Wolves in Workers' Clothing

 

While the Socialist Party support sound trade union action they have to point out, too, that trade unions, though necessary and useful organs of working-class resistance, cannot emancipate the working class from capitalism—that can be done only by a socialist working class politically organised to take control democratically of the machinery of government, for the purpose of abolishing capitalism and introducing socialism. Equipped with sound socialist knowledge, and the will to unite for victory, the working class will achieve its emancipation, in spite of the confusion and disillusion spread by office-seeking political opportunists.

The occasional reference to socialism from the so-called revolutionary left-wing betrays the historical irony that those who now adopt the terminology of socialist revolution are deeply committed to the maxim of the German reformist, Bernstein, that “the goal is nothing, the movement everything”. For them the goal is everything, the movement is never more than a means to it. They care more for movement than for direction; more for growth than for principle; and more for the tactics of a struggle than for the nature of victory. 

The Socialist Party refuses to sacrifice our socialist goal for reformist demands and as a result, it is labelled utopian. This universal slur from the left is reserved for those clear-sighted workers who enter the historic battle of the classes because they look forward to the fruits of victory and not the ‘reality’ of repeated defeats.

The Socialist Party aims to establish a system of society based upon common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community. Those who reject that aim are the idealists, stumbling among the chaos of capitalism, searching for new brick walls to bang their heads against.

It would be extreme arrogance for socialists to devise detailed plans for the lives of emancipated humanity after they have carried out the political act to establish socialism. Like Marx, we are not the designers of a Utopia, but we do not fear prediction and speculation regarding life in a socialist society.

In socialism, a baby will not be destined to accept the label of class. Male or female, black or white, mentally and physically normal or abnormal, it can expect the freedom to develop as a social individual in a world based upon the practice of co-operative equality.

The capitalist-style family will not exist if indeed the family is retained in any form. Certainly, there will no longer be imposed sex roles, indoctrination in the name of education, and repression in the name of discipline. Now, a child must learn to become a wage slave — or, if lucky, a supposedly cultured parasite. In socialism, children will learn from experience over which they will have control.

No society can operate without work, and neither will socialism. Not employment, which is simply the capitalist word for slavery, but useful, self-imposed, creative work. Production in a socialist society will be for use, not profit; with each member of society giving according to his or her ability and taking according to self-determined needs. There will be no wages as a price for a worker’s labour power, nor money as a barrier to the world’s wealth. Free access will be the basis of wealth distribution.

Without the compulsion of wage labour, men and women, if they are able to, will contribute to the tasks of production and distribution. Work will be transformed by socialism; no more dull conditions, no more master-slave relationships, no more shoddy production of cheap commodities, no more need to do one job for life. The aim of work will be the production of the best and the satisfaction of the producer. The latter is an important qualification. There will not be a producer-consumer division in socialism, but satisfactory lifestyles both inside and outside the production process.

A Socialist society will be a political and economic democracy. Everyone will own everything' since private property will not exist. Does that mean we shall have the right to take each other’s coats? No: it means that men and women will use what they need, sometimes permanently as in the case of a coat, sometimes temporarily as in the case of a library book. There will be no rights of property. If someone takes another’s coat — either by accident or because they are acting irrationally — then there will be free access to as many new coats as are needed. Economic democracy will mean that decisions about production and distribution will be made socially, either by the whole of society — which would be no problem even today, with current methods of world communication — or by those involved in the processes, if society is prepared to leave the decision to them. We do not aim to replace the present capitalist elite with a new bureaucratic elite. The socialist revolution will be a permanent revolution in the sense that once enacted, people would have to participate in running society.

Free mobility will be available for everyone in a socialist society. Today, workers are born and they die in one country, usually without travelling far out of its borders. No boundaries, nations or provinces will divide socialist society. The world will be one. That is not to say that we aim to create a monolith, devoid of cultural, language and other variations.

Social organisation in socialism will not depend upon governments, leaders or parties. These only exist in a class society, where laws are the expression of the ruling class's interest. When the socialist working class take power, they will use the law to dismantle capitalism and build socialism. Once that has been done, there will be no laws created by one section of society in order to control another.

Just as there will be no secular laws, so there will be no laws of the phoney creation of primitive man - god. Socialist society will have no need for religions and utopias beyond the grave. What if a minority within socialism want to continue their religious lifestyle? Then they shall be free to do so, and those who want to walk across the Red Sea or jump from a high building without a parachute may do so too.

The morals of socialism will be fashioned by common ownership and free access, and by the sovereignty of democratic decisions. Taboos about sex will be as laughable as taboos about witchcraft are today. To those conditioned by the popular prejudices of capitalism, socialism seems amoral. In truth, it will be a society which will reflect human urges — the imagination and the self-interest of humanity.

The Socialist Party Goal

 

Capitalism is a social system, not merely a form of government. State control and private ownership are simply different forms of the same thing and do not in any way touch the basic nature of capitalism. What is the basic nature of capitalism? How is capitalism marked off from any other system?

First and foremost the means of living, that is to say, factories, machinery, land and transport, etc., take the form of Capital.

This means that by government gilts and bonds, company shares, or outright personal ownership, part of the wealth created by past exploitation is invested for the purpose of further wealth production on a continuous basis of exploitation. IT IS THE UNPAID, SURPLUS PRODUCED BY THE WORKERS WHICH SERVES AS THE BASIS FOR THEIR OWN FURTHER EXPLOITATION and also provides for the rent, interest and profits for the owners of capital.

Following on from this form of ownership and indispensable to it, there must be a class which owns nothing but its ability to work, a class whose only access to life’s essentials is through wages.

Wages hide from open view the process of theft because in working for wages it appears that we get paid for what we produce, yet a moment’s thought will teach us that this cannot be true. Our wages provide our keep in terms of so much food, clothing and shelter, etc., and enable us to raise future wage workers.

The total value of wages, however, is not all we produce. The employers do not employ us just to keep ourselves, but also to keep them, too. and in much more luxuriant conditions than ourselves. When it is said that “they put up the money so they are entitled to a return,” just remember that the many thousands of millions of pounds, dollars and roubles, etc., tied up as capital all over the world today were NEVER produced by those who own them, but by workers in the manner described above. No matter how small a capitalist may be when he starts when he is big enough to live on a property income (State or private), it is not produced by him, but by propertyless wage labour.

It only remains to say that the selling of goods and services for profit is the universal means by which the capitalist disposes of the surplus in order to realise it in cash. The terms we all use in a more or less familial way, such as trade, prices, wages, world markets, finance, and everything arising from them, are hallmarks of capitalism.

The Socialist Party insists that capitalism cannot be made to work in peace and harmony. Its internal strife and conflicts are part and parcel of it. It cannot be otherwise than anti-working-class, for it rests upon their exploitation. In light of these facts the squirmings of the so-called “left” reformists to make this system run more smoothly, present to us socialists a picture of pathetic tragedy and it should be easy to see what the socialist attitude to industrial action, slogans, demonstrations, leadership and lobbying MPs must be. All of these things are merely aspects of the way workers react to the conditions of capitalism, painfully aware that something is wrong, but seeing only effects and not causes; they shoot in the dark, hoping, more by luck than judgment to hit something.

The Socialist Party's attitude to industrial action has been stated many times. It is that set out by Marx in Value, Price and Profit, namely, the recognition of the need for workers to organise into trade unions, in order to resist the downward pressure of employers upon wages and conditions and whenever possible (for instance, during a boom) to push up wages and improve conditions of work. This attitude is based on the fact of the class-struggle and the knowledge of the necessary antagonism which exists between owners and non-owners, the buyers and sellers of labour power. It is in the workers’ interest to gain as much as they can—the boss can always be relied upon to look after his end.

This does not mean at all that workers can achieve common ownership of the means of living by industrial action. It is the powers of the State that legalise and enforce the property rights and privileges of the capitalist class, and it is these powers that must be captured and abolished by the working class in order to introduce socialism - a class-free society.

To demonstrate, shout slogans and lobby M.P.’s, after having voted for one or the other parties to run capitalism, does not bother the capitalist class, who can rely on millions of workers to continue upholding the system that robs them. Only an understanding of socialism can really help the working class. 

This is what the Socialist Party works towards.

 

Workers’ Councils

The policy adopted by the Labour and Social-Democratic parties in Europe has generally been described as “parliamentarianism”. By which is meant the idea that a parliament dominated by working-class representatives can, through various types of legislation, control the existing system of society in the interests of the community as a whole.

While workers have made some gains this way, more and more people are becoming aware that such a path offers no solution to any of the major problems they face, because it leaves untouched the basic structure of society which is their root cause. (Which is why the Socialist Party has always opposed any policy of social reformism).

In many radical political circles, especially those that have originated in or worked in conjunction with the Labour Party, the failure of this policy has been attributed, as much to the mechanism of parliamentary elections as to the nature of social reformism itself. It has been argued that the experience of Labour and Social-Democratic governments proves the uselessness of parliamentary institutions to the workers.

The alternative form of organisation offered has usually been “workers’ councils”, or factory committees along the lines of the early Russian Soviets. These are said to be more democratic and responsive to the needs of workers.

Obviously, a council made up of revocable delegates is more democratic than one composed of individuals elected for a fixed period of time, but in other ways, the typical workers’ council or factory committee is less democratic. It is organised on a narrower base and excludes those not employed such as the unemployed, old and young people, housewives and the disabled.

Despite their shortcomings, elections to a parliament based on universal suffrage are still the best method available for workers to express a majority desire for socialism.

Furthermore, although parliament run by Labour or Tory politicians is incapable of controlling the economic system in a rational and humane way, it is the centre of political control in advanced industrial countries. The minority of people who now monopolise the ownership of wealth do so through their control of parliament by capitalist parties elected by workers. Control of parliament by representatives of a conscious revolutionary movement will enable the bureaucratic-military apparatus to be dismantled and the oppressive forces of the state to be neutralised, so that socialism may be introduced with the least possible violence and disruption.

Parliament and local councils, to the extent that their functions are administrative and not governmental, can also be used to coordinate emergency measures when socialism is established.

We are not saying that workers' councils are therefore quite useless. On the contrary; like trade unions, they can often play a useful role under capitalism in the struggle of workers to maintain or improve working conditions and wages, and to resist capitalist authority at work. Factory or workplace committees, or something similar, would also play an important part in the democratic management of production inside socialism.

Representatives elected by workers to parliament have continually compromised to the needs of capitalism, but then so have representatives on the industrial field. The institution is not here at fault; it is just that people’s ideas have not yet developed beyond belief in leaders and dependence on a political elite.

When Socialism is established

When socialism is established it will be necessary to set up councils at local, regional and global levels for the administration of social affairs in every aspect of productive activity. Also, there will have to be councils whose function will be to coordinate the work of the various specific councils. The majority of the people in a local area will make decisions affecting that area specifically, the people in a certain region will make decisions for that region and everyone will make global decisions.

This will mean that everyone must have access to vast amounts of knowledge, concerning what each area produces, where it is stored, and how what is needed can be got from one place and moved to another. All this knowledge can be stored on the internet so that people can receive whatever knowledge they wish at the touch of a button.

When it comes to voting on specific issues people need to go no further than their living room. Even today TV reality programmes invite viewers to deliver their verdicts. If this is possible under capitalism, one can imagine the tremendous advantages that can be made in a socialist society when people will be able to utilise the technology built up under capitalism as well as improve on it.

People could if they wanted to, check and see how a certain project was progressing so that whatever was happening could be under the constant scrutiny of society as a whole. Who would not want such a society? So why not organise politically "for its speedy establishment?

This is Socialism. Are You a Socialist?

 If men and women understood what socialism really is and means they would flock to the socialist movement. They would strive just as hard for the advancement of the socialist idea as any capitalist ever schemed for profits because socialism is the only hope in the world for working people.

It is necessary to repeat a truism that few people can deny, but many forget. There are two classes in society.

The capitalist class owns the factories, farms, transport, communications and all the machinery for producing wealth

The working class who are forced to sell their energies to the private property owners, because they, the workers, do not own the means and instruments of wealth production, and are propertyless.

There is a clash of interests within capitalism. On the one hand, workers organise in the industrial field in trade unions to struggle for better working conditions, and higher wages while capitalists strive to force wages down. Conditions are favourable for workers in their struggle if there is little unemployment and unfavourable when there is widespread high unemployment.

Under capitalism and against capitalism you can demand nothing more essential, more definite, and more encompassing than the abolition of classes, i.e., the abolition of all exploitation. What to some appears as the antagonism between rich and poor, is in reality the class antagonism between the exploiting owners of the production apparatus and the non-possessing exploited workers. We, the workers, are the exploited class. And we demand and fight for, mastery over the production apparatus, where under common ownership in a class-free society true equality will be established. Socialism is the international movement of the working class to abolish the wage system. It is a revolutionary movement OF THE WORKERS, BY the workers and FOR the workers. 

A person who works for wages is a slave, worse than a slave, for a slave can always look to a master to be fed, clothed and housed. The wage-worker is forced to get a job – to sell one’s working strength to a boss or beg, starve or steal.

Men and women can never be free or independent as long as they have to beg the idlers for a chance to work. The man who owns your job owns you. Generally, he will pay you barely enough to live on, while he keeps for himself all the things you make.

And we workers make everything in the world. There is nothing fine, valuable, beautiful, or useful that is used by men and women, no matter who they are, that is not made by the hands and the brains of workingmen or women.

But we are not permitted to enjoy these things. The bosses claim them all. They only give us (in wages) enough to eke out a poor existence.

The whole secret of our slavery lies in the fact that a few people OWN THE FACTORIES, the MINES, the MILLS, the LAND the TRANSPORTATION and the COMMUNICATIONS.

Socialism proposes that the workers who operate the industries shall OWN them in common – that men and women shall work for themselves and shall own the things they make without DIVIDING UP with any property owners. This is socialism in a nutshell. If you are an unhappy miserable worker living from hand to mouth and in constant fear of losing your job, it ought to sound good to you.

 

There is no way out for workers within the framework of capitalism. Struggle as they may improve their lot, and they do sometimes get a few crumbs.  Here lies the root of the trouble. When the majority of workers become class-conscious nothing will prevent them from overthrowing and replacing capitalism by the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments of wealth production, which presupposes a money-free, class-free society, in which people will have access to all the good things that society can produce.

Is this too much to ask of those who produce but do not possess? Only you can judge. Would that we could circulate our literature wide and far. Would that our words carry to each one of you weary wage-slaves the message of socialism. Socialism is the movement of your class, the WORKING CLASS. Join it and help yourself and every other workingman and woman to free themselves from wage-slavery.

WORKERS AWAKE FROM YOUR SLUMBERS—YOU HAVE A WORLD TO GAIN.

Capitalism is a Cancer, Socialism is the Cure

 Capitalism has advanced the scientific and technological capabilities of humanity to a stage where we can now feasibly establish a world of abundance, a world without waste or want or war. But the facts speak for themselves. There are now more hungry and homeless people on the planet than at any time in human history.

The Socialist Party is a companion party of the World Socialist Movement. It aims to bring about a non-violent revolution in the ownership of the means of production from private or state to common. In such a society, money will no longer be necessary, as the things and services we require to live fully (food, clothes, medical services, homes, transportation, and other modern human needs) will be freely available to all. This is because the means of production will be owned in common by the entire community, and will be democratically controlled by that community as well, a society in which leaders are replaced by truly democratic decision-making of all citizens.

In a society of common ownership, all war in such a nationless world will be immediately abolished, while the end of starvation and dire poverty will quickly follow suit. Without the barriers of economic cost holding back human progress, more ecologically sustainable ways to provide energy and production for ourselves will be immediately planned and created on a global basis. We will become for the first time in history a truly human family looking after itself.

The only real remedy is to seek at elections a mandate to abolish capitalism. If capitalism were abolished and socialism introduced there would immediately be two big developments through which the poverty, problem of the working class could be solved by increasing the number of men and women actually engaged in production.

One is that the members of the capitalist class, no longer able to live in leisure and luxury at the expense of the workers, would become useful members of the community helping to produce the articles needed by the community.

The second is that all kinds of activities necessary to capitalism but unnecessary under socialism would cease, and this would free millions of workers for production who are now engaged in banks, insurance companies, and advertising, or in the taxation and rating departments of the central and local government; as well as those now required by the capitalists to serve in the armed forces for the competitive struggle with foreign capitalist groups. As we explain the output of wealth could be at least doubled by these means.

This is the only way in which the poverty problem can be solved and governments, trying to run the capitalist system, cannot solve it. What they are doing is acting as caretakers for the capitalist class, calling on the workers to increase output but using seductive arguments about “service to the community" which would only be justified if in fact the means of production had been transformed or were going to be transformed into the property of the whole community. While maintaining (with merely superficial changes), the system under which the capitalists exploit the working class. Governments are pretending that exploitation has ended.

It is clever propaganda, but the realities of the class struggle between those who own, but do not produce and those who produce but do not own, will not for long be smoothed over by even the most plausible reformist orator. The working class faced with the same old ruthlessness of capitalist employers will find that they have no defence except the limited defence provided by their own trade unions. In strikes and lockouts, the web of half-truths spun by the labour leaders will be rent asunder, and the workers will have made an advance towards the necessary understanding of the fact that socialism has nothing in common with Labourites.