the power to make our future.

The future is socialism

A better world is possible.  People around the world have always sought a future without war, exploitation, inequality, and poverty. They have sought a system in which they control their own lives and determine their own destinies.  The Socialist Party is dedicated to the establishment of socialism. Only socialism has the solutions to the problems of capitalism that we all face. The working class confronts a vicious and amoral enemy: the capitalist class and we are misled as to our real interests, blinded by the propaganda of fear and the politics of scapegoating. Every movement for progress is challenged by the power of the ruling class and their paid hacks in the media. Our world is threatened by the ravages of capital expansion and accumulation. All this is normal to the functioning of the capitalist system. We can’t and won’t let this continue. We need real solutions, real democracy, and real unity and not the empty promises of the bosses and their politicians. We, the workers, need to take political power from the hands of the wealthy few.  We need socialism.

The capitalist class owns the factories, the banks, and transportation, the means of production and distribution. Workers sell their ability to work in order to acquire the necessities of life. Capitalists buy the workers ability to labour, but pay them only a portion of the wealth they create. Because the capitalists own the means of production, they are able to keep the surplus wealth created by workers above and beyond the cost of paying workers wages and other costs of production — unpaid labor that the capitalists appropriate and use to achieve ever-greater profits. This surplus is the source of profit. These profits are turned into capital which capitalists use to further exploit the sources of all wealth — nature and the working class.

Capitalists are compelled by competition to seek to maximise profits. The capitalist class as a whole can do that only by extracting a greater surplus from the unpaid labour of workers, by increasing exploitation what capitalists often call increasing productivity. Under capitalism, economic development happens only if it is profitable to the individual capitalists, not for any social need or good. The profit drive is inherent in capitalism, and underlies or exacerbates all major social ills of our times. With the rapid advance of technology and productivity, new forms of capitalist ownership have developed to maximise profit and exploit new markets.

Capitalism's vested interests use the most potent weapon to divide workers – racism, nationalism, religion, and sexism – poisoned ideologies. The capitalists use this power to ensure the continued economic and political dominance of their class. It is a classic divide-and-conquer tactic. Spreading division within the working class weakens all movements and struggles. 

Workers always seek to solve the chronic ills they face. The working class is compelled to resist increased exploitation. The class struggle starts with the fight for wages, hours, benefits, working conditions, job security, and jobs. But it also includes an endless variety of other forms of fighting specific battles: resisting speed-up, picketing and strike action. When workers struggle against the capitalist class or any part of it on any issue with the aim of improving or defending their lives, it is part of the class struggle. This class struggle takes place in the work-place where commodities are produced and distributed. This is the economic side of the class struggle. The class struggle also has a political side. It exists in the realm of ideology, that is, between social and political ideas that justify the political and economic policies of the contending classes. There is no limit to the range of issues that are part of the class struggle. The class struggle reaches full class and socialist consciousness only when the mass political party is built under working-class leadership in order to win power and construct socialism. The class struggle in an immediate sense pits workers against a particular company at the point of production and against the capitalist class as a whole in broader social and economic struggles. The aim of the class struggle is the winning of power in order to construct socialism.

The working class is the only force capable of the struggle for full social progress and socialism. Capitalism's dependence on the working class to create all wealth gives it a strategic role in the production process and great potential power. The Communist Manifesto declared: Workers of the World Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains. From the smallest of class struggles to the largest, unity is the key to victory. This is the guiding principle of all unions and workers' movements: in unity is strength. Class-conscious organisation is the weapon of the working class.

Socialism is an economic system where the economy commonly owned and democraatically controlled, where the destructive competition of capitalism is replaced by its planned administration. Socialism doesn't mean nationalisation. Socialism will eliminate the waste of the capitalist system and the private/state appropriation of profit. Capitalism uses technological improvements to further exploit the working class; socialism uses technological improvements to increase productivity, to shorten working hours and to improve working conditions. Our planet has vast natural resources and productive industrial plants, extremely advanced technology and science, a huge reservoir of skilled workers with a tradition of initiative, innovation, and creativity. In a socialist society, the millions of people now unemployed, homeless, and under-employed could create more wealth for all to share to improve the lives of the majority.

 We see socialist society as a commonwealth of all working people, and where national and racial enmity and prejudice will be things of the past. A society where the essentials of life will be plentiful and readily available to all and the repressive apparatus of government will wither away leaving purely administrative functions. Social production and distribution of wealth would be according to the principles of the motto, “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” We shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. 

The alienation of workers

There exists an anti-working class prejudice peddled with no evidence other than anecdote and encouraged by the capitalist class since Victorian times that divides workers into 'deserving' and 'undeserving' categories. The real scroungers are the parasitic capitalist class.

The capitalist class does not produce any wealth, they steal it from the surplus value, created by wage-enslaved labour. Their capital when they invest is 'dead labour' already plundered. They are collectively economic parasites as a social class, in a system designed for their continued dominance. The working class is collectively the only useful class as they produce all wealth. Many of those workers presently unemployed or in poor health already worked and in many cases, their health is a consequence of their previous occupations. Things cannot be allowed to improve for the poor, how else will they submit into waged slavery and how else will profit be derived for the parasite capitalist class?

Those who are unemployed, they constitute a 'reserve' which will always exist, it keeps wages lower, also as the capitalist class may need them in any economic upturn, although they will not give the Right to Work'. It is a better deal for the capitalist class to pay unemployment benefit and welfare in general than to provide enough wages for the workers to afford insurance or to face a social revolution.

Of interest here is, the output per worker in the advanced economies rose more than three times as fast as the rise in real wages, which were close to stagnation. The workers in the advanced industrialised countries were not being undercut by workers in the 'Third World'. They were being robbed even more by their employers in the advanced countries.

Time for an end to wage slavery. The last great emancipation is that of the working class. Time for a societal upgrade to an elite free, democratic, post-capitalist, production for use, free access society, owned and run by us all as part of truly equal humans.

Government bail-outs are nothing to do with 'socialism'.  Government bail-outs are state-capitalist measures in the interests of the capitalist class as a whole, even especially when they are pitched as and seem to be, helping workers. For workers, there is always a sting, whether to dampen wage demands (family allowances) or fob off social discontent (welfare state). They are ultimately a good deal for the capitalist parasite class and can be clawed back if profit erosion occurs.

Socialism does not exist and has never existed. Any top-down direction in capitalism is state capitalism. Socialism is a post-capitalist society.

The alienation of workers is not caused by what form representative capitalist democracy takes, government over the peoples of the world is not done in the interests of the majority, they just have to agree to be governed over and elect Tweedle Dee or Dum, but in the interests of the capitalist class. In capitalism, political parties represent the sectional interests within the capitalist class with all of them competing for political control of the state and its machinery of government.

The contradictions of life under capitalism have engendered deep-rooted feelings of frustration. The wealth pouring from the factories and the farms has not assured many of prosperity nor offered security about the future prospects. Instead, of an expected welcome release from burdensome toil, the prospects of automation and robots have become a source of anxiety, producing the threat of chronic unemployment and the spectre of a new recession to follow, rather than the promise of peace and plenty. No wonder people feel alienated.

The most pressing need facing humanity is to progress from the anarchy of capitalism to a post-capitalist society. The price to pay for delaying this task will be more poverty, increasing hunger, mounting disease, and continuing wars. To these has now been added the climate change and global warming which could make all the higher forms of life extinct.

Government only exists to run the affairs of the capitalist parasite class, however, they are organised, in state capitalist dictatorships in the absence of a domestic capitalist class, or otherwise. No government can do any more than govern over us in the interest of extracting profit from the exploitation of waged workers, for the benefit of a minority capitalist class.

The working class always vote against their class interest when they support any of the political parties of capitalism, whether allegedly Labour, or unashamedly Tory and misguided Leftist Leninism/ -state Trotskyism. (nationalisation = capitalism). Capitalism cannot be reformed in the interests of the working class. There is no benefit in the working class changing their support from one set of politicians to another. Capitalism is not like some benign country estate and it cannot be organised as if it were. It cannot put human welfare in the forefront of its concerns. It cannot be controlled by any leader or expert. It must produce problems like poverty, sickness, and war. Workers who are seduced into thinking that things would be different under a government of less abrasive personalities are deluding themselves. Western democracy is a choice between the same outcomes, government over you and social control of you for the benefit of the rich.

If you have to work for a wage or a salary in order to live, then you are a member of the working class.

1. The capitalist class owns and controls the means of production and distribution.

2. The working class neither owns nor controls the means of production and distribution.

3. As a result, the working class lives by producing wealth for the capitalist class.

The working class currently and slavishly, accepts the necessity of its dependence upon the capitalist class for permission to work for it, to get wages from it, and to buy means of consumption from it in order to live. The working class rationally resigns itself to continuous exploitation under capitalism as a tamed dog rationally continues serving its master to survive off its master’s scraps.

Tax is a burden upon the capitalist class. Your wage is the bottom line. If the nominal tax figure in your salary or wage check was abolished, your wage would be reduced by the same amount.

Taxation is a way of adjusting the bottom line so workers without dependents do not get the same wage (ration) as those with dependents. The other way is in work so called benefits wage subsidies for employers.

Incoming fellow workers are not stealing jobs. The enemy is the employer class.

“The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.” ― Voltaire

Wee Matt

No Palliatives, No Piecemeal Reforms

 

The entire capitalist world is currently in a period of great economic and social crises hurting the lives of millions while a small minority reaps super-profits. Piecemeal reforms cannot solve the problems our society faces.

To end crises, recessions, mass unemployment and poverty, to end wars and conflicts, to end exploitation of man by man, to end the present system which compels the many to work to produce wealth for a few, to end all racial, national and religious discrimination and persecution, to use planned production for the benefit of the overwhelming majority of our population, to release all productive forces throughout the world for the benefit of the vast majority of the earth’s population, to end the use of government power and its domination of working people, to build the democracy of socialism to replace the dictatorship of the capitalists,  to end the rule of the capitalist class and abolish the class struggle by abolishing capitalism, a system able to survive only by mass deception, tyranny, terror and war, to work for the common good and not the rule of wealth, to liberate working people from the rule of capitalism; to guarantee the rapid liberation of all mankind from the exploitation of Wall Street, to end capitalism by which the millions of the majority are compelled to sell their only commodity, labour power, for the profit of a small minority, to win the campaign for world socialism where every material resource for a socialist society exists and where all the technical productive forces are present, to develop the class-free society: “From each according to ability; to each according to needs.” These are the demands of the Socialist Party. To change society and end oppression, we need a plan to get from where we are now to liberation - a strategy that will work. Working people need political power. This power is the means to reorganise society in our own interests.

The misery and turmoil which exists throughout the world is caused by capitalism. The capitalist class, is a small class composed of those who own and control the financial institutions and means of production–the land, raw materials, machines, mines, mills, factories, farms. The working class, is made up of those who are deprived of the ownership of the means of production and therefore are forced to sell their labour power as a commodity to the capitalist class. The working class participates directly in production, transportation, communication, service, agriculture, and commerce. It is the class which creates the wealth of society and from which the capitalists extract surplus value. The ranks of the working class also encompass the reserve army of unemployed, including old and disabled workers and semi-permanently and permanently unemployed workers forced to live on the benefits system. 

Our ruling class have built an empire that spans the earth. Like vampires, they suck the blood of the workers. They live off the toil, land and natural resources of others. The capitalists have accumulated untold wealth based on the exploitation and robbery of working people. The  capitalist class own and control the big corporations. All of them are parasites. They control an empire that spans the globe. They control the political and cultural life. They finance a host of a host of business associations, institutions and think tanks that actively promote their strategic interests. They are puppet masters pulling the strings of their puppets - the Tories, the Labour Party, the Republicans and the Democrats - through a host of laws that ensure that the electoral process favours the rich, direct and indirect campaign contributions, outright bribery, cheating, and corruption, and by an army of lobbyists who are guardians of their interests. In order to safeguard the wealth they have robbed from us and insure more profits, it is in the interests of the capitalist class to have a divided working class A working class that is divided is one that is not capable of defending itself or fighting in its own interests. The capitalists have a vast array of tools of oppression to keep the working class divided, men are pitted against women, white people against non-white people, They continually promote discord among us to keep us weak, fighting among ourselves, fighting against our class brothers and sisters throughout the world. The ruling class attempts to keep us under their thumbs with their repressive state apparatus and ideological illusions.

The working class makes its living by selling its ability to work. The capitalists own the places and things that are used to create goods and services. They appropriate for themselves all that is produced by the collective labour of the working class. This gives rise to an irrepressible conflict, a clash of basic interests that can be solved by the working class taking all power into its own hands. Today the working class as a whole is characterised by a low level of class consciousness. While it's true that many workers are dissatisfied with the existing order of things, there is not a widespread understanding that the working class has a distinct set of interests that can only be addressed by the collective action of the class. In fact, while there is a widespread perception among working people that life for them and their children might well get harder, many workers, either do not view themselves as a part of the working class or have hopes of rising out of it altogether.

 

The Socialist Party seeks no power inside of capitalism. Our task is to work for the realization of socialism – the association of free and equal producers. We are an organisation that fights for class unity. We see that only with a united working class can an effective fight be waged against the ruling capitalist class. This unity must not be based on paper or words, but in actual facts – in deeds. Socialism is not some Utopian scheme. Capitalism itself has created the economic conditions for socialism. Today there is social production but no social ownership. Socialism will bring social ownership of social production, redirecting the productive capacity to meet human needs, the next rational step in the further development of social evolution. The main means of production will be the property of society, not a handful of capitalists

the Independence Referendum

Nationalism and the referendum increasingly dominates Scottish politics and its newspapers. We now have the date of the referendum which will be the 18th September 2014when Scot voters will be asked the Yes/No question: "Should Scotland be an independent country?"


By re-drawing the map the nationalists promise economic prosperity. The unionists prophesise economic catastrophe. Socialists say experience shows that either way, the working class will lose out.

Independence is nothing but a dead-end. It doesn’t bring us closer to socialism, only farther away from it. Separation is no stepping stone to socialism, despite what phony “Marxist” theoreticians may say. It maintains and reinforces the divisions within the working class – a real boon for the capitalist class which do their best to keep us divided. The people on the Left who are pushing this option fall right into class collaboration. Under capitalism there is necessarily a division between rich and poor, a ruling class and the ruled, the class of capital and the class of wage-workers, and any attempt at uniting them must involve the acceptance of exploitation and oppression. It is glossed over with much talk of the shared culture. The experience of the poor living in a slum council estate is very different from that of the rich living in their country estates. Anyone on the Scottish Left who, therefore, combines the working class with the ruling class, calling on capitalist and worker to unite and fight for independence is not a Marxist or a socialist. Nationalism places the working class under the control of its ruling class and this means that socialism is abandoned. This process has been observed many times resulting in the the conclusion that national feeling is somehow stronger than socialism. The repeated triumph of national consciousness does not however prove that class consciousness is incapable of transcending national consciousness.

Some Scots claim that the Scottish nation has been a victim of English rule but the working class throughout Britain has been the subject of capitalist oppression. Nationalism divides our forces before our common enemy. The fight against the bosses has been a united struggle with workers joining together across all the regions of the UK. Nationalism is about organising and mobilising people on the basis of their national identity. Socialism is about organising and mobilising people on the basis of their class identity. It is class war between employers and employees not Scottish versus English.

Those who say that the main enemy is the English ruling class mislead workers in Scotland into thinking we have less to fear from the Scottish capitalist class. But the truth of the matter is that Scotland’s capitalists have been an integral part of the British bourgeoisie ever since the Union, a union to advance the interests of the aristocratic land-owners and the developing merchant and capitalist class. The Scottish ruling class sold out the rights of the people in Scotland for a hare in the spoils of the Empire. Scottish capitalists, be they big or small, are not any less a part of the British bourgeoisie than English capitalists. Now they simply want a re-division of the pie by re-writing the constitution. Those who would subordinate the class struggle to the struggle for independence, those who counter-pose national unity to class unity, help keep capitalism alive. Independence divides the working class against the international bourgeoisie and it chains workers to the interests of “their” bourgeoisie. No-one seriously considers that the SSP or Sheridan’s Solidarity constitute in any sense an independent political force. They are, in effect, merely propagandists for the Scottish bourgeoisie and its chosen party, the SNP.

An independent parliament has no answers for the working class and would continue to be used by the millionaires and multi-nationals to control and rule.There are no common interests between workers and their exploiters, whatever flag is waved. Nationalism and class struggle are irreconcilably opposed. A nation is simply capitalism with all its exploitation and alienation, parcelled out in a single geographical unit. It doesn't matter whether the nation is 'small, 'colonial', 'semi-colonial' or 'non-imperialist'. In Scotland some businesses has found new roots, hoping to be effective in getting workers to sacrifice themselves for the false goal of “building the national economy” through independence from Whitehall. Multinational interests can just as much thrive on smaller centralised interdependent states, rather than through the old concept of the powerful nation. Separatism only reproduce the same problems on a smaller but no less savage scale.

All nationalisms are reactionary because they inevitably clash with class consciousness and poison it with chauvinism. Working class co-operation, especially in this global age of capital movement across all borders, is necessary for a real defence of our co-workers, neighbours and communities. Socialists have long maintained that people have the right to live, work and travel wherever they choose. As internationalists, socialists oppose national borders, which serve to divide and segregate people. It is important to remember that this view has always been central to the international labour movement from its very beginnings long ago. It is time for labour to remember this vital part of its history.

In the Scottish independence referendum there will be two different forms of nationalism on offer. The British nationalism of a “No” vote. The Scottish nationalism of a “Yes” vote. We will be advocating a third choice - a spoiled ballot with the words “world socialism” written on it. The Socialist Party is committed to destroying the capitalist system, the root cause of all oppression. It aims to unmask the irrationality of nationalism and work to show up the void that is national self-determination. Only by ending capitalism and building a democratic socialist future can we end the nightmare of war, environmental chaos, national and ethnic division, poverty and inequality that capitalism thrives on. The Socialist Party aspires to liberate all humanity, across the boundaries of national identity.

Class Struggle and the Nation

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE

In the Communist Manifesto we read the following:

"Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie."

 This passage only means that the  British workers, for instance,  cannot wage the class struggle against the French capitalists, nor can the French workers wage the class struggle against the British  employers, but that the British  bourgeoisie and the power of the UK State can be attacked and defeated only by the British working class.

The nation naturally arises as a community of interests of the bourgeois classes. But it is the State which is the real solid organisation of the capitalist class for protecting its interests. The State protects property, it takes care of administration, puts the rmed forces in order, collects the taxes and keeps the masses under control. The "nations", or, more precisely: the active organisations which use the nation's name, that is, the pro-capitalist parties, have no other purpose than to fight for the conquest of a fitting share of influence over the State, for participation in State power. For  Big Business, whose economic interests embrace the whole State and even other countries, and which needs direct privileges, customs duties, State purchases and protection overseas, it is its natural community of interests, rather than the nation, which defines the State and its limitations.  State power is an instrument at the service of big capital.

Nations are not just groups of people who have the same cultural interests and who, for that reason, want to live in peace with other nations; they are combat organisations of the bourgeoisie which are used to gain power within the State. Every national bourgeoisie hopes to extend the territory where it exercises its rule at the expense of its adversaries; it is therefore totally erroneous to think that the bourgeoisie could through its own initiative put an end to these exhausting struggles, just as it is utterly out of the question that the capitalist world powers will usher in an epoch of eternal world peace, through a sensible settlement of their differences. Does the bourgeoisie really have an interest in putting an end to national struggles? Not at all, it has the greatest interest in not putting an end to them, especially since the class struggle has reached a high point. Just like religious antagonisms, national antagonisms constitute excellent means to divide the proletariat, to divert its attention from the class struggle with the aid of ideological slogans and to prevent its class unity.

 The struggle for socialism is a struggle for State power against the capitalist parties. State power is the fiefdom of the owning classes.  The workers  cannot free themselves, they cannot defeat capitalism unless it first defeats this powerful organisation. The conquest of political hegemony is not a struggle for State power; it is a struggle against State power. The social revolution which shall issue into socialism consists essentially of defeating State power with the power of the working class  organisation. This is why it must be carried out by the workers of the entire State. This common liberation struggle against a common enemy is the most important experience in the entire history of the life of the proletariat from its first awakening until its victory. The international character of the proletariat develops rapidly.

 The workers of different countries exchange theory and practice, methods of struggle and ideas, and they consider these topics to be matters common to all. The struggles, the victories and the defeats in one country have profound impacts on the class struggle in other countries. The struggles waged by our class comrades in other countries against their bourgeoisie are our affairs not only on the terrain of ideas, but also on the practical plane; they form part of our own fight and we feel them as such. The workers of the whole world perceives itself as a single army, as a great association which is only obliged for practical reasons to split into numerous battalions which must fight the enemy separately, since the bourgeoisie is organized into States and there are as a result numerous fortresses to reduce. This is also the way the press informs us of struggles in foreign countries: Occupy Movement, the Indignados, and the demonstrations on the streets of Rio or Phnom Penh are all of interest to our class organisation. In this manner the international class struggle becomes the common experience of the workers of all countries.

Through the overthrow of the State by the power of the working class majority, the State disappears as a coercive power. It takes on a new function: "The government of persons gives way to the administration of things." as Engels describes it in Anti-Dühring.

For the purpose of production, we need organisation and administration; but the extremely strict centralization such as that practiced by today's State is neither necessary nor can it possibly be employed in pursuit of that goal. Such centralisation will give way to full decentralisation and self-administration inside socialism.  According to the size of each sector of production, the organisations will cover larger or smaller areas; while bread, for example, will be produced on a local scale, steel production and the operation of railroad networks require regional-sized economic entities. There will be production units of the most various sizes, from the workshop and the local municipality to the district and the regions, and even, for certain industries, global . Those naturally-occurring human groups will they not then take the place of the vanished nation-states as organisational units? This may be the case in the beginning, for the simple practical reason, that they are communities of the same language and all of man's relations are mediated through language. Some regions will merge, others will dissolve.  All partially manage their own affairs and all depend upon the whole, as parts of that whole. National differences will totally lose the economic roots which today give them such an extraordinary vigour. The whole notion of autonomy comes from the capitalist era, when the conditions of domination led to their opposite, that is, freedom in respect to a particular form of domination.

The socialist mode of production does not develop oppositions of interest between nations, as is the case with capitalist competition and rivalry. The economic unit is neither the State nor the nation, but the world. This mode of production is much more than a network of national productive units connected to one another by an intelligent policy of communications and by international conventions; it is an organisation of world production in one unit and the common affair of all humanity. This material basis of the collectivity, organised world production, transforms the future of humanity into a single community.

 Linguistic diversity will be no obstacle, since every human community which maintains real communication with another human community will create a common language. Without attempting here to examine the question of a universal language, we shall only point out that today it is easy to learn various languages once one has advanced beyond the level of primary instruction. This is why it is useless to examine the question of to what degree the current linguistic boundaries and differences are of a permanent nature. Already we see English growing to be the lingua franca of the world. There cannot be independent communities of culture because every community, without exception, will find itself, under the influence of the culture of all of humanity, in cultural communication, in an exchange of ideas, with humanity in its entirety.

Powerful economic forces generate national isolation, antagonism and the whole nationalist ideology of the capitalist class. These features are absent among the working class. They are replaced by the class struggle, which gives the lives of the worker their essential character, and creates an international community in which nations as linguistic groups have no practical significance. Socialist tactics are based on the science of social development. The way a working class assumes responsibility for pursuing its own interests is determined by its conception of the future evolution of its conditions. Its tactics must not yield to the influence of every desire and every goal which arise among the oppressed workers, or by every idea that dominates the latter's mentality; if these are in contradiction with the effective development they are unrealisable, so all the energy and all the work devoted to them are in vain and can even be harmful. The priority of our tactics is to favour that which will inevitably realise our socialist goal. Nationalism is nothing but capitalist ideology which does not have material roots in the working class movement and which will therefore disappear as the class struggle develops. It constitutes, like all ruling class ideology, an obstacle for the class struggle whose harmful influence must be eliminated as much as possible.

 Nationalist slogans distract the workers from their own specifically class aspirations. They divide the workers of different nations; they provoke the mutual hostility of the workers and thus destroy the necessary unity of the proletariat. They line up the workers and the ruling clas shoulder to shoulder in one front, thus obscuring the workers' class consciousness and transforming the workers into the executors of plutocrat’s policy. National struggles prevent the assertion of social questions and proletarian interests in politics and condemn this important means of struggle of the proletariat to sterility. All of this is encouraged by ‘socialist’ propaganda when the left nationalists presents nationalist slogans to the workers as valid, regardless of the very goal of their struggle, and when it utilises the language of nationalism in the description of our socialist goals. It is indispensable that class feeling and class struggle should be deeply rooted in the minds of the workers; then they will progressively become aware of the unreality and futility of nationalist slogans for their class.

This is why the nation-State as a goal in itself, such as the re-establishment of an independent national State in Scotland, has no place in socialist propaganda. Socialism is based upon the recognition of the real class interests of the workers. It cannot be led astray by ideologies, even when the latter seem to be rooted in men's minds. Our tactic consists in making the workers more aware of their real class interests, showing them the reality of this society and its life in order to orient their minds more towards the real world of today. Socialists only speak of capitalism, exploitation, class interests, and the need for the workers to collectively wage the class struggle. In this way the mind is steered away from secondary ideas of the past in order to focus on present-day reality; these ideas of the past are thus deprived of their power to lead the workers astray from the class struggle and the defense of their class interests. Our emphasis is upon the class struggle, to awaken class feeling in order to turn attention away from national problems.

Our propaganda could appear to be useless against the power of nationalist ideology and it could seem that nationalism is making the most progress among the workers. But insofar as nationalist movements are in practice capable only of following in the wake of the ruling class and thus of arousing the feeling of the working class against them, they will progressively lose their power.

 We would, however,  have gone completely off the rails if we wanted to win the working class over to socialism by being more nationalist than the capitalist class as some on the Left appear intent upon doing. Such nationalist opportunism would allow the appearance of workers being   won over, but this does not win them over to our cause, to socialist ideas. Capitalist conceptions will continue to dominate their minds as before. And when the decisive moment arrives when they must choose between national and class interests, the internal weakness of this workers movement will become apparent, as is currently taking place in the separatist crisis. How can we rally the masses under our banner if we allow them to flock to the banner of nationalism? Our principle of class struggle can only prevail when the other principles that manipulate and divide men are rendered ineffective; but if our propaganda enhances the reputation of those other principles, we subvert our own cause.

Even though we do not get involved in the slogans and watchwords of nationalism and continue to use the slogans of socialism, this does not mean that we are pursuing a kind of ostrich policy in regard to national questions. These are, after all, real questions which are of concern to men and which they want to solve. We are trying to get the workers to become conscious of the fact that, for them, it is not these questions, but exploitation and the class struggle, which are the most vital and important questions which cast their shadows over everything. But this does not make the other questions disappear and we have to show that we are capable of resolving them.

To all the nationalist slogans and arguments, the response will be: exploitation, surplus value, bourgeoisie, class rule, class struggle.  If they speak of free higher education, we shall call attention to the insufficiency of all teaching dispensed to the children of the workers, who learn no more than what is necessary for their subsequent life of back-breaking toil at the service of capital. If they speak of  local job creation, we will speak of the misery which compels Scots to emigrate. If they speak of the unity of the nation, we will speak of exploitation and class oppression. If they speak of the greatness of the nation, we will speak of the solidarity of the workers of the whole world.

Only when the great reality of today's world—capitalist development, exploitation, the class struggle and its final goal, socialism—has entirely impregnated the minds of the workers, will the  ideals of nationalism fade away. The class struggle and propaganda for socialism comprise the sole effective means of breaking the power of nationalism.

Adapted from Anton Pannekoek’s Class Struggle and Nation,
available in full and unabridged here

We Want It All

Pre-capitalist states owned and used people as a valued property. Capitalism, on the other hand, hires workers, pays according to time spent or work done. This is far more profitable for competitive businesses. With global capitalism the competition to increase wealth is only for the top while lower ranks compete to produce more while receiving less remuneration.

In the industrial field to day there is an irrepressible conflict between the propertyless producers and the propertied non-producers. This conflict is represented in the political field by the organised party of capitalism, the Tory Party and the Labour Party representing different sections of the same exploiting class. All political parties are but the expression of class interests, hence the working-class party cannot ally itself with or support any section of the capitalist party, for any alliance or bargain between them can only serve the interests of the ruling class by perpetuating the present system.

There are well-intentioned persons who contend that the workers have something to gain by playing off one section of the capitalist party against the other, and that in this way a political footing can be obtained by the working-class. Of two evils choose the lesser, we are told; but these good people do not realise that between the Liberal and Tory on the one hand and Labour on the other the choice is between the pox nd the plague.  The capitalist class has for centuries been in possession of the political machinery and knows all the parliamentary tricks of the trade. They have men of wealth and of leisure at their disposal in the contest of political trickery.  The workers cannot cope with the strategy of the trained fraudsters of capitalism. The only true  position for a genuine working-class party is that of open hostility to all who support capitalism in any shape or form.

Realising that, as in the order of social evolution the working-class is the last class to be emancipated, the emancipation of the working-class will involve the abolition of all class distinctions and class privileges, and free humanity from oppression of every kind. THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN enters the political arena, and, in full faith that the members of our class will work out their historic mission, hurls defiance at all the forces of reaction.

Among the contributions the capitalist system has made to the progress of the human race was the necessity of educating the members of the working class. However no right, or privilege, or opportunity is given a subordinate class unless it is  for the benefit and interest of the ruling class. The introduction and development of increasingly sophisticated machinery and technology necessitated a different type of worker from the previous unlettered, untutored serf of the field. The new industrial processes which the capitalist system gave the world necessitated the education and mental training of the workers in order that they might be fit and efficient wealth producers. Capitalism therefore created the economic or material reasons far the need of the great mass of the workers to be educated.

While economic benefits have accrued to the master class through the education of the workers and his  large profits only possible through a trained and skilled laboring class, this very thing which fills the pockets of the employing class financially, has become a powerful factor in bringing about the political and industrial supremacy of the working class. For knowledge is power. The capitalist masters have educated the workers to their advantage to-day, but it will be  their undoing tomorrow. The thing that made for the triumph of capitalism ultimately makes for its own downfall.

Education of the workers for the benefit of the capitalist class means gain and profit only for the few.  Education of the workers for the benefit of the working class means gain for the working class and ultimately for the whole human race. The trained minds that create profits for the masters of to-day will create wealth for the producers to enjoy to-morrow. The future victories of the working class lie not so much in their numbers (the workers have always been in the vast majority), but in the knowledge they possess and the ability to intelligently organize and act together on the political and economic fields.  Let us face the fact that the education of the masses is a large and strenuous task, but there can be no socialism until the masses desire socialism and take organised action for socialism.

 Propaganda is an attempt to bring others to one’s own point of view; education is an attempt to equip others with the means of making up their own minds. Both are legitimate forms of activity; the point is that they are different.  Both have their place, but their places are different.

Workers know that if they are forced to go on strike they will have to depend largely on their own resourcefulness. The boss, on the other hand, is assured of the support of the boss class itself, but also of their lackeys in the apparatus of government. Bosses are class-conscious and practice the class struggle and if workers stopped struggling back, they’d just be squeezed more because bosses make their profit by taking it out of the labor and sweat of their workers. They can’t have their cake and let the workers eat it too.

In the days of slavery, there were kind slave-owners and cruel ones. In feudalism there were kind lords and nasty barons. Capitalism also have their kind and tough employers. The working class wants NO slave-masters and NO bosses.

All strikes hamper production. If they didn’t hamper production they would be futile and useless. Workers win strikes because production is stopped., which means that the bosses’ profits, are put in jeopardy. The boss finally decides that it is better to give a small increase in pay than to have all profits stop.

Them are times when the workers must establish their own legality. There are times when workers can not accept the bosses’ “law.” Workers’ organizations can not always remain passively “law-abiding.” If workers had always been “law-abiding” there would be no trades unions in the world today. Wages would be far lower than now and hours would be much longer. Workers have made the gains they, have through the decades because they opposed the ruling class and fought every step of the way. Since nothing fundamental has changed in the relationship of the workers to the bosses, there is no reason for the workers to change from the procedure that has brought them, their victories. The defense or workers under persecution by the state authorities of capitalism for their activity in the labor movement is a class question, and therefore a question of principle. The trade union movement cannot stand still – it can only go forward or backward. Blows directed against them are in reality directed against their class. In such an issue there are only two sides, and there is only one question to answer: On which side do you stand?

It is correct for the workers to fight like hell to hold on to their gains but they cannot stop there. Profits are growing higher and higher. The bosses surely take care of themselves and their class. Every board of directors has been raising the salaries, bonuses and dividends of their CEOs. During austerity the bosses the slogan “equality of sacrifice” has nothing to do with them. For them, it means equality of misery and want for the workers.

Lenin 4/6

Marx’s theory of socialist revolution is grounded on the fundamental principle that “the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself”. Marx held to this view throughout his political activity. Marx saw that the very social position of the working class within capitalist society as a non-owning, exploited, wealth-producing class forced it to struggle against its capitalist conditions of existence. This “movement” of the working class could be said to be implicitly socialist since the struggle was ultimately over who should control the means of production: the minority capitalist class or the working class (i.e. society as a whole). At first the movement of the working class would be, Marx believed, unconscious and unorganised but in time, as the workers gained more experience of the class struggle and the workings of capitalism, it would become more consciously socialist and democratically organised by the workers themselves.

The emergence of socialist understanding out of the experience of the workers could thus be said to be “spontaneous” in the sense that it would require no intervention by people outside the working class to bring it about (not that such people could not take part in this process, but their participation was not essential or crucial). Socialist propaganda and agitation would indeed be necessary but would come to be carried out by workers themselves whose socialist ideas would have been derived from an interpretation of their class experience of capitalism. The end result would be an independent movement of the socialist-minded and democratically organised working class aimed at winning control of political power in order to abolish capitalism. As Marx and Engels put it in The Communist Manifesto, “the proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority”. This in fact was Marx’s conception of “the workers’ party”. He did not see the party of the working class as a self-appointed elite of professional revolutionaries, as did the Blanquists, but as the mass democratic movement of the working class with a view to establishing Socialism, the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.

Lenin in his pamphlet “What Is To Be Done?”, on the other hand, declared:

“The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals”

“Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is, only from outside of the economic struggle, from outside of the sphere of relations between workers and employers” (Lenin’s emphasis)

“The spontaneous working class movement by itself is able to create (and inevitably creates) only trade unionism, and working class trade unionist politics are precisely working class bourgeois politics”

Lenin went on to argue that the Russian Social Democratic Party should be such an “organisation of professional revolutionaries”, acting as the vanguard of the working class. The task of this vanguard party to be composed of professional revolutionaries under strict central control was to “lead” the working class, offering them slogans to follow and struggle for.

It is the very antithesis of Marx’s theory of working class self-emancipation.

The implication of Marx’s theory of working class self-emancipation is that the immense majority of the working class must be consciously involved in the socialist revolution against capitalism. “The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority in the interest of the immense majority”.

The Bolshevik coup in November, 1917, was carried out under the guise of protecting the rights of the Congress of Soviets, did not enjoy conscious majority support, at least not for socialism, though their slogan “Peace, Bread and Land” was widely popular. For instance, elections to the Constituent Assembly, held after the Bolshevik coup and so under Bolshevik government, gave them only about 25 per cent of the votes. John Reed, a sympathetic American journalist, whose famous account of the Bolshevik coup, “Ten Days That Shook The World”, was commended in a foreword by Lenin, quotes Lenin as replying to this kind of criticism in a speech he made to the Congress of Peasants’ Soviets on 27 November, 1917:

“If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years...The Socialist political party - this is the vanguard of the working class; it must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiative…” (Reed’s emphasis and omissions)

Having seized power before the working class (and, even less, the 80 per cent peasant majority of the population) had prepared themselves for Socialism, all the Bolshevik government could do, as Lenin himself openly admitted, was to establish state capitalism in Russia. Which is what they did, while at the same time imposing their own dictatorship over the working class. Contempt for the intellectual abilities of the working class led to the claim that the vanguard party should rule on their behalf, even against their will. Lenin’s theory of the vanguard party became enshrined as a principle of government (“the leading role of the Party”) which has served to justify what has proved to be the world’s longest-lasting political dictatorship.

War Crimes and Punishment

 

 The media and the political mouthpieces of capitalist ideology have done their job well. Ukrainian and Russian workers are being caught up by their respective "patriotism" to fight and die for “their” country.  Socialists work for the day "patriotism" will simply mean being proud to be part of humanity. 

Patriotism is better called national chauvinism. This "patriotism" equates loyalty to the nation with loyalty to the capitalist-controlled government and its policies. It seeks the acquiescence of workers in the crimes, aggressions, depredations and depravities of the ruling class and its agents.  It is intended to trick workers into sanctioning whatever is deemed in the interests of the oligarchy. It's nationalistic baloney asserts that our interests as a “nation” are totally bound up with, if not identical, to those of our exploiters. But as we know, in class societies the state does not serve everyone equally. Instead, its main efforts are directed to helping the class that rules over the economy. In capitalism, that means essentially helping the capitalist class accumulate capital, repress opposition to their exploitative rule, and legitimise all the forms in which this goes on.  But to do this job well, the state has to appear legitimate in the eyes of most of its citizens, which requires above all else that its consistent bias on behalf of the capitalist ruling class be hidden from view. The flag and other patriotic symbolism are crucial to the success of this effort. Throughout, emotions play a much larger role than reason or thinking generally, and the strongest emotion evoked by patriotism is the pleasure of belonging to a cooperative social community where everyone is concerned with the fate of others. Unfortunately, the social community only exists in the shadow of an illusory community dominated by the ruling economic class and its state, where none of this applies.

There is a form of “patriotism” to which workers should adhere; it is loyalty, not to the institutions of the nation, but to the people; more precisely, to the majority of the people -- the working class -- with whom they share a common material interest. For workers today, class consciousness - loyalty to one's class -- is patriotism. International working-class interests are the paramount interests to be served - not those of any capitalist nation state. Without solidarity to one's class and to one's comrades. workers are helpless in the face of the ruling class's monopoly of the means of production. If workers can stick together, they can respond to employers' control of work. Solidarity between workers is therefore an essential prerequisite for success in class struggle. Class consciousness is the key to working-class victory in ending the class struggle.

Dividing our class on national lines and allowing us to be played off against each other can only serve our masters. It can hardly be denied that national borders have repeatedly divided the working class. To confront business-driven austerity, militarism and war requires a united social and political struggle by the worlds working class aimed at the abolition of capitalism. How does the erection of new borders and the formation of new nation-states further the unity of the working class anywhere? The capitalist class makes use of many weapons. One of its most efficient psychological tools is nationalism. Patriotism is the cattle prod that keeps workers apart and weakened. The socialist argument is not to tell people “to fight for independence” but to explain “you are not independent, comrade, and you should not be. You are dependent on the working class of the world and they are dependent on you. We all depend on each other.” A genuine socialist party globalises the agenda and explain that all local issues have global causes that calls for global solutions.

Patriotism works to disguise the real differences which exist amongst people—which are differences of class and which involve irreconcilable differences of interests—and to encourage workers to identify with the institution—the state—which is the primary defender of class society. The slogan “workers of the world unite” is in part a call on proletarians to acknowledge that their home is in the company of other members of their class wherever they are to be found. Working people have only one country—the planet earth. There is only one foe—the bosses. The Socialist Party doesn’t believe in patriotism. Our critics can call us unpatriotic but we will take pride in being unpatriotic.

Meet the new boss - Same as the old boss

FOR CLASS WAR

Our job is to overthrow the capitalist system and so socialists are always accused of setting class against class and trying to create ill feeling. Yet the real fact is, we only point out what already exists. They exist because some men live by owning the factories and mines and machines, and the most part have to go to work on these machines which they don’t own. The boss tries to squeeze as much profit out of the worker as he can. The worker tries to wring as close to a living wage out of the boss as he or she can. And if the workers stopped struggling, they’d just be squeezed more, that’s all. That’s why there’s a class struggle.

There are nice bosses and nasty bosses just as there were  kind slave-masters and cruel ones. Socialists want NO slave-masters and NO bosses. There are no small employers, no working capitalists, no friendly relations between masters and men. There is only one connecting link between the employers and the employees, and that link is to be found in the money the worker finds in his pay packet. We’re going to do it by getting rid of the profit system, which exists only because there is a class of exploiters and a class of the exploited.  Workers meet this class war everywhere, but do not always recognise it. It is our work to label its every manifestation, in order that workers may recognise it.

We have always said that in present times the worker is not class-conscious – that is, knowing and understanding his class subjection and its cause, and therefore knowing and understanding his class interest in overthrowing the institutions which keep him so. This is not the case with the capitalist. They are thoroughly class-conscious and never lose sight of the cardinal principle of the class struggle. While the average worker has little to do with politics, the other class know its value, not merely to their whole class, but for each sections of their class. All government is therefore class government.

These days the media  proclaim that employer and employee are partners in industry and decry "wasteful and futile" strikes, describing them as obsolete and unnecessary — it is interesting to understand what the bosses  really mean when they speak of harmony. Workers are not regarded by their masters as human beings – they are only reckoned as so many items in the balance-sheet, and troublesome items at that. The capitalist class hold no illusions. It looks upon the working class as its class enemy. It still employs every weapon at its disposal to keep its supremacy from anti-union legislation to secret black-lists of those “trouble-makers”. The press and TV will endeavour to soften or obliterate the divisions. There is no question of removing those divisions or their causes as those are inherent in a system which sharply divides society into two classes, the propertied and the propertyless, master and slave, owner and owned, employer and employed. But those divisions may eventually lead to revolt on the part of the subject class unless they can be softened or bridged over by a seeming identity of interest.

The Socialist Party stands alone as the standard bearer of socialism. The class war is our war and our only war.  It is time to line up in the class struggle regardless of race or nationality for the overthrow of class rule and for the emancipation of their class and humanity. A win at football is the result of many moves and counter-moves. We do not lie down and weep when our side loses a goal. No, we roll up our sleeves, pull up our socks, and carry on, determined to get two goals in return. So it is the same with the class war.