We want a socialist future

Socialism is the future. Socialism is a wonderful goal and necessary vision, the promise of a life irresistible in its harmony, workability, naturalness, passion and compassion. We envisage a social order based on the common ownership of the means of production, the elimination of private profit in the means of production, the abolition of the wage system, the abolition of the division of society into classes. Socialism far from being an intolerable bureaucratic tyranny and individual regimentation, will be the means of greater individual liberty and shared abundance. Anything that has any kind of value is made, mined, grown, produced, and processed by working people. So why shouldn't working people collectively own that wealth? Socialism, simply, is non-capitalist living. Wealth is created to satisfy human needs, not inhuman greeds. The present economic arrangement is insatiable in its avarice, unrelenting in its viciousness, rife with contradictions, and veering crazily out of control. The rule of the almighty dollar or yen or mark must and will be overthrown and supplanted by the rule of reason and justice. Capitalism’s manifest inability to meet human needs and protect the ecological integrity of the planet makes socialism more urgent than ever. To get to that future, however, we have to deal with the present. We can transform our world by shedding not only the patterns of capitalist society but its mindset as well. With greater equality, co-operation and social justice, our planet can sustain our species and all the others that inhabit it. We can achieve a world where people have enough and where each of us can find the self-fulfilment and happiness central to the needs of every human being.

Socialism is a message of hope. It is addressed to the working class. It will save the working class, or rather, show the working class how to save itself. The world does not need to be cursed by long hours of hard labour, by low wages, by starvation, by worry and anxiety, and by disease. Millions now know that these conditions may be completely changed. When enough of the workers understand socialism, believe in it, and are firmly resolved to have it, the time will be ripe for the change. The working class is today enslaved chiefly because it does not understand the conditions of its life and labour. A few rich people own the lands and machines. The many labour and have nothing. This every worker knows. But why is this so? How long has it been thus? How long is it likely to continue? And most important of all, what are the workers going to do in order to help themselves? When we ask these questions, we find that very few workers can give a clear and satisfactory answer. Only when they can answer these questions will the first great step toward a better condition have been taken. The theory of surplus value is the beginning of all socialist knowledge. It shows the capitalist in his true light, that of an idler and parasite. It proves to the workers that capitalists should no longer be permitted to take any of their product. Without this knowledge the worker will never fight along correct lines. With this knowledge he will never stop fighting until socialism, which will give to the working class the whole of its product, shall be fully realized.

No worker should wish to become a capitalist. The small business-person cannot thrive as a capitalist without lying and cheating; without paying low wages and sweating his workers through long hours; without lying awake nights planning how to help himself by injuring others. Getting something for nothing is what capitalism is all about. That is what capitalists do best. Indeed, that is all they do. Capitalists do not earn, or create, or build anything. They live by profiting from the work done by others. They live off the labor of the working class. The names these two classes bear tell the story. Workers work and capitalists capitalize on the work that workers do. Capitalism exists and can only exist as a system of exploitation. Capitalists are the exploiters and workers are the exploited. Capitalism is an immoral system. It condemns millions to lives of poverty and despair just to enhance the worthless lives of a few. It is not the welfare single mum or the jobless dad on benefits who bleed society. It is the capitalist vampire that is sucking the working class dry. Working people are being victimised and demonised. Basic needs like housing remain unmet while industrial capacity and millions of working people remain idle. Commodities that could satisfy these needs sit in storage in warehouses, inaccessible to the working people who need but can’t buy them. Billions are being spent on arms while schools, transport systems and other social services are being curtailed or eliminated for “lack of funds.” Reduced to their essentials, the system’s answers are that workers have been asking for, and getting, too much, especially from government. Workers have demanded too much improvement in the quality of the environment, too much job safety, too much retirement protection, too much health care, too much racial equality, too much housing, too much pay, etc. Discarding the empty promises advanced in the past that capitalism could provide “more,” governments are now promising workers less in every respect. Gone are the days of expansive government spending in the areas of social services and job creation.

Less pay for workers, less spending for job safety, less investment for pollution control mean more profits for the capitalist owners of industry. Less spending for education and social services generally means more funding for the protecting of capitalist investments around the world. Like every ruling-class “explanation” advanced in the past for the economic problems faced by workers, the current ones diverts attention from the underlying causes. Those causes are profit-motivated production and private ownership of the economy. Moreover, current policies are fostering increased competition among workers for the limited number of jobs and social services capitalism has to offer. In this way, the ability of workers to mount a unified defense against enforced austerity is crippled. Even when a capitalist economy is relatively healthy, the needs of workers are never met. This is so because the capitalist economy does not operate to meet workers’ needs. It operates for capitalist profit. That profit is generated through the exploitation of working people—that is, by paying workers’ wages that amount to only a fraction of the wealth they collectively produce. The resulting limited purchasing power of workers accounts in large measure for the economic stagnation and unemployment that periodically plague capitalism. Austerity will neither correct this situation nor alleviate the suffering it is causing. In fact, to the extent that the administration’s policies are implemented, the problems working people face will only be aggravated. These policies seek only to increase profits for the capitalist minority through tax breaks for business and the wealthy, cuts in public services and schemes to increase productivity—that is, to increase the exploitation of workers. In short, the aim of Cameron’s policies is to shift the burden of the prevailing economic crisis onto the shoulders of the working class.

The worker cannot rise as a worker without joining in unity with other workers and helping all. This mutual dependence of worker upon worker, taught them by their everyday experiences in the shop, is the best and finest thing in modern life. It leads to solidarity. It develops the mind of the worker. It raises him or her out of a state of individual selfishness and meanness and points to the goal of civilisation - Socialism. Everybody now realizes that it is ridiculous for sane people to work all day and every day. "The less work the better," is the motto which the workers must set themselves.  Let the newest technology and the best machines and most scientific methods be everywhere used. Let the intelligence of the workers be liberated.  If all this were to be done, it is readily seen that a small portion of the day, or a few days per month, or a few months steady work per year, will yield wealth in abundance. It would be foolish for us to say how much a worker should work, because we do not know how much wealth lie will desire for themselves and their family. It is not for us to determine that. But it is most reasonable to suppose that with socialism an individual working a few hours a day for a few months in the year will produce food, clothing and shelter in abundance for all. Those who will not work will not be permitted to starve. They will undoubtedly be tenderly cared for and nursed back to well-being for at present, even, all healthy people wish to work, yet none desire life-long slavery to the profit of others

Government ownership can never lead to socialism. It is not a step toward socialism. It has nothing socialistic about it, because all political government is administration from the top.  Socialism is industrial democracy. Socialism will need no armed forces, police and prisons. There will be no enslaved poor to be kept down. The Socialist Party is not a political party in the same sense as other parties. The success of socialism would abolish practically every office existing under the present form of government. The mission of the Socialist Party is:

First, it must be the bearer of sound knowledge, using its great and growing organisation to teach socialism.

Second, to lay hold of all the powers of political government and prevent them from being used against the industrial organisation of the workers.

When the working class is strong enough at the ballot box, it will make an end of capitalism. That period in which it will be engaged in the work of seizing all the powers of industrial and political government, will be the period of the social revolution. Of course we cannot tell when this will come. Neither can we tell whether the period of revolution will be long or short. The most important question is, how long will it take to educate and organise the working class? This will depend much on what the capitalists will do. The revolution might be hastened by a panic. It might be retarded by a foreign war or by capitalist reforms. But it is bound to come. That the socialists can clearly see. The Socialist Party is the political party of the working class. This is so because the Socialist Party is the sole protagonist of the principles that the working class must adopt if it is ever to achieve its complete emancipation from wage slavery and, at the same time, save society from catastrophe. The Socialist Party is the only organisation demanding the abolition of capitalism and advocating the socialist reconstruction of society. It has been doing so for over 100 years. It is, in short, the organisation through which the workers can establish their majority right to reorganise society. In a socialist economy based on collective ownership of industry, the workers’ condition would be the reverse of what it is today. Production would be for social use instead of for private profit. Through representatives elected by workers where they work, they would democratically administer the industries and make all economic decisions. Resources would be allocated and production would be carried out on the basis of social needs and wants. A socialist economy would thereby free society of the limitations now imposed by capitalism. Such a society will not, of course, come into existence by itself. If the working-class majority is to become master of the nation’s economic forces, rather than its victims, workers must organise to wrest control from the capitalist class and to lay the foundation for a socialist society. Specifically, working people must break with the political parties of the capitalist class and organise politically around their common class interests.

A Socialist Health Service

Large-scale sanitation in the developed world, vaccines, and even the NHS itself, must be seen as gains for the working class in some aspects. The whole process of the foundation of the NHS was a contradictory one, serving the interests of capital and, as a by-product, that of the workers. The strong empathy and support that most workers in Britain have for the National Health Service is after all support for free access, "to each according to needs", for the idea that healthcare be freely available to all regardless of wealth. Some health and welfare services are now available to some people free at the point of delivery or consumption. In socialism the principle of free access according to reasonable need will be universally applied. Yet in socialism there won't be such a widespread demand for health and welfare services. Very different goods could then be manufactured, possibly using alternative technologies, with work organized in different ways, so as to reduce the possibility of ill health arising in the first place. And although it would be absurd to say that all disease would be abolished, we can assume that a real concern for the health of the population would be reflected in planning and decision making. Such a society is not a pipe-dream, but the logical outcome of the working class taking control of their own struggles. The demand for a healthier society is in effect a revolutionary demand, since health-damaging aspects of production cannot be removed in response to political reform.

In an ideal world, the application of medical interventions would be guided by the criterion of scientific objectivity and driven solely by the concern to meet human needs. So would healthcare be any different if socialism were established? Yes it would. Why? Take one or two minutes out and just think how the non-existence of wages, profits and budgets would change the present situation. Then think about the end of the hierarchies that dominate healthcare at present and no more layers of useless bureaucrats skimming their share. Instead healthcare would be conceived and administered, democratically by us, the people who brought socialism about. Globally, doctors, nurses, scientists and everyone at present involved in healthcare at the human level would act as guides, informing people as to where healthcare is capable of going once the artificial barriers of money had been eliminated. The recruitment, training and deployment of committed volunteers will take much organising and administration. The emphasis will be on activities and tasks rather than on occupational labels: nursing, brain surgery, portering, scientific research, and so on, rather than nurses, brain surgeons, porters, scientific researchers. Everywhere we shall treat each other as friendly co-operators.

Although we cannot specify in advance a utopian blueprint for a socialist health policy what we can say about the likely effects on health and illness of future socialist society is that the promotion of good health and the care of the injured and sick won’t be restricted by money considerations. There will be no profit to be made out of employing people in dangerous occupations, supplying them with unhealthy substances or encouraging their harmful addictions. No sales-people will advertise items and services that at best have no good effect on health and at worst damage it. Health and injury insurance and the compensation industry won’t be necessary. The types and incidence of health problems are likely to differ in the early stage of socialism from later stages when the legacy from the money system will have receded. Also, some parts of the world today have different degrees of economic development, commonly referred to as under-developed, developing and developed. We don’t know the extent to which present trends, such as urbanization and environmental degradation, will continue, accelerate or be reversed. One thing we can say for certain is that socialism will release us from useless and harmful capitalist employment. We shall be free to take up work that will meet the needs of ourselves, others and the community, society and world in which we live. This is not to say that there won’t be problems to overcome. Natural disasters and pandemics won’t end with capitalism, although more effort will doubtless be devoted to avoiding and coping with them. Health and welfare problems resulting from natural disasters like floods or earthquakes will continue to require emergency measures. But the problems won't be as extensive. For one thing, people living in disaster-prone areas will be offered removal to safer environments.

Socialism will be able to provide decent care for the elderly. These now take up half the beds on the orthopaedic, chest and other medical wards. They are seen as a burden. In a socialist society real care – and that takes a lot of time, a lot of people – will be possible. Also, people with learning difficulties – those currently dismissed as mentally handicapped – can be more integrated into the community. A lot of people are currently left in hospitals because the society beyond can't be bothered, or lacks the cash, to care for them. Socialist hospitals will keep patients in for longer periods and not treat still frail and vulnerable patients as “bed-blockers”. At the moment hospitals do their best to throw patients out so that their beds can be filled. There will be also be the follow up treatment of district nurses and community psychiatric nurses engaged in home-visits. People need to be properly looked after and capitalism isn't letting us do that as well as we can and should. There will be an increase in neighborhood medical clinics and a return to rural cottage hospitals providing care and treatment although not performing transplant surgery! Capitalism sees the unproductive disabled as a drain on profits. Socialism will promote the good life and society for all, regardless of health condition. The replacement of a society based on production for profit by one based on production for needs will not of course mean the disappearance of disabled people, but it will certainly change for the better the way they are treated. Whether someone enjoys perfect health or suffers slightly or severely from an ailment of some kind will make no difference to the free and equal access they will have to the goods and services society is able to produce. Men and women in difference states of health will be able to contribute to the work of society in different ways. They will be in a position to balance the needs of themselves, others, the community and world society with their own physical and mental abilities and tastes. In a socialist society where the capacity for wealth production, unhampered by the colossal waste endemic to this one, can be released to the full, human values will predominate and energy can be concentrated on the causes of disease and its prevention. Issues such as the need for pharmaceuticals to make billions of pounds in profit will not exist.

But is there anything to think that socialism has something to offer as an answer to the problem of human misery? In socialism we will still have some of the problems that make you feel miserable, scared, depressed or demented. Socialism is not a solution to all mental health problems, it is a solution only to those created by capitalist conditions of life, or to class conditions of life. While some of the problems are due to being human beings living within a social setting, others are due to being biological organisms, and as such will break down if we are damaged or just get old. While there could be a reduced use of medication and an increased use of social therapy, the power to detain people whose condition renders them dangerous to others will still be needed. Capitalism has long produced the potential for such individual development, the task now is to realise it, to persuade working people that there is more to living than the shit of capitalism—we are more than pigs, content with mere physical satisfaction. All the indications are that common ownership and democratic control are the best way to long life and happiness.

Minimizing costs so as to maximise profits has harmful consequences. The health and welfare of the workforce and the effects on the environment take second place. That's what cutting costs means. This why at work we suffer speed-up, pain, stress, boredom, overwork and accidents. This is why we have to work long hours, shift-work and night-work. This is why the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe are all polluted. So in socialism there won't be such a widespread demand for health and welfare services.

Health-care

 Large-scale sanitation in the developed world, vaccines, and even the NHS itself, must be seen as gains for the working class in some aspects. The whole process of the foundation of the NHS was a contradictory one, serving the interests of capital and, as a by-product, that of the workers. The strong sympathy that most workers in Britain have for the National Health Service is after all support for free access, "to each according to needs", for the idea that healthcare is freely available to all regardless of wealth. Some health and welfare services are now available to some people free at the point of delivery or consumption. In socialism, the principle of free access according to reasonable needs will be universally applied. Yet in socialism, there won't be such a widespread demand for health and welfare services. Very different goods could then be manufactured, possibly using alternative technologies, with work organised in different ways, so as to reduce the possibility of ill health arising in the first place. And although it would be absurd to say that all diseases would be abolished, we can assume that a real concern for the health of the population would be reflected in planning and decision making. Such a society is not a pipe-dream, but the logical outcome of the working class taking control of their own struggles. The demand for a healthier society is in effect a revolutionary demand since health-damaging aspects of production cannot be removed in response to political reform.

In an ideal world, the application of medical interventions would be guided by the criterion of scientific objectivity and driven solely by the concern to meet human needs. So would healthcare be any different if socialism were established? Yes, it would. Why? Take one or two minutes out and just think how the non-existence of wages, profits and budgets would change the present situation. Then think about the end of the hierarchies that dominate healthcare at present and no more layers of useless bureaucrats skimming their share. Instead, healthcare would be conceived and administered, democratically by us, the people who brought socialism about.

Globally, doctors, nurses, scientists and everyone at present involved in healthcare at the human level would act as guides, informing people as to where healthcare is capable of going once the artificial barriers of money had been eliminated. The recruitment, training and deployment of committed volunteers will take much organising and administration. The emphasis will be on activities and tasks rather than on occupational labels: nursing, brain surgery, portering, scientific research, and so on, rather than nurses, brain surgeons, porters, scientific researchers. Everywhere we shall treat each other as friendly co-operators.

Although we cannot specify in advance a utopian blueprint for a socialist health policy what we can say about the likely effects on health and illness of future socialist society is that the promotion of good health and the care of the injured and sick won’t be restricted by money considerations. There will be no profit to be made out of employing people in dangerous occupations, supplying them with unhealthy substances or encouraging their harmful addictions. No sales-people will advertise items and services that at best have no good effect on health and at worst damage it. Health and injury insurance and the compensation industry won’t be necessary. The types and incidence of health problems are likely to differ in the early stage of socialism from later stages when the legacy from the money system will have receded. Also, some parts of the world today have different degrees of economic development, commonly referred to as under-developed, developing and developed. We don’t know the extent to which present trends, such as urbanisation and environmental degradation, will continue, accelerate or be reversed. One thing we can say for certain is that socialism will release us from useless and harmful capitalist employment. We shall be free to take up work that will meet the needs of ourselves, others and the community, society and world in which we live. This is not to say that there won’t be problems to overcome. Natural disasters and pandemics won’t end with capitalism, although more effort will doubtless be devoted to avoiding and coping with them. Health and welfare problems resulting from natural disasters like floods or earthquakes will continue to require emergency measures. But the problems won't be as extensive. For one thing, people living in disaster-prone areas will be offered removal to safer environments.

Socialism will be able to provide decent care for the elderly. These now take up half the beds on the orthopaedic, chest and other medical wards. They are seen as a burden. In a socialist society real care – and that takes a lot of time, a lot of people – will be possible. Also, people with learning difficulties – those currently dismissed as mentally handicapped – can be more integrated into the community. A lot of people are currently left in hospitals because the society beyond can't be bothered, or lacks the cash, to care for them. Socialist hospitals will keep patients in for longer periods and not treat still frail and vulnerable patients as “bed-blockers”. At the moment hospitals do their best to throw patients out so that their beds can be filled. There will also be the follow-up treatment of district nurses and community psychiatric nurses engaged in home visits. People need to be properly looked after and capitalism isn't letting us do that as well as we can and should. There will be an increase in neighbourhood medical clinics and a return to rural cottage hospitals providing care and treatment although not performing complicated transplant surgery. Capitalism sees the unproductive disabled as a drain on profits. Socialism will promote a good life and society for all, regardless of health conditions.

The replacement of a society based on production for profit by one based on production for needs will not of course mean the disappearance of disabled people, but it will certainly change for the better the way they are treated. Whether someone enjoys perfect health or suffers slightly or severely from an ailment of some kind will make no difference to the free and equal access they will have to the goods and services society is able to produce. Men and women in different states of health will be able to contribute to the work of society in different ways. They will be in a position to balance the needs of themselves, others, the community and world society with their own physical and mental abilities and tastes.

 In a socialist society where the capacity for wealth production, unhampered by the colossal waste endemic to this one, can be released to the full, human values will predominate and energy can be concentrated on the causes of disease and its prevention. Issues such as the need for pharmaceuticals to make billions of pounds in profit will not exist.

But is there anything to think that socialism has something to offer as an answer to the problem of human misery? In socialism, we will still have some of the problems that make you feel miserable, scared, depressed or demented. Socialism is not a solution to all mental health problems, it is a solution only to those created by capitalist conditions of life, or to class conditions of life. While some of the problems are due to being human beings living within a social setting, others are due to being biological organisms, and as such will break down if we are damaged or just get old. While there could be reduced use of medication and increased use of social therapy, the power to detain people whose condition renders them dangerous to others will still be needed. Capitalism has long produced the potential for such individual development, the task now is to realise it, to persuade working people that there is more to living than the shit of capitalism—we are more than pigs, content with mere physical satisfaction. All the indications are that common ownership and democratic control are the best way to long life and happiness.

Minimising costs so as to maximise profits has harmful consequences. The health and welfare of the workforce and the effects on the environment take second place. That's what cutting costs mean. This is why at work we suffer speed-up, pain, stress, boredom, overwork and accidents. This is why we have to work long hours, shift-work and night-work. This is why the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe are all polluted. So in socialism, there won't be such a widespread demand for health and welfare services.

Be a socialist

share the world
spare the planet

Socialism is a society where all the members of the community determine their conditions of life and their way of living. In order to do so, people must own in common and control collectively, technology, factories, raw materials – all the means of production. The socialist goal is the humanisation of work. Unless the means of production are effectively in the hands of the whole society, not as today where the 1 per cent of the population owns all, there can be no question of the collective control of the conditions of life.

Technology and the massively expanded use of machinery, the application of science to production, the endless rationalisation and growth of output, are matters which belong to the history of capitalism. Capitalism emerged before the systematic use of machinery and then – as it developed – seized upon and transformed the instruments of men’s material production, destroying traditional ways of working and substituting its own. As a by-product of its development, capitalism vastly expanded the collective control of men over nature, creating the material possibility of a world of abundance for all.

The labour process under capitalism is not something ‘neutral’, but is shaped by its central’ purpose: the accumulation of capital. It is accumulation of capital which has made capitalist society the dominant form of society in the world. In order to produce commodities for the market, every capitalist must buy other commodities which he uses in production. The things he buys are mainly: machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods, and labour-power. Machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods, although an item of expenditure on the part of one capitalist, are commodities sold by other capitalists and appear as part of their incomes. Those capitalists also spend money on machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods and labour-power, the money spent on machines, raw materials and semi-finished goods being the income of yet another group of capitalists who spend money on ... and so on indefinitely. Whenever one capitalist spends money on machines, etc., that money is part of the income of other capitalists who then hand it over to yet other capitalists for machines, etc. If all the capitalists belonged to one great trust these transactions would not take place and the only buying and selling that there would be is the buying of labour-power by the capitalists and the selling of it by the workers and technicians in exchange for wages and salaries. Taken all in all, the capitalist class (not the individual capitalist) has only one expense – buying labour-power. Whatever remains to that class after its purchase of labour-power is profit (surplus value). Where does profits come from.

That part of the capitalist’s expenditure which is spent on machines, raw materials and unfinished goods goes the rounds from one capitalist to another in a perpetual circle – this is the social wealth that has already been created. If the productive forces of capitalism were to remain static and not increase, this expenditure would appear like a constant, fixed fund thrown from hand to hand in an endless relay race of production, each capitalist handing on to the next the exact amount required to renew his stock of machines and raw materials. No profit would be made on such sales as each capitalist would swap exactly that amount of machines, etc., for an equivalent amount, and, when all the exchanges were done with, everyone would be where he started. There is, however, one item of expenditure which makes all the difference, namely, wages and salaries – the expenditure on labour-power. This expenditure is the only one which is not a transfer of goods already produced from one capitalist to another. It is the only item of expenditure which is productive in the dual sense of producing the wealth of society and in the sense of producing profits for the capitalist. Labour alone produces wealth. The capitalist’s problem is, always and everywhere, to squeeze out of the labour-power he has hired the fullest use he can.

The capitalist controls the physical means of production; the workers control nothing but themselves, the capacity to work. They are driven to work, to sell their labour–power to the capitalist, in order to keep themselves and their families. When they sell, they demand a ‘living wage’ for their labour-power, and, if unions are strong and there is not much unemployment, they usually get it. Of course there are exceptions, but by and large, for the working class as whole, this is true.

If the worker produced exactly that amount of products which he could buy for his weekly wage plus what would replace the raw materials and machinery used up in its production, the capitalist would clearly not make a profit. Profit can only be made when the workers produce more than their wage bill and the depreciation of machinery and the depletion of stocks of raw materials put together, i.e. when they produce surplus value, value over and above the wages necessary to maintain themselves and their families.

A great deal of nonsense has been written about the way in which the most advanced forms of capitalist technology enable the worker to rediscover responsibility and skill. In practice, the chief skill required in the most highly automated plants is the skill of staying awake till the end of the shift. ‘Automation’, ‘modernisation’, ‘rationalisation’, ‘scientific management’, and the like have the effect, above all, of displacing from one sector of production after another great masses of workers, who ‘become available’ for hire in other, more labour-intensive branches of capitalist work. Whole new ‘services’ are now provided for large urban communities, ‘services’ which suck in to employment great masses of ‘surplus labour’, both the labour ‘freed’ from manufacturing industries by machinery and labour ‘freed’ from housework. Office work, like factory work, has been de-skilled to a vast extent, and the office worker turned into as much of a labourer as his or her counterpart in overalls on the shop-floor.

State capitalism was originally a term to refer to government ownership of economic enterprises. But nowadays its meaning has widened to include state intervention in economic activity to aid capitalism to overcome the contradictions and antagonisms which increasingly torment its being. Many on the Left still consider state capitalism a progressive unfolding of a new social order. The theory envisages an organized regulated capitalism which leads to state capitalism and socialism: the theory is of a gradual “growing into” socialism on the basis of the capitalist state. State capitalism is not a form of transition to socialism. State capitalism tries to “unify” the nation and “balance” class-economic antagonisms. State capitalism may make minor concessions to workers, within the limits, but the aim is to restrict workers from acting as an independent class in their own interests.

Money has the magical power of turning things into their opposites. “Gold! Yellow, glittering, precious gold”, can, as Shakespeare said, “make black, white; foul, fair; wrong, right; base, noble; old, young; coward, valiant.” Under capitalism, where everything enters the field of exchange and becomes the object of buying and selling, a man’s worth comes to be estimated, not by his really praiseworthy abilities or actions, but by his bank balance and credit rating.

The liberation of mankind can only be brought about through the world socialist revolution which will concentrate political and economic power in the hands of the working people. A rational planned economy will enable mankind to regain mastery over the means of life and abolish the conditions permitted, and even necessitated, the subjugation of man to man, the rule of the many by the few.

Once everyone’s primary needs are capable of satisfaction, abundance reigns, and the labour time required to produce the necessities of life is reduced to the minimum, then the stage will be set for the abolition of all forms of alienation and for the rounded development of all persons, not at the expense of one another, but in fraternal relation. The abolition of private property must be accompanied by the wiping out of national barriers. The resultant increase in the productive capacities of society will prepare the way for the elimination of the traditional antagonisms between physical and intellectual workers, between the inhabitants of the city and the country, between the advanced and the undeveloped nations. These are the prerequisites for building a harmonious, integrated system. When all compulsory inequalities in social status, in conditions of life and labour, and in access to the means of self-development are done away with, and when individuals no longer are at war with each other—or within themselves then the manifestations of alienation will wither away. Such is the socialist revolution and its reorganisation of society as projected by Marxism.

The Socialist Path

The path of the socialist revolution is not an easy one and the history of the working class movement proves this as it has been full of false shortcuts and wrong turnings, leading to class collaboration and compromise. Humanity has gone through the two most savage and bloody wars of its history. For a hundred years the world has known no rest or respite as poverty, hunger and war has continued to wreak destruction. Tens of millions of men women and children perish needlessly. The threat of a new world war hangs over our heads permanently as the crisis over Ukraine brings back the Cold War and this time there can be no debate of its cause, it is a battle not of ideology but a war for economic advantages. Humanity’s resources are wasted in senseless adventures while people’s basic needs remain unsatisfied and our environment is spoiled. There is an increasingly imbalance between civilisation’s capacity for progress and the wretched misery that hundreds of millions of people must live under daily.

We ask: why this? Who is responsible? What economic, political, and social system creates and perpetuates this? How can things be changed? And the answer is that, despite diversity in political regimes, in language, and in culture and beyond differences in race and nationality, the vast majority of the people of the globe share a common condition: that of living in a society where the owners of the means of production impose their will over those who possess nothing or little. In other words, the vast majority of people live in a society divided into social classes where the propertied classes, the capitalists, dominate those of us who have little or no property, the working class. The economic base of this social regime is the capitalist system.

The reason for existence is in its name – employers and investors own the means of production and distribution for the purpose of the accumulation of capital; a capitalist who does not constantly expand is, as a general rule, a capitalist condemned to disappear.Yet, the capitalist has nothing if he cannot find in society a large number of people who have no other means of subsistence but the sale of their labour-power in exchange for a wage equivalent to the strict minimum for survival. The secret of capitalist exploitation lies precisely in the fact that what the capitalist buys from the worker is not his or her work but rather labour-power. If the capitalist had to pay for the work furnished, he would not be able to make the profit he does. Let’s look at an example to illustrate this.

Suppose that a worker produces 10 pairs of shoes a week which sell for $25.00, thus making a total value of $250.00 per week on the market. This worker receives a weekly wage of $100.00. Where does the value of the shoes come from? The raw materials – the leather, thread, and glue – along with the other means of production such as electricity, the machines, etc. alone account for $75.00 to which is added the value added by the worker’s labour, i.e. $250.00 less $75.00 or $175.00. This sum represents the amount that the worker added by his work to the value of the materials that he was given at the beginning. If the capitalist paid the worker according to the value of his labour, he would have to give him $175.00. However, this is not what happens because the wages paid to the worker do not correspond to the value of the work he furnishes; rather, they correspond, on the average, to what it costs the worker to reproduce this labour-power or, in other words, to recuperate his energies and ensure his subsistence given the cost of living and the living conditions at a given time.

There lies the essence of capitalist exploitation: the worker gives a certain value of work to the capitalist but his or her wages do not correspond to this value but to only a fraction of it. The value of the non-paid work is called the surplus-value; the capitalist appropriates this non-paid fraction which constitutes the source of his profit, the source of capital. Here lies the key to the exploitation of the employed by the employer, the key to the enrichment of the bosses on the backs of workers.

“The workingmen have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got.” There is good reason to always recall this elementary truth in the “Communist Manifesto”, for it is a truth that capitalist ruling classes are always seeking to camouflage. In Scotland various factions within the ruling class have been exhorting workers to abandon its own interests for the sake of the Scottish “nation”. For the members of the ruling SNP government in Holyrood, to fight unemployment and poverty, English “colonialism” must first be fought. As far as they are concerned, the role of the Scottish worker is to supply the foundation blocks of the “homeland”, and to make it into an independent State. Sturgeon declares “Elect me, I am the saviour of our country, forget about your exploitation and your misery for the time being. Instead, help us get more subsidies and more powers: then you’ll get more jobs...” While the Labour Party rivals and the aspiring Murphy insert their own nationalist demands with their grandiose defence of UK unity. Both have one aim: getting people to abandon the point of view based on its specific class interests so that it falls into rank behind their particular section of the ruling class, getting the workers to postpone its main objective forever; putting off putting an end to the real source of exploitation, of oppression and of crises, capitalism itself. This boss class has learned how to exploit the spirit of sacrifice that the people has demonstrated under difficult conditions, in order to get it to serve its own interests using its lies and demagogy to divide and rule. They can also count upon its lickspittle lackeys and mouthpieces to appeal to national loyalty “Be more productive and things will be better for the country...” that’s what they say repeatedly to justify their latest model of class collaboration. Its media, newspapers, radio, and television, never let up in their calls for peace between the classes.

The only true solution is socialist revolution. There is no middle path between capitalism and socialism. The capitalist swindlers have launched a most savage attack against the working class. The difficulties which the capitalists are presently facing brings it to bear upon those that creates its wealth, onto the backs of the working masses. The capitalist class has joined ranks to use its instrument of repression, the State, to inflict laws, one more oppressive than the next, upon the heads of the people in its efforts to intensify its exploitation in order to increase its profits. Impoverish and divide is their austerity policy. The capitalist owners use their state power, their government, to shift responsibility for the young, the elderly, the disabled and the sick, the impoverished. Social reforms gained in the past the capitalist class now wants back. Pauperisation, a large reserve army of the unemployed working class, our weakened trade unions, necessities for capitalist recovery, provides the leverage in the bosses' drive against the entire working class. The propertied 1% keep coming at us, relentless and ruthless, and their resources—political and financial—are large. Class struggle waxes and wanes. Certain workers have become demoralised and embittered, making them susceptible to conspiracy theories and they become the feeding ground for right-wing and fascist-minded groups who try to scapegoat other workers, both native-born and foreign newcomers for the faults of capitalism.   

We are advancing along a difficult path, one which places us in irrevocable opposition to the capitalist bosses and their allies. The objective of any movement dictates or determines its activity, its work, its demands. It follows, therefore, that for a movement to be a revolutionary one, or aspire to be one, it must have a revolutionary objective. Capitalism is a system that can and has absorbed and integrated many reforms and it automatically rejects all reforms that run counter to the logic of the system (such as completely free public services which cover social needs). The structure can only be abolished by overthrowing it, not by reforming it. We must continue to demonstrate that we stand for the emancipation of all men and women and that our aim is to end forever the exploitation of man by a small exclusive class. It is regrettable that we still have people who have not learned from former experiences, who still insist that it is possible to achieve freedom with the weapons and instruments of former times. This self-appointed minority wish to impose ‘freedom’ on people, who themselves form an elite, without any contact or support from the mass of the people, those who make the question of violence and insurrection the focus of the struggle are going to find themselves isolated and will surely fail, as other efforts of a similar nature failed in the past. The task of the Socialist Party is to organise the people not for revolt, not for rebellion, not for insurrection but for revolution. A social revolution that will change the entire political and economic system.

One of the basic problems of today is lack of class consciousness among the people. We, as socialists \do not believe that capitalism will suddenly collapse as a result of some miracle or inner contradictions. We do not believe we should sit on the sidelines and interpret current events hoping for some revolutionary event happening. We must build a movement of people who are aware and conscious of all the many avenues that are open to the movement. We accept the key teaching role that struggle has, and of the experience born from such struggles. We understand that it is only by trying to expand actual living working class struggles against the employers and of the capitalist system, can a rise be achieved in working class consciousness. Only through such struggles can the workers build the actual organs through which they can tomorrow take over the administration of the economy and the State, freely elected workers committees at factory or street level which will federate themselves afterwards locally, regionally, and thenworld-wide. That is that the conquest of political power by the working class really means. This will be a long path but if we build our foundations on a conscious people we cannot but succeed.

“However, our politics must be working-class politics. The workers’ party must never be the tagtail of any bourgeois party; it must be independent and have its goal and its own policy.” — Friedrich Engels, Apropos of Working-Class Political Action

Together Workers Can Go Forward

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE

Anti-capitalists - what are they fighting against? The horrors of capitalism are as old as capitalism itself and not simply a product of the last few decades. The reduction of people to commodities, sweat-shop labour, the long hours of work that destroy the lives of women, men and children, the land-grab and destruction of people’s livelihoods as poor farmers are driven from the land are characteristic effects of capitalism throughout its history.

Marx long ago pointed out that the way capitalism functions hides from people what is really happening. Those who buy and sell on markets see only the interplay of goods on those markets, not the human activity that lies behind this interplay. Those whose incomes come from dividends and interest, or playing on the money markets, believe money itself has a magical ability to grow which has nothing to do with the toil of people in factories, fields, mines and offices. Capitalists who live off the labour of workers believe they provide work for them. Unemployment is seen as resulting from some shortage of the total work that needs doing, rather than from the absurdity of a system driven by the blind competition between rival owners of the means of making a livelihood. Marx called this upside down view of the world encouraged by capitalism “the fetishism of commodities” – comparing it with the religious notion that god created humans, not humans god.

A capitalist can use and abuse his capital not as his whim dictates but in a certain well-defined manner, otherwise he is liable to an immediate penalty, namely, bankruptcy. He cannot use his profit as he likes. He must accumulate to improve his equipment and expand his enterprise. Otherwise he loses not only his profit but also his original capital. At a certain stage competition forces him even to abandon the individual ownership of his business and to enter into a corporation, and later into a cartel. Finally, he is compelled to wage war, to devote to that purpose an increasingly larger portion of his profits and to endure the haughty intervention of militarists and bureaucrats. All this proves that capitalist property is a contradictory phenomenon, self-devouring in character. And this we have known since the time of Marx.

The right to private property, the right to exploit, the right to rob, the right cause wars. These are the  basic rights of  of capitalism. Our answer to those rights is the abolition of the right of private property, and instead the common ownership of the means of production, so that all may enjoy the fruit of their labour, and consume it, thus eliminating economic crises, and the reason for wars. Socialists are not out to create a bloody revolution but work for a fundamental change in  the conditions of the people that can only be attained by transforming basic social relations, by a shift in ownership and control from the few to the many when the whole of society is changed by the elimination of the private ownership of the entire means of production, socialism. The Labour Party is a capitalist party. If so-called revolutionaries support Labour, even as a lesser evil or with all sorts of qualifications to their support, they are betraying the working class. To offer any support for Labour is to directly contradict the fundamental task of presenting the working class with a clear alternative to all capitalist parties and to the whole system of capitalism. A mass party must be created which presents a clear alternative to the capitalist parties, and which is able to prove in consistent struggle that it really represents working class interests.

The starting point for understanding politics is a knowledge of the real structure of society. That society is composed of different classes, ranging from wage workers in the factories, fields and offices to stockholders of the corporations which own and operate them. Which class rules and how do its agents secure their domination over our economic, political and cultural life?

The history of the working class has been a history of unremitting struggle against exploitation and oppression by the capitalist class. The working class came into existence by the forcible driving of the peasants from the land. The landless peasants were then forced to work at starvation wages in the developing factories, under threat by Government legislation of branding, flogging and execution. The ruling class, while in the main using lies and deception to exploit and oppress the workers, has never shrunk from brutalising the people. The ruling class has revealed its true features time and time again. Up until now, the capitalists have had a fine time concocting lies against the working class and deceiving the people. Many workers have had the media misrepresent their case when they were faced with the capitalists’ “take-away” attacks such as on so-called occupational final salary pension cuts.

Some of the Left Communist nature accuse trade unions of being instruments for the administration of capitalism because of the pressing need for workers to organise themselves to fight for immediate economic demands. Bosses do not look kindly on workers who are unorganised then attempt to form unions that will fight in its class interests. If the bosses thought that unionisation was purely class collaborationist, why would they use all the power of the state against workers organising. Nor is it inevitable that participation in the immediate economic struggles of the workers in a trade union form will lead to sellout by capitalist ideology. We agree that trade unions are not revolutionary organisations and fight only for limited demands within the system. Furthermore, once workers force the boss to recognise the union, the next step for the bosses is to attempt to reverse that workers’ victory. Employers’ management do this because a strong, militant union will eat into their profits and because such a union will become a vehicle for still greater struggle by the workers. And it has to be conceded that the boss class have been quite successful in blunting union struggle. It is not true that the trade unions promotes class collaboration. If that were true the bosses would welcome union recruitment campaigns instead of opposing them. Rather it is the lack of understanding within the working class that permits union leaders to take control. Without a knowing the nature of capitalism, workers will be unable to withstand the onslaught of the bosses.

Ordinary workers are powerless to determine the decisions that most vitally shape their lives. They are not consulted beforehand and often do not even know what these decisions are until they are struck by their consequences. The major decisions are made for them by people in pivotal positions who have centralized the means of information and the policy-making powers in their hands. The elite in power, on the other hand, are in positions to make decisions having major consequences. Their failure to act, their failure to make decisions, is itself an act that is often of greater consequence than the decisions they do make. For they are in command of the major hierarchies and organisations of modern society. They rule the big corporations. They run the machinery of the state and claim its prerogatives. They direct the military establishment.

The very rich of 2010 are largely the descendants of the very rich of 1900 or 1950. These acquired their fortunes thanks to the right of private property, by corporate manipulations, by favorable tax legislation and through compliant political authorities. The very rich have used existing laws, they have circumvented and violated existing laws, and they have had laws created and enforced for their direct benefit. Their immense revenues are derived from their ownership of the giant corporations. They are closely tied up in a thousand ways with the CEOs of the immense transnationals . The corporate rich alone are really free, or at least enjoy incomparably more freedom of action and of inaction than anyone else. Their wealth affords them unrestricted command over society and its products and liberates them from the grim material necessities of the lower classes. Money provides power and power provides freedom. The corporate rich, the warlords and the big politicians jointly develop and administer domestic and foreign policies. Decisive power on decisive issues is concentrated exclusively in the top circles. The current monopolizers of power have no responsibility to the people or to anyone else. Within the existing setup they are uncontrolled and uncontrollable and they profit from this state of irresponsibility.

Every crisis sets in motion the forces which temporarily enable capitalism to get out of crisis. Only when the working people develop a political movement to seize state power does the capitalist system break down. On its own, simply given economic contradictions under capitalism, the system could continue forever, breeding greater destructive crises, and then prosperous booms.

 This is the natural order of the damnable and sordid economic system in which we live. This is the order which will remain until it is altered by one of these classes, and the class which will make the alteration will be the working-class. Why has the mighty force of the working class, so filled with the spirit of rebellion and international brotherhood, never overthrown their oppressors? It is impossible to hold the people down solely by violence – it can only be done by deception. The political platform of the capitalists has been presented by their parties in as confused a manner as possible so the people won’t grasp what they stand for. With the proper understanding of the economic system, the workers will soon find means to end that system and  have for its goal the benefit for the whole of the community.

A new storm against the capitalist class is now developing. A drive to break the unions is under way. Wage, benefits and working condition gains are being taken away. Our labour struggles are mostly defensive trying to maintain concessions won previously. The capitalist class is grinding the working class down, and where there is oppression, there is resistance and it is producing a response. Pessimists see only half the struggle, only the capitalist attack.

Working people are seeing through the treacheries of the  capitalist class. There is deep distrust and rejection of the official channels into which the capitalist class tries to divert politics. Parliaments are largely irrelevant to people’s needs and the actions people must carry out. Trade union officials are viewed as ineffective and regarded with suspicion. Politicians are heroes to no one. The percentage of people who vote at elections is at a historical low point. Newspapers and television are read and watched cynically. Social consciousness is deeper.

There is class struggle raging. True, resistance is still scattered over many issues, but struggles will merge into mighty currents tomorrow. There exists a sense of mutual support of each others’ struggles. We are not in a revolutionary period yet by any means. But old limits of struggle have been surpassed. The workers question capitalism on a much broader scope than before. No political party ever spoke before in the name of the working class and called for the overthrow of the capitalist class as the ruling class. Socialism has always considered labour as the foundation for the existence of society. Socialism always set before itself the task, not only to emancipate the industrious society from the capitalist which had seized the means of production and used them for the exploitation of the labour of others, but it was also the socialist aim to replace the chaotic organisation of labour as it exists under capitalism, by an organisation which shall fit the needs of society.

We in the Socialist Party curse – and try to remedy – the fact that our numbers are yet so small that we are unable to take greater responsibility in the class war. We must admit this failure and not become demoralised but analyse its roots and chart a new direction forward. 

Giving/receiving not buying/selling.

The Socialist Party proposes to end private and State ownership of the means of production and distribution and instead create a social system which will satisfy the economic needs of the community and where those means of production and distribution are owned and controlled by the whole of the people. There were no class divisions. When all those things necessary for the well-being of the community no longer belong to any individuals but are owned are owned collectively by the whole people, none are possessors and none have any advantage over others. All are in the same situation, all have the same interest. Society loses its class nature with the abolition of private property and being class-free, there can be no class interests.

Alongside this abolition of class inequality, the wage-labour system will also come to an end — that is to say, men and women will cease to work for wages. To-day, people work for wages because they do not get an opportunity of working directly for themselves. All the instruments of labour, all the raw materials, all means by which alone men and women can gain their livelihood, are in the hands and under the control of the few hence all others have no opportunity of gaining a livelihood except by placing themselves at the disposal of the owning class. In today's capitalist world we sell our labour-power to employers, whose object in buying it could be is to make a profit out of it, that is, to pay less for it than the amount we can produce. Therefore, once the private ownership of the means of living is abolished, men and women will cease to sell their labour-power for wages. But the means of production and distribution have developed so much that it has made it impossible for them to be owned by the individuals who operate them and even beyond the stage where they could be owned and controlled by the actual groups operating them. The vast and complex system of industry can only be efficiently owned and controlled as a whole and by the whole community.

Socialism does not require that people should put the interest of others before their own (altruism) but merely that they should recognise that it is in their own best interest to co-operate with others to further the common interest. To establish socialism people do not have to stop being selfish and become saints; they merely have to remove, by conscious political action, the barrier which coercive, class society represents to the free exercise of their nature as co-operative, social animals.  Socialism will be a society based on giving/receiving rather than buying/selling.

Scientists and technicians like the rest of us they are constrained by the system we live in. They are not directed by the wishes, needs and aims of society as a whole but have to follow the logic of their master, the market. Everything becomes possible when the tools are in the right hands, the hands of the producers. It becomes a matter of organisation to bring in the new society. There is plenty of work to be done to achieve the satisfaction of everyone's basic needs but is deliberately left undone as the profit motive dictates. It takes a fundamental shift in emphasis away from the dictates of a small minority to the wishes and needs of the overwhelming majority.

This requires that majority populations worldwide capture the state apparatus politically in order to restructure social decision-making and administration.  Depriving the capitalist class of the state and its functionaries are the first objective. Once the decision is made, then it becomes a matter of organisation. Suffice it to say there will have been a period of planning and co-ordination by mass organisations in work places, in neighbourhoods, in educational establishments, in organisations with international links and in civic organisations, which will culminate in the collective and proactive decision of the people to take control over the direction of their lives immediately and for the future. A totally democratic system, from the broadest possible base, representing the widest possible views will be bottom-up, proactive, participatory democracy at all levels: local, regional and world with delegates elected to carry forward the message and speak for the whole community.  With ever-increasing numbers involved, discussion and debate will determine the direction of the variety of paths to be taken. It just seems common sense to place the role of social, political, environmental and whatever other decisions firmly with the people. Why complicate what could be a perfectly simple arrangement with meaningless and pointless monetary budgets. The inputs required for allocating resources need only be manpower and materials. Why suffer a price system that only confuses and complicates every issue. Buying and selling and the exchange economy will be redundant as we shall willingly share in the work with our hands and head.