Exploring Trade Unions (Part 1)

The nature of capitalist society is such that the employer always tries to minimise the cost of production and maximise his profits. This can only be done at the worker’s expense, the worker that finds himself constantly the victim of attempts by management to lengthen the working day, or speeding up production and reducing wages. The workers and capitalist do constant battle over the level of wages, the price of “labour”. The trade unions see their struggle as one fought primarily inside the capitalist system for the improvement of the worker’s condition. The trade unions fight around contracts, and using contracts to improve the worker’s condition, the unions,  “negotiate” like people at a trading fair, like businessmen at an auction. But even a ”good contract” still simply means the worker has only won a better deal for the selling of his or her labour power, the fundamental causes of this problem still exists – the capitalist system. There are no solutions within the capitalist system.

Trade unions first arose out of the spontaneous battles of working people to defend themselves from the abuses and oppressive conditions imposed by the system of wage labour. Stripped of any means of survival other than the sale of their labor power; workers were forced to compete against each other, thereby enabling profit-hungry capitalists to drive down wages and force long hours and inhuman conditions on the people. In this situation of virtual enslavement, workers were bound to resist. In drawing together workers and teaching them through struggle the need for solidarity and unity against the onslaught of the capitalists, unions served as centers for organizing the working class as a whole.The capitalist class has taken increasing steps to try to ensure that workers remain reliable and loyal wage slaves. Revolutionaries point out that the historic task of the trade unions is to fight for the complete emancipation of labour from capital. Reformists, on the other hand, advances a programme designed to keep workers shackled as wage slaves, but simply better-paid wage slaves.

Associations of workmen of one type or another can be traced far back into history, but trade unions as we know them today date back only to the 18th century. Concerning the origin of trade unions, Marx points out how capital is concentrated social power, while the worker has only his individual labour power at his disposal. Therefore, the agreement between Capital and Labour can never be just. The only social force possessed by the workers is their numerical strength. This force, however, is impaired by the absence of unity. The lack of unity among the workers is caused by the inevitable competition among themselves, and is maintained by it. The trade unions developed originally out of the spontaneous attempts of the workers to do away with this competition, or at least to restrict it, for the purpose of obtaining at least such contractual conditions as would raise them above the status of virtual slaves. The immediate aim of the trade unions, therefore, was limited to waging the day-to-day struggle against Capital, as a means of defence against continuous abuses by the latter, i.e., questions concerning wages and working hours.  This activity of the trade unions is not only justified but also necessary. It cannot be dispensed with so long as the capitalist mode of production exists. On the contrary, it must become general by means of creating and uniting trade unions in all countries.  If the trade unions refrained from such struggle there would be no limit to the exploitation of the workers other than that of physical endurance. The workers would be reduced to the status of slaves.

Engels in 1881 wrote, “The time is also rapidly approaching when the working class will have understood that the struggle for high wages and short hours, is not an end in itself, but a means, a very necessary and effective means, but only one of several means towards a higher end: the abolition of the wages-system altogether”. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/05/28.htm#p2

Trade union organisation is as requisite as socialist organisation since it enables the workers to wage the class conflict on a higher plane and prepares the way for the higher Socialist organisation. Our struggle is to fight for genuine working class control of the trade unions. This is also a pre-requisite for the emancipation of the working class and the establishment of socialism. For all reformists such things as union democracy, the right to strike, etc., are goals in themselves rather than simply means for the complete emancipation of the working class from capitalist exploitation. John Maclean explained it:
“Effective unions will never exist till the workers are revolutionary Socialists, just as effective political action can never come till the masses are thoroughly class-conscious and are fully determined to stop all robbery by the moulding of present-day capitalism into the co-operative commonwealth.”

Trade unions are not revolutionary vehicles; they are capitalist institutions, not socialist ones.Trade unions organise workers as wage slaves selling labour power as a commodity. Marxists insists that the working class must also, in addition to their economic organisation, develop its political movement. To succeed in the class struggle, the workers will need more than economic organisation. They will need to be politically organised, using its‘political supremacy to wrest by degrees all capital from the bourgeoisie’(Manifesto of the Communist Party). Marx nowhere deprecates the political dimension but, rather, insists upon it. The working class must convert its economic movement into its political movement if it is to challenge and overthrow the power of capital and the state. Where the political party is strong all workers feel themselves brothers; their solidarity is not limited to his trade or occupation. However, one can search in vain for the ‘ideal’ instrument of socialist revolution, since all organisational forms will be, to a greater or lesser extent, implicated in the environment it seeks to change. The ‘perfect’ form may be sofar removed from the society to be changed and the social practices of the workers as to be either irrelevant or an abstract tool leading to political alienation.

Rosa Luxemburg was also to find out that it was the trade unions who curtailed the radicalism of the party, not vice versa. The syndicalists failed to understand just how much trade unions are part of the capitalist system, organising workers as wage labourers whose labour power is a commodity. There is, therefore, a structural tendency for trade unions to be incorporated within the capitalist system as permanent bargaining organisations and as managers of the conflict surrounding the employment relation. Because of this, trade unions could not function as vehicles of economic emancipation. Workers’ economistic socialism offers a reformism from below against the social democratic parties’ reformism from above.

The Trade Unions were organisations aiming to increase the proportion of social wealth going to the working class, an aim which Luxemburg described as a 'sort of labour of Sisyphus' since it was doomed to frustration by the processes of proletarianisation, the growth of the productivity of labour and unemployment. Luxemburg earned the continuing enmity of Trade Union leaders for this phrase, but Luxemburg was surely right. In a capitalist economy, trade union power can be used to make gains in pay and conditions within the wages system, but cannot be used to abolish the wages system. Trade unions in their functions cannot go beyond a certain critical level, to the point at which they obstruct and subvert the mechanisms of accumulation and investment, the very premise of union demands. When this critical level is reached, unions have to convert the economic struggle into a general political struggle aiming to change the economic and political system, at which point they cease to be trade unions,or restrain their demand within what the system can afford. Luxemburg was therefore pointing to the limitations of trade unions as vehicles of change.This does not, however,  mean that Luxemburg and socialists considered trade unions unimportant.

Taking the argument that trade unions are not political or revolutionary organisations but organisations for the sale of labour power. This is true, but is it not possible that, with the movement of the class, they could be more than economic organisations. Marx himself entertained this notion, and one needs to understand why. Marx understood that trade unions come too much to concentrate upon the economic struggle with capital whereas they should be looking to abolish capitalist relations; the wages struggle should be converted into the struggle for the abolition of the wages system. It is argued that the trade unions cannot do this. But Marx’s argument needs to be understood. For Marx, it is not the organisation, of any kind, that acts but the working class as the subject and creative agency. The working class itself converts its economic struggles and interests into the revolutionary socialist objective. The argument that trade unions are merely organisations for the sale of labour power can be considered as failing to appreciate the political inherent in the economic, the political potential of the wages struggle, the possibility of converting the economic movement of the class into the political. It is akin to arguing that the working class exists permanently as the class of labour power and is incapable of becoming the revolutionary class challenging capitalist relations.

The militancy, the consistency of purpose, the determination, the willingness to confront the authorities and the energy, vitality and discipline and the self-sacrifice displayed by the workers expressed something much more profound than ‘economism’. Certainly, economic issues were to the fore – wages, poverty, unemployment, speed up, overtime, managerial practices. Yet in the spirit of revolt workers are protesting against their exploitation and dehumanisation; the workers are contesting not poverty but their status as wage slaves. The workers are affirming their human dignity and are coming to assert the class power which derived from the increasing unity, development and maturity of the class.

“There is no possibility of achieving economic freedom, nor even of taking any steps towards that end, unless the workers themselves are conscious that what they suffer from, as a class, is economic subjugation and consequent exploitation by the capitalists. Moreover, unless the workers themselves protest against this subjugation and exploitation, and themselves form organisations for the specific purpose of persistently fighting the enemy until freedom shall be won –then all else is as nothing." wrote Tom Mann

But it must be made clear that neither industrial organisation, nor Parliamentary action, nor both combined, can achieve the emancipation of the workers unless such emancipation is definitely aimed at.

“Political and industrial action direct must at all times be inspired by revolutionary principles. That is, the aim must ever be to change from capitalism to socialism as speedily as possible. Anything less than this means continued domination by the capitalist class.” Tom Mann explained.

Far from putting its faith in the spontaneous revolt of the working class, still lest the voluntarist uprising of the political party, the syndicalist argument conceives revolution as a process in which the workers develop their intellectual, organisational and technical ability to assume control of the new social order. The workers thus come to create the foundations of the future social order within the shell of the present society. Hence the importance of the point that the workers will possess the capacity to carry on production having ejected the employing class. The workers, in short, from dehumanised and degraded under capitalist relations, would become capable of directing their own lives, taking the future in their own hands and assuming control of the new social order. The power of the state and of capital is indeed to be challenged and overthrown and this does require political organisation. But political activity with a socialist aim has to have a social basis if it is to be effective. The industrial (self) organisation of the working class, enabling it to exercise responsibility and initiative in the old and the new society, is the foundation of socialism. Proletarian autonomy has to emerge as the essential control of the revolutionary process.

 “The worker has but one problem before him, and that is how to control production in theinterest of himself and the community. And in the same way as he thinks it is his right to vote for the election of Parliament or a Municipal Council, so must he acquire the right to elect the organisers of industry, viz., managers, foremen, and all others necessary for the successful conduct of wealth production.” Tom Mann

 The railway worker Charles Watkins who founded and edited the Syndicalist Railwayman newspaper, writes “The first prerequisite to a scientifically organised, vigorously conducted working class movement is a clearer understanding on the part of the workers of the actual relation existing between themselves and the capitalists, and a more intelligent appreciation on their part of theimportance of the class struggle. To gain these, the workers must rely on their own experience and on the knowledge gained through the study of industrial history and working class economics. But even without a knowledge of economic theory, the workers will find their class instincts far more reliable as a guide than much of the advice tendered by some of their ‘leaders’.”

Apparently, everyone’s forgotten the role of resistance. Resistance isn’t simply important; resistance is everything. There’s a myth suggesting that companies pay their employees all that they can afford to pay them. That is patently false (which is why it’s a myth). They pay their employees as little as they can get away with. Union membership is at an historical low because there is not enough resistance to keep it from shrinking. Profits are high, but resistance is low. Unions need to mount a counter-offensive, and they need to do it now.

 A workers’ party that is of any use is one that recognises that the workers are robbed by the capitalist, and understands how that robbery takes place; and is one that is organised to prosecute the class struggle politically until socialism is attained. Such would be a socialist party based on Marxist principles. All other parties, no matter how named, and of whom composed, are useless.

Socialism is a MUST

It is impossible to discuss any important political problem of our time, let alone take a part in resolving it, without a clear understanding of what socialism really signifies. It is just as impossible to get such an understanding from the writings and speeches of capitalists, their statesmen, politicians, hangers-on, apologists, or any other beneficiaries of their rule. They are quite capable of describing the notorious vices of particular aspects of capitalism but its true social significance, however, escapes them. Whoever does not know what are the real relationships between the social system of capitalism and the social system of socialism, may be ever so intelligent in fields like physics or the arts or investment banking, but in the most important field of social science, he is hopeless. Whoever knows something about these relationships, but refuses to make them the rock foundation on which to base and build his political ideas and actions, may be ever so fine a family man, so tender a poet, so graceful a writer and so eloquent an orator, but in this field of politics he is either a muddlehead, a mercenary or a plain demagogue.

 The biggest productive machine ever imagined for the creation of social wealth, has nevertheless instilled in the entire population a profound and a sense of insecurity. Everybody realises that whatever economic prosperity there is, or seems to be, is based upon the unparalleled economic destruction produced by the wars of today or by the organised economic waste of the periods of war preparations. The very preparation for war requires that a crushing economic burden be kept upon the shoulders of society, above all on those shoulders least able to carry the burden. Political or intellectual leaders one after another now repeats, as if it were an incontestable truth, that they face a fight for survival in a war against terror; and not a person has yet been found to reject or rebut that ominous formula. It should be clear why the professional supporters of capitalism are incapable of analysing and understanding socialism. Such an understanding implies a thoroughgoing indictment of capitalism which is unacceptable to those who are wedded economically or intellectually to this moribund social order.

When we speak of capitalism solving a social problem it should be self-evident that we mean solving the problem on a capitalistic basis. Capitalism has never been able to solve a social problem on any other basis. What is more, when it was able to solve such problems on that basis in the past, it is now less and less capable of solving them even on that basis today. Socialism is not a happy Utopia, which we OUGHT to establish but a future system which we inevitably MUST attain.

 Society is not as stationary but as constantly in motion. Society is made up of a net of social relations, the most decisive of which are the economic, that is, those productive relations which result in the satisfaction of our basic needs, food, clothing, shelter. The production and reproduction of life—that is the great activity of the organic world, an activity that separates the animate from inanimate matter. And in the whole animal world there goes on a struggle with nature to wring from it the necessities of life. The struggle for life becomes the struggle for the means of life. And if mankind has separated himself from the ape it is in this that mankind, under the pressure of environmental forces, in the course of  evolutionary development, became a tool-making animal and through  tools changed from a victim of environment to a controller of it. The struggle for life which had become a struggle for the means of life now more and more becomes a struggle for the means of production of the necessities of life. The development of life, then, must coincide with the development of the means (the forces) of production. Here we have the basic factor of all society, the forces of production. Freedom can only come from the materialist control by mankind of the forces of nature of which it is a part.  Just as the economic structure of society depends upon the productive forces, upon the level of technique and praxis attained, so the general social and cultural relations depend upon the economic ones.  Each change in the technique of production changes the interests involved, brings forth new economic relations which challenge the old. Soon the old controlling relations hamper the forces of production. These relations must now be burst asunder. They are burst asunder by the revolution and with the social revolution come new relations, which are no longer in conflict with the development of production, of life and of freedom. Throughout all history we can see this process at work.

Capitalism is tremendously wasteful and destructive of men, goods, power, land. The ultimate destiny of all useful goods is to be consumed. Yet under capitalism goods are not produced to be consumed, but for profit, and if a greater profit can be made by destroying the goods, the destruction takes place. While production is a social act, the appropriation of the product, under the present system, is individual. As capitalism develops, larger and larger factories are built, thousands of laborers co-operate in the production of a single article, yet the article does not belong to them but to the owner of the means of production. The labourers are merely paid wages for the use of their labour power, wages which constantly grow less and less an part of the total product as the total product ever increases. Simultaneously the owner of the industries becomes progressively more divorced from the productive process. As small partnerships become big corporations or are driven out of business by the trusts and monopolies, the original entrepreneurs and organizers become mere rentiers. The corporation also develops, becomes more and more a public utility. The state begins to take a hand, and to run the industry. The former individual owner now becomes a purely parasitic hanger-on, his dividends paid regularly by the state apparatus which he controls.

Capitalist relations throttle and destroy these productive forces. Within the factory a rigid dictatorship, a terrible “rationalisation” where the dead machine rules living labor, where the man is transformed into a cog of the machine, where labor becomes wage-slavery. Outside the factory dictatorship is replaced by economic chaos, man is ruled by prices which he cannot control, by the wild forces of the market of which he can be only the victim. It is only through the hectic fluctuations of supply and demand, it is only through the frantic rush of “successes” and bankruptcies that society “decides” and “plans” the division of its labour.

 Inasmuch as our ideas rationalise our interests, the ideas of the ruling class will be along the line of preserving their property and their right to exploit, while the ideas of the working class will follow their interests. The capitalists and their agents in the seats of government are blinded by their self interest, by the profits which they make as beneficiaries of the present system. The workers, on the other hand, having nothing to lose, are free to see that the present society must evolve into a new one; they see that nothing can free society from its convulsions save the change in the mode of production from a capitalist one, of private ownership of the means of production, to a  socialist one, where the means of production are socialised and classes are no more. As yet, the signs of recognition of class lines from among the ranks of the working class have not been numerous. But there have been some progress. Signs are pointing to a period of militant action on the part of labour.  As the working class fights against its increasingly worsened position it comes to the realisation that the only way out is for labor to take what it has produced for itself. To take over the means of production, the mines, mills, factories, farms and natural resources,  and run them for their own benefit. Then we will have production for use and not for profit. Then we will end both despotism in the factory and anarchy in the market. Then society will allocate its resources and labour power according to a social plan that will benefit all.

It is capitalism which creates the working class, which places this class before its problems, which sharpens its intelligence and gives it its science. It is capitalism that arms the workers and gives them the strength to carry out their own interests. In short, capitalism as it grows out of date creates its own grave-diggers who begin to do their work. The interest of the workers is diametrically opposed to the interest of the capitalists and exploiters of the workers who, controlling the government and the social educational agencies, strive to keep the workers down. The productive forces have created capitalist relations, capitalist relations have created classes which have opposite economic and thus opposite political and cultural interests. The capitalists want to keep the old relations of exploitation. They fight the rise of the workers. But their only alternative is to plunge society into one crisis and one war after another. The victory of the workers cannot be forever delayed. The old relations must be burst asunder. And if the capitalists, blinded by their interests, try to stop the wheels of progress they are ruthlessly pushed aside by the workers just as in the past they themselves pushed aside the feudal lords.

When the workers of the world unite to take over the rule over persons will begin to give way to an administration over things. The state, with its religion, will begin to wither away. There will be no exploitation. There will be no classes. Each will receive according to his needs and will contribute according to his ability. Society will be a free one and mankind emancipated.

The Battle of Democracy

What is the nature of our society? What is the controlling force which is guiding our destinies, and regulating our actions towards our fellow men and women? Could it be replaced by a better system? The Socialist Party pose these questions and provide some answers. It is the working class alone that satisfies all human wants, and keeps humanity alive. What about the capitalist – that good, kind, benevolent employer, to whom the expropriated and exploited labourer goes hat in hand, cringing for the privilege of being permitted to work? What is his place in our social system? It is to extort another huge slice out of the worker. The worker need not hope for a reasonable wage. The capitalist has but to dismiss some of his hands, or fill their places with labour-saving machinery  and those thrown out of employment will immediately under-cut those employed in order to be reinstated. If the latter do not accede to a reduction of wage, they will be dismissed to make room for the one who offers their services cheaper. If the workers form a union, and strike for higher wages, they cannot hold out for long as the strike reduces them to poverty.

 The government may differ in form, and whether it be a theocracy, an autocracy, a constitutional monarchy or republic, they are alike in fact. Whatever they may be called, presidents are virtually kings, plutocracies are like aristocracies, and in many countries political dynasties are no better than hereditary rule. Whatever the form of government, they are all marked by this general characteristic – they all rest upon theft and robbery expropriation and exploitation. Whatever the fiction of political freedom, economic slavery underlie the social structure.

That the present social system has failed must be apparent to all. It has made the many servants to the few; it has checked the best human endeavours, and facilitated every method of exploitation; it disinherits the great mass, and ordains their lifelong misery before they are even born. The oligarchs rule the world.

 It is useless to preach thrift to those who have nothing to save, or to hope for universal prosperity when the enrichment of the few is caused by the plunder of the many. Again it is foolish to imagine that a general patronage of co-operatives and the like, will ever tend to ameliorate social wrongs; for their gains always implies someone else’s loss. These “remedies” are no remedies at all.

 The robbery of the people by rent, interest and profit, must be abolished – abolished peacefully, purposefully, and permanently. But how can we do it? How can we get from the present unjust, destructive system, into one in which justice and happiness shall be the distinguishing characteristics? How shall we fight out of the present blood-thirsty system without the shedding of blood which has marked the rebellions of the past?  It can be done. It must be done. It shall be done. But how? By the revolutionary use of the vote, that’s how.

The vote is a potential class weapon, a potential "instrument of emancipation" as Marx put it. He and Engels always held that the bourgeois democratic republic was the best political framework for the development and triumph of the socialist movement. For Marx the key task of the working class was to win "the battle of democracy". This was to capture control of the political machinery of society for the majority so that production could be socialised. Then the coercive powers of the state could be dismantled as a consequence of the abolition of class society. Marx said that you cannot carry on socialism with capitalist governmental machinery; that you must transform the government of one class by another into the administration of social affairs; that between the capitalist society and socialist society lies a period of transformation during which one after another the political forms of to-day will disappear, but the worst features must be lopped off immediately the working class obtains supremacy in the state.

If there were a working class committed to socialism the correct method of achieving political power would be to fight the general election on a revolutionary programme, without any reforms to attract support from non-socialists. In fact, the first stage in a socialist revolution is for the vast majority of the working class to use their votes as class weapons. This would represent the transfer of political power to the working class. We adopt this position not because we are fixated by legality, nor because we overlook the cynical two-faced double-dealing which the capitalists will no doubt resort to. We say, however, that a majority of socialist delegates voted into the national assembly or parliament would use political power to coordinate the measures needed to overthrow the capitalist system. Any minority which was inclined to waver would have second thoughts about taking on such a socialist majority which was in a position to wield the state power.

The vote is not a gift to the people from the ruling class out of the benevolence of their heart. It was fought for and ceded by the wealthy to the poor out of fear and so we don't advocate de facto disenfranchisement of the worker by promoting political abstention. The right to vote can become a powerful instrument to end our servitude and to achieve genuine democracy and freedom. Working people with an understanding of socialism can use their vote to signify that the overwhelming majority demand change and to bring about social revolution. The first object of a socialist organisation is the development of the desire for socialism among the working class and the preparation of the political party to give expression to that desire. What our capitalist opponents consequently do when the majority wish to prevail will determine our subsequent actions . If they accept defeat, well and good. If they choose not to accept the verdict of the majority which is given through the medium of their own institutions and contest that verdict by physical force, then the workers will respond in kind, with the legitimacy and the authority of a democratic mandate. The important thing is for the workers to gain control of the political machinery, because the political machine is the real centre of social control - not made so by capitalist rulers but developed and evolved over centuries and through struggles. The power over the means of life which the capitalist class has, is vested in its control of the political machinery.

It is the quality of the voters behind the vote that, in the revolutionary struggle, will be decisive. 

Unlock the World

We call our world civilised but it is hard to justify the term. To-day’s world tolerates hunger amid plenty. Production of things people need, and of things they would be better without, is plan-less and irresponsible, resulting in grave inequalities, where immense wealth flaunts itself amid squalor, and poverty breeds hatred and contempt. Capitalism is a social system which cannot satisfy the most elementary needs of the people, but can squander billions for war. That is the greatest indictment of capitalist ‘civilisation’.

 Socialists have always contended that capitalism should be abolished because it mismanages the means of production so that a very few – those who own the means of production – reap great profits while the rest of the people are deprived of a decent secure standard of living. We have often  demonstrated the tremendous capacities of modern industry; how it could satisfy the needs of everyone if it were run for that purpose; and how capitalism, instead, runs it for profits. Socialists explain that if only the people could run these industries for themselves, they could produce enough to satisfy everyone’s needs. Capitalism is a wasteful and inefficient system. . During crises the working masses suffer extreme want in respect of elementary necessities, their requirements are satisfied worse than at any other time. Millions of people starve because “too much" grain has been produced, people suffer from cold because “too much" coal has been produced. The working people are deprived of means of livelihood just because they have produced these means in too great a quantity. Such is the crying contradiction of the capitalist mode of production, under which, in the words of the French utopian socialist Fourier, “plenty becomes the source of poverty and want".

Upheavals often occurred under pre-capitalist modes of production, too. But they were the result od  some natural or social calamity: flood, drought, wars or epidemics sometimes laid waste entire countries, dooming population to famine and extinction. The difference, however, between these economic upheavals and capitalist crises is that the hunger and want caused by these upheavals were an outcome of the low level of development of production, the extreme shortage of products; whereas under capitalism crises are engendered by the growth of production alongside the wretched standard of living of the masses, by a relative “excess" of commodities produced. Because of the massive dynamics and productivity of capitalism at the same time as anarchy of the market exists, we face the phenomenon of poverty in the midst of plenty. For thousands of years people starved because there was not enough food. Capitalism is the only system of society in which people starve because there is too much food.

Socialism could provide people with all necessities. There would be no shortages created by the greed of a few owners of the means of production, because the people would own the means of production. We can feed the hungry, provide shelter for the homeless, and warmth for the old. There’s plenty of food in the world, the factories are there, the industrial technology is there, the scientific know-how is there, the skills of the workers are there – and the needs and wants of people are plain for all to see. The problem is that they can’t be matched up. We can produce what people need – but we don’t. With socialism, production can be organised to meet the needs of all the people and not to provide profit for a single class. It will, therefore be possible to plan production; and so to increase enormously the amount produced.

The aim of the Socialist Party is to build a society which will be classless, where all the means of producing wealth are owned in common. Instead of being divided into workers and employers, rich and poor, society will be an association of free people, all making their special contributions to the well-being of society, which in return will supply them with what they need in order to live full and happy lives. Such a society can be summed up in the slogan: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”  For this to be possible, socialism must be based on abundance. Production will be organised in such a way that there is plenty of everything for everybody: not only food, houses, railways, and so on, to satisfy material needs; but also schools and theatres, playing-fields, cultural centres, so that people can lead full, physical and spiritual lives. Socialism must embrace all the peoples of the world; and in so doing it will put an end to war. It is clear from the fore-mentioned  that many institutions which we accept today as essential will have disappeared. Because no wars can take place in a truly world society there will be no need for armies. Because it will be a community of plenty, where there is enough for all and therefore no advantage can be obtained by theft or other forms of crime, all need for courts of justice and police and prisons will have disappeared. In other words, the State, which is the sum of all these institutions and organisations, will itself disappear. Instead of one section of society ruling and oppressing another, men and women will have grown accustomed to living together in society without fear and compulsion. Thus, for the first time, mankind, united in a world-wide family of nations, will be free. Work, instead of being simply a means of earning a living, will have become the natural expression of individuals’ lives, freely given according to their abilities. Moreover, the nature of work will itself have changed. Through the development of science much of its drudgery will have disappeared and every man and woman will develop their mental and physical capacities to the full.

Everything is ripe for socialism; it is only necessary to remove its enemies, the capitalist thieves and their accomplices. The answer to  poverty and deprivation is not welfare but a new society which will have real solutions.

Against Immigration Laws and Border Controls

It is the task of all workers regardless of their place of birth to unite and present one front to the common enemy in the common struggle which is the fight against the exploitation of those who work by those who own — our fight is against wage-slavery.

Scotland is a nation of immigrants and what has been the lot of foreign-born workers? The longest hours and the lowest wages; the worst housing and the poorest schooling plus discriminatory laws against them. Foreign workers are cut off by differences in language, in customs, religion, so they more easily became prey to the employers, and today are the most exploited and oppressed section of the working class. From every corner of the world they have come, anxious to experience liberty and happiness in a new land. They have come, hoping for a better life, in which the misery and suffering of the past will be ended. Instead, they find that they are despised, condemned to live in squalor and poverty performing the hardest and most unpleasant work,  while they create wealth for the class they serve. Foreign workers finds the dice loaded against them from the moment they arrive and the form of exploitation varies in the different localities, but there are certain general practices which are to be found where foreign-born workers are numerous such as employment agencies charging of fees out of proportion to services rendered and misrepresentation of of terms of employment and conditions or the withholding wages. Unacquainted with the English language, law, or court procedure, the foreign-born worker is the victim of fraud and dishonesty. The story of the practical enslavement of the foreign born workers has been told again and again. The capitalists have taken advantage of this to rob and oppress the foreign-born even worse than they rob and oppress the native-born workers.

If the dividends are to be paid, if industry is to continue to make their millions in profits the employers must have the foreign-born workers and they must intensify the exploitation and increase their ruthless oppression. Or they must have a similar source of cheap, expendable, flexible disposable labour for like purposes - the native born worker. The employers are creating by law a class of worker which can be compelled to accept low wages and bad working conditions, and then using these oppressed and exploited workers to destroy the organisations and reduce the standard of living of the native and foreign-born alike. They hope through oppressive exception laws directed at the foreign-born workers to create a class of workers who cannot fight back, and thus weaken and destroy the whole labour movement.

In order to force lower wages, longer hours, and worsen the conditions of employment, on all the workers, the employers are trying to divide the working class. The struggle between the working class and the employing class, no matter what the nationality, race, or religion be, is a war. In this war, the class war, as in all other wars, an army picks the weakest sector in its enemy’s front as the first point of attack. This is the quickest and easiest way of breaking through and smashing the whole line of the enemy’s defense. The employing class has picked the foreign-born workers as the first working people to be attacked because they are the weakest politically, the worst oppressed job-wise and the most handicapped socially. Not knowing the language and institutions of the country and often being victims of the prejudice and hatred fostered among the native workers by the capitalists, the foreign-born workers offer the easiest picking for the employers Thus, the drive of the exploiters against the foreign-born workers is only a wedge to split wide open the army of the working class, indigenous and in-comer. The employers’ aim is to pit one section of the working class against another. With lower wages and worse conditions of employment forced upon the  foreign workers, the defeat of the better organised and better paid native workers is made sure. The success of the capitalists in forcing lower wages, longer hours, and intolerable working conditions on the native workers is then only a matter of time. It is clear that the present drive of the employing class against the foreign-born workers is only a preliminary offensive that is being prepared against the whole working class — the local-born and the foreign-born workers.

In order to separate the native workers from their foreign-born brothers and sisters, in order to prejudice them against the foreign-born workers, the capitalists and their Government raise ridiculous and false alarms in the media about the threat of incomers. With so large a number of the workers intimidated, the capitalists feel safe in launching their drive against the whole working class. The divided workers will then be more easily crushed by the united capitalists. The propaganda strategy of the capitalists’ attack is clever. First, they force the damnable working and living conditions upon the foreign-born workers. Then, the  employers curses and condemns the foreign-born workers to the native workers for the intolerable conditions that it has forced the foreign-born workers to accept. The press spread the brazen lie that the foreign born workers are a menace to the standard of living. The capitalist class thus hides its own guilt by shifting the blame to the foreign-born workers. The governments of all the EU countries have responded to their inability to provide a decent standard of living for workers – houses, schools, hospitals and job security – by blaming the influx of immigrants. Thus the enmity of the native workers to the capitalists who are to blame for the falling standard of living is turned from the ruling elite  and against the foreign-born workers instead. Thus the employers misleads the native workers into believing that their foreign-born brothers and sisters are responsible for lowering wages and lengthening hours. The capitalists are hoping to sow dissension. The workers are in this way divided along the artificial lines of nationality. A disastrous defeat for the working class is assured and a capitalist victory is secure.

The Socialist Party knows that the complete liberation of the working class can come only through the revolution; that is, when workers be able to abolish wage slavery.  But until then the working class cannot sit idly by but via the unions organise a campaign of defense against their employers. The immigrant workers can be a source of great strength or terrific weakness to the whole working class in its struggle against the capitalist class. When these foreign-born workers are oppressed, unorganised and separated from the native workers they are a source of weakness and danger — politically and industrially — to the whole labour movement. But if these foreign-born workers are organised and united industrially and politically with all the other  workers — the native workers — then the working class can successfully fight back against the employers in their campaign to break the unions, cut the wages, lengthen the hours of work or put full-time into part-time and lower the standard of living of all the workers — native and foreign-born alike. In recent years the foreign-born workers have joined the native-born in the struggle against the bosses, and low wages. The bosses have learned that they can no longer use the foreign-born workers to cut the standard of living of all  workers. If members of the working class are to save themselves from intensified wage slavery,if the workers are to win freedom from exploitation and oppression by the employers, then all the workers, native and foreign-born must unite in the common fight. The  fighting forces of the foreign-born workers must become a living part of the whole working class army. A divided front of the workers will crumble.

All workers must unite and wage a strong campaign for the removal of all visa laws forbidding foreign workers from working. All workers — foreign-born and native — must unite to prevent the enactment of new laws against foreign-born workers. The unions must wage a strong campaign of unionisation amongst all unorganised workers, especially amongst the unorganised migrant workers. All the workers must wage an active campaign to uproot the prejudices fostered by the employing class against the foreign-born and to draw foreign born workers more and more into the political and civic life of the communities where they live.  We denounce the laws directed against the foreign-born. We denounce registration, fingerprinting and photographing of asylum seekers.

Ideologically, the “religion” of the state is nationalism. In lieu of class unity, nationalism is successful because it appeals to primal human desires for solidarity and belonging, as well as fear of the unknown (“outsiders”). Fear of outsiders is deliberately cultivated by rulers in order to mystify the real cause of the people’s discontent (namely rulers themselves), especially during times of economic/environmental crisis. Ultimately, the state has come to function as a sort of artificial surrogate for real community.

All workers have but one enemy — the capitalist class. The fight is between those who work for a living and those who own. It is a war between the exploited and their exploiters!

There is no race except the human race, no nation except the world!

 “The Immigrant”
I have shouldered my burden as the American
man-of-all-work.
I contribute eighty-five percent of all the labor
in the slaughtering and meat-packing industries.
I do seven-tenths of the bituminous coal mining.
I do seventy-eight per cent of all the work
in the woolen mills.
I contribute nineteen-twentieths of all the clothing.
I manufacture more than half of the shoes.
I build four-fifths of all the furniture.
I make half the collars, cuffs and shirts.
I turn out four-fifths of all the leather.
I make half the gloves.
I refine nearly nineteen-twentieths of the sugar.
I make half of the tobacco and cigars.
And yet, I am the great American problem.
When I pour out my blood on your altar of labor,
and lay down my life as a sacrifice
to your god of toil, and make no more
comment than at the fall of a sparrow.
But my brawn is woven into the warp and woof
of the fabric of your national.
My children shall be your children and your land
shall be my land because my sweat and
my blood will cement the foundations
of the America of Tomorrow
Frederick J. Haskins

Socialism From Below

What is socialism? If we are socialists, what are we actually striving for? These days many activists are busy rethinking their idea of socialism. It is a sign of the times that more and more people are discussing the meaning of socialism. They are not content with the reiteration of  generalisations and want to know how socialism will be applicable in contemporary conditions. Some socialists stress finding the correct definition in the writings of Marx and Engels, who, however, failed to offer up a detailed picture. The label “socialist" is not particularly informative. The range of conflicting and incompatible ideas that call themselves socialist is a wide one. The nearest thing to a common content of the various “socialisms” is a negative: anti-capitalism. Even anti-capitalism holds little meaning when it too lacks any clear definition. Blurring the terminology so much that vague varieties of “socialism” and capitalism are indistinguishable from one another.

There has always been different kinds of “socialists”, reformist or revolutionary, peaceful or violent, democratic or authoritarian, anarchist or statist. There has been the “socialism-from-above”, a conception that “socialism” must be handed down to the working class in one shape or other, by an elite which is not subject to their control. The opposing view is “socialism-from-below.” that socialism can be realised only through the self-emancipation and action of the majority of workers. Socialism, without a doubt, is the doctrine of revolutionary action. But it has nothing in common with violence practiced by individuals or direct action by minorities. It is important for socialists to analyse the past so that future action will not be impeded.

Marx steadfastly refused to supply a blueprint for socialism. The question “what is socialism?” is, he argued, inextricably entwined with another question: how can socialism be achieved? No socialist Utopia s worth the paper it is written on if its authors expect the workers to be passive while the Utopia was achieved. The only way workers  can be emancipated from capital is from below – and the struggle from below cannot be set in motion from above.  By changing the means of getting socialism, reformists changed the meaning of socialism itself. When socialism became a “reformed capitalism” – a different goal-  it ceased to be socialism, and became something completely different.

Socialism, as it was understood by Marx and Engels, would be a society that would have no need for repression and oppression because it had overcome economic scarcity. Marx and Engels envisaged a society in which the social productive forces had developed to a point that they would be capable of producing such a surplus of goods and services that the majority of people would no longer have to spend the greater part of their lives in work. The planned allocation of resources and human labour, in such a future society, would also ensure that no one would have to degrade themselves by working for another human being in order to survive. Instead of work being something we all try to avoid, it would gradually be transformed into one of a wide range of creative activities people engage in to make their lives meaningful. It would be foolish to abandon hope in the promise held out to humanity by the socialism of Marx and Engels.

For centuries the wisest minds and the most far-sighted of our thinkers had thought about and tried to work out plans for a human society not dominated by exploiters, be they slave-owners or factory-owners; a society in which human beings could enjoy the fullness of life without the need to make others their servants, or to be servants of others. People have dreamt of a world where there would be no oppression but where people would live in peace without being robbed. Marx and Engels predicted that the development of the productive forces under industrial capitalism would for the first time in human history build the material basis for such a fundamental transformation of society.

Socialists have always stood opposed to the proposition that it is the destiny of most human beings to live an unfulfilled life. Human progress and social evolution has relied on the grossest forms of oppression and misery. But such economic exploitation, oppression and repression, though regrettable, are unavoidable features of human history as long as the combined output of human labour, science, the machines and technology people have created, is not large enough to provide sufficient food, shelter, recreation, education and necessary luxuries for everyone. Socialists call this condition “economic scarcity.” Economic exploitation, oppression and repression therefore, pose not an unchanging human problem, but are historical problems which could disappear when our productive forces have developed to an extent that nobody goes without what they need for a fully human life.

We will not put the socialist movement on the right track and restore its rightful appeal to the best sentiments of the working class of this country and above all to the young, until we begin to call socialism by its right name as the great teachers did. Until we make it dear that we stand for an ever-expanding workers’ democracy as the only road to socialism. Until we root out every corruption of the meaning of socialism and democracy, and restate the thoughts and formulations of the authentic Marxist teachers. Socialists should not argue with workers when they say they wants democracy and don’t want to be ruled by a dictatorship. Rather, we should recognise this demand for human rights and democratic guarantees, now and in the future, is in itself progressive. The socialist task is not to deny democracy, but to expand it and make it more complete. That is the true socialist tradition. Socialists throughout the long history of our movement, have always valued and defended bourgeois democratic rights, restricted as they were; and have made use of them for the education and organisation of the workers in the struggle to establish full democracy by abolishing the capitalist rule altogether. Socialism cannot be soundly built except on a foundation of trust in the capacity of ordinary people to manage their own affairs which requires methods of administration on a scale not so large as to deprive them of all possibility of exerting any real control over what is done.

Our challenge is to ourselves, to study what went on before, by standing upon the shoulders of the earlier working-class fighters and applying the discoveries of our predecessors to the problems of our time. It s up to the exploited class – the working class – to seize the means of production in a revolution. No one can do it for them. It certainly is no good just thinking about a new society, or trying to attract others to it by example. A socialist economy cannot be planned for workers. Socialism depends upon control from below, and control from below can never be brought about from above. Our task is to persuade the many members of working class  that their interests and aspirations are bound up with the struggle against capitalism. This socialist project is  grounded in the growing awareness of vast numbers of men and women that the capitalist system cannot deliver on the promises which its apologists so generously dispense. Our priority as a socialist party is to convince our fellow workers that there exists a feasible, achievable socialist alternative to capitalism. What is badly needed, is a reaffirmation of the principles and values which make up the socialist objective, and an insistence that there are radical, rational and viable alternatives to the ways of life dictated by a system whose own needs are ever more sharply in conflict with human needs. No piecemeal reforms or partial solutions can bring an end to this state of things. We must resist the efforts to sow illusions about “reforming” capitalism, and instead build our movement with the perspective of overthrowing it. When the Socialist Party climbed up and spoke on soapboxes in almost every town this was the meaning of socialism we were teaching. Part of the lesson naturally consisted of casting aspersions upon the validity of rival political parties and de-throning others’ ideological saints.

The socialist movement has felt obliged to abandon the use of an important word because it had become too corrupt. After the First World War, “Social-democrat” became a dirty word, and as a self-description was dropped. Many socialists who would have been quite happy to call themselves “communists” in the days of Marx or Morris, would now be reluctant to do so. When these words were abandoned as favourable descriptions,  it was not just a matter of changing a label, but of establishing the identity of a valid idea, which would otherwise be confused with a degenerate idea. The same procedure may well have to be adopted again if we cannot successfully reclaim the terms socialist/socialism and if its social vision cannot be assimilated as one coherent piece into the body of a modern social protest. 

Onward and upward towards socialism

The Socialist Party is fighting for the abolition of class society. The state machine, as an instrument of class domination, will no longer be necessary, and the state will disappear, in the words of Engels, “wither away” and be replaced by a “administration of things.”  When we talk about the inevitability of socialism we assume that the workers will continue to struggle for their rights. Were they to accept, sit down tamely and wait till socialism came to them, they would soon lose all the rights that they have now and become mere slaves. Socialism can only come when there is no longer a willingness among workers to allow themselves to be exploited. Were the workers, both politically and economically, are so class conscious and so well organised as to make their exploitation impossible then capitalism would have reached the point what we understand by social revolution.

We want socialism which is a free and voluntary society that abolishes exploitation and oppression of man by man, that is, the abolition of private property and government. It is the end of misery, of superstitions, of hatred. Under capitalism war is inevitable. It is characteristic of capitalism to justify all the robbery and misery and terrors of its system by seeking to create the impression that they are caused by basic traits in human nature, or even by “acts of god.” Thus   preventable disasters are made to appear as natural phenomena over which mankind has no control, like tornadoes and earthquakes. The same general attitude is taken with regard to war. War is put forth as arising out of the very nature of humanity. Man is pictured as a war-like animal, and therefore capitalism escapes responsibility. This is all nonsense, of course. Man is by nature a gregarious and friendly animal. He does not make war because he dislikes others of his own species, differing from him in language, religion, geographical location, etc. His wars have always arisen out of struggles over the very material things of wealth and power. This is true, whether he has obscured the true cause of his wars with a religious garb or with slogans about making the world safe for democracy. The cause of modern war is the policies of the capitalist nations to rob each other in the struggle for markets, raw materials and territory. In a society in which there is no private property in industry and land, in which no exploitation of the workers takes place and where plenty is produced for all, there can be no grounds for war. If you desire to abolish war, we say: Abolish capitalism with all its misery and replace it with a system of production for use and not for profit – all over the world. The distribution of life necessities—food, clothing, shelter, education, etc.—will be free, without let or hindrance. Production, carried out upon the most efficient basis and freed from the drains of capitalist exploiters, will provide such an abundance of necessary commodities that there will be plenty for all with a minimum of effort. Industry, freed from capitalist anarchy and exploitation, will develop a high efficiency and lay the basis for genuine mass prosperity.

Apologists for the capitalist system declare that socialism destroys individualism. But when they speak of individualism they have in mind the right of freely exploiting the workers. With socialism no one will have the right to exploit another; no longer will a profit-hungry employer be able to shut the factory gates and sentence thousands to the poverty of unemployment; no more will it be possible for a  clique of capitalists and their political henchmen to plunge the world into a blood-bath of war. Changed social conditions develop different human “natures”. For the first time in history, freed from economic and political slavery, people will have an opportunity to fully develop and express their personalities. Theirs will be an individuality growing out of and harmonizing with the interests of all. It will not have the objective of one’s getting rich by robbing the toilers, but will develop itself in the direction of achievement in science, industrial technique, art, sports. The defenders of capitalism boast  about the equal opportunity which their meritocracy affords It is a tissue of lies. What equality is there between a millionaire and a miner to enjoy life and to develop their talents? Capitalism manufactures a standardised, uninteresting world, everything made for profit’s sake. Socialist society will  know how to develop diverse, artistic products, its creativity no longer hamstrung by  by the profit-making motive. We need have no fear of new technology that we will become robotised. It is capitalism which is transforming us into machines. Instead our lives will be varied and interesting and the world will become a place well worth living in, but what is the more important, its joys will not be the monopoly of a privileged ruling class but the heritage of all.

Socialism will be a new era for the human race, a new world. The overthrow of capitalism will bring about the immediate or eventual solution of many great social problems. Gone will be war, religious superstition, prostitution, famine, pestilence, crime, poverty, alcoholism, drug addiction, unemployment, illiteracy, racism and national chauvinism, the abuse of woman, and every form of slavery and exploitation of one class by another. The objective conditions, in the shape of scientific knowledge and the technical means of creating material wealth, are already at hand in sufficient measure to do away with these menaces to humanity. But the trouble lies with  the capitalist order of society and the subjective factor. Capitalism, based upon human exploitation, stands as the great barrier to social progress and capitalism continues to exist because people permit it to remain. By abolishing the capitalist system, people will release the productive forces strong enough to provide plenty for all and it destroys the whole accompanying capitalist baggage of ignorance, strife and misery. Among the benefits of the re-organisation of the economics of the world on a rational and planned basis will be the systematic conservation and increase of the world’s natural beauty. Congested conurbations will vanish as the  conveniences of country and city merge.

Socialism frees humanity from being little more than beasts of burden and opens up before it new horizons. For many generations the long list of Utopians have dreamed ideal societies.  They sensed mankind’s capacity further social evolution. But their weak point was that they did not understand  the objective or subjective conditions necessary for social revolution.Their Utopias, were mere speculations, disconnected from actual life. Today, the objective conditions exist, the revolution no longer appears as an abstraction but still lacking is the confidence of the working class in their own capability of conducting social change. The capitalist undermine any belief in the possibility of working class  consciousness growing by insisting “it can never happen.” It is true the advance of the revolution is difficult, its progress is slow, and it varies from country to country, but its direction is sure and its movement unstoppable. Our children or perhaps our children’s children will look back with horror upon capitalism and wonder how we took so long to replace it.

Profits Before Principles

Governments like to make make statements about democracy and human rights, but when it comes to profits such high-sounding sentiments mean little or nothing. 'Human rights should not "get in the way" of expanding trade ties with China, a minister said yesterday. ....... Michael Fallon, the Tory business manager, said that concerns about human rights should not obstruct efforts to increase British exports. "These things get raised but we should not allow them to get in the way of a very important trade relationship," he said.' (Times, 17 June) The suppression of democracy or any sort of political dissent carries harsh penalties in China but that means nothing to the British government if there is a lucrative trade deal in the offing. RD

What is nationalism?

The SNP have now released a draft constitution for a possible independent Scotland. As a left wing group also critical of nationalism explained, Scotland is to be offered a choice between two ‘Yes’options in the independence referendum: “ ‘Yes’ to an ‘independent’ Scotland under the British crown, NATO and  austerity policies; or ‘Yes’ to the current UK state under the British crown, NATO and economic austerity.” In this referendum you can choose capitalism...or ...ermmm...capitalism.

The Socialist Party lends no support to the ‘Yes’ fantasies about ‘national independence’. Nor do we endorse the “No” campaigners for the continuance of the status quo. We advocate a socialist change. We stand for a united working class not a class divided by nationalities or borders. Unlike some on the Left, the Socialist Party follows the advice given in the Communist Manifesto and disdains from “concealing their views and aims”, particularly by hiding behind the cloak of nationalist patriotism.

Nationalism first appeared during the rise of capitalism, in the struggle of the emerging capitalist class to establish the nation state as a framework for the expansion of private property, freedom of enterprise and trade. The bourgeoisie was then the revolutionary class, and capitalist ideology, including nationalism, was progressive.

Identifying with the country and nation-state you live in creates the ideology of nationalism. This entails loyalty to its state; its economic and military interests, its flag, respect for its institutions (and the perceived obligation to support its national sporting teams, whether they be good, bad or indifferent!) The nation-state defines itself geographically and politically and if you define yourself primarily as its supporter, whether qualified or unqualified, you subscribe to a nationalist ideology. Socialists see things completely differently. For us, the human race is divided primarily on the basis of social class, and as we have seen, the division is between the employing class and the working class.

A nationalist outlook preaches to the people of a nation or national group that regardless of class they have more in common with one another than they do with the people of other nations. Nationalism helps bind the working class to the ruling class of its nation. It says: “We’re all Scots.” The Socialist Party say that working people’s destiny around the world must not be tied to the capitalists. If the working class holds nationalist ideas, it is allowing its destiny to be determined by the capitalist class. Marxists no longer differentiate between the nationalism of the reactionary or progressive. Socialists do not fan the flames of nationalism that divides the working class and instead we promote working class internationalism to unite the workers of the world. Therefore, we reject the ideology of nationalism, as it unites the worker with the capitalist, the oppressed with the oppressor and makes it harder for the exploited to throw off their oppression. Our reply to nationalism is to support working class internationalism. For us, the class war is central. The working class has no country.

Every nation is an integral part of the world capitalist system. Capitalism can neither be fought nor weakened through the creation of new nations but only by opposing capitalist nationalism with working class internationalism. Socialists should not hitch their wagon to nationalism for the former invariably lose.

“If you remove the English army to-morrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs. England would still rule you to your ruin, even while your lips offered hypocritical homage at the shrine of that Freedom whose cause you had betrayed. Nationalism without Socialism – without a reorganisation of society on the basis of a broader and more developed form of that common property which underlay the social structure of Ancient Erin – is only national recreancy.[a disloyality to a belief]” – James Connolly, “Socialism and Nationalism,”

The columnist Torcuil Crighton in the Daily Record writes:
"There have been 29 general elections to the Dàil, Ireland’s parliament, since independence. Ireland’s Labour Party have won precisely none. When socialism goes up against nationalism in a country where all civic politics is about the nation, then Labour doesn’t stand a chance....Eamon de Valera’s specific strategy – was to smother the Labour movement in the embrace of Fianna Fáil. His nationalist party talked the language of social democracy with enough rhetoric to rob Labour of a distinctive voice, while never delivering the goods.”

And do we not detect the same electoral tactics within Salmond’s SNP? Dividing the workers’ movement on national lines is allowing us to be played off against each other which can only serve the interests of employers on both sides of the border.

It is a terrible pity that the memory of a great labour agitator – who was motivated by internationalism, a hatred of injustice, poverty, the class system, and inequality – has been hijacked by both the Irish State and Sinn Fein, thanks to Connolly’s ill-judged and ill-fated participation in the 1916 Rising. As a student of Esperanto, he hoped the synthetic language would transcend linguistic differences and help unite the world’s workers. He co-founded the Irish Citizen Army – an organisation formed to protect Dublin workers from the brutality of the police during the 1912 Strike/Lockout - when they were engaged in bitter struggle with the bosses’ class. This class was personified by bourgeois Irish nationalist and leading advocate of independence, William Martin Murphy; owner of the Irish Independent newspaper, Clerys, and the Dublin United Tramway Company.

The reasons for Connolly’s participation in the nationalist 1916 Rising are contested. One school of thought goes that he was demoralised by the defeat of the Dublin workers in the 1912 Strike/Lockout and the capitulation of the 2nd International to war jingoism, and thus threw his lot in with the Irish nationalists; envisaging a common front that would first tackle the existing British State in Ireland, leading on to a socialist revolution. Sadly, Connolly did not live to explain his motives, as he was executed. Whatever the reasons, his legacy has been claimed by socialists, internationalists, anarchists, nationalists, Irish Republicans, and – even more ironically – the capitalist State he despised so much. Connolly’s portrayal as an Irish independence hero has led many potential socialists up the blind alley of nationalism - so making the dawning of a socialist world, united by class, all the more unlikely.

Rosa Luxemburg understood that the problem of nationalism could not be solved as long as capitalism existed. Only socialism can resolve national antagonisms. Workers everywhere are beginning to rise from their knees to their feet again. They have unprecedented latent power. But the gap between their objective power and their subjective consciousness has never been wider. At no time in their history have they been so silent politically. Their struggles are diffuse and uncoordinated. There is no world party, no mass movement  to change society. Socialists have always understood that without international unity The creation of a worldwide party of the working class is not at all an abstract or unrealistic idea, as the World Socialist Movement demonstrates but it i still merely a work in progress. The internet and social media have made the present generation incomparably connected and informed. The world has drawn together and a new global consciousness has arisen. Unity and democracy depend upon each other. Each is impossible without the other.

“Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for” sang John Lennon. He was singing about a socialist world. Such a world becomes possible once capitalism has been defeated, when social classes have finally been abolished along with the competing nation states and inequality that have accompanied them.

Socialism - the Aspiration of the Workers

The world is rich in natural resources. It is capable of satisfying the needs of all its people. But today the great majority of our people are faced with poverty, food insecurity and lack of health-care. Suffering and misery is created so a small clique of very wealthy individuals can continue to line their pockets. A handful of capitalists control our country and make fabulous profits off the labour of working people. All the major means of production - the factories, the mines, telecommunications and transportation – are concentrated in the hands of these few capitalists who employ millions of workers.The two classes in our society, the working class and the employing/investing class, are locked in a bitter struggle. The capitalists represents the system of exploitation and oppression. The working class represents the progressive force to eliminate capitalism. Capitalism is a system based on exploitation by a small minority of parasites who leech off the blood of the workers.

Every bit of capitalists’ vast possessions was stolen from the people. It’s the capitalists that get rich by appropriating the fruits of our labour. At the end of a working-week the worker collects his pay. The capitalists claim this is a fair exchange. But it is highway robbery. In reality, a worker gets paid for only a small part of the value he produced. The rest, the surplus value, goes straight into the boss’s pocket. The idea that everyone can get rich under this system is a lie invented by the rich themselves. Under capitalism, the only way to get rich is to trample on someone else. The bosses get rich, not because they have “taken risks” or “worked harder,” as they would have us believe. The more they keep wages down and reduce the number of employees with speed-ups, the more they can steal from us and the greater their profits. And if the boss thinks he can make more profit somewhere else, he just closes his factory and throws the workers out on the street.

The state apparatus – parliaments, the army, police, etc. – is in fact an instrument which the ruling bourgeois class uses to maintain its domination over the people. No matter which party is in power, the state’s role is to protect capitalist private property and defend its interests. The police will not attack scabs to block them from entering a factory on strike. The government has a thousand ties with the big capitalists. Government consultation committees are made up of industrialists and financiers. Politicians meet daily with the leading employers, and many politicians have their own personal fortunes.

The state is also used as an economic tool by the ruling class. When the capitalists need to develop certain sectors  of the economy that require large initial investments, when they need to protect certain industries that are essential to serve the entire capitalist class (like transport), when they face bankruptcy or produce too little profit (health care and hospital services), the state just steps in with subsidies and bail-outs and, if required, nationalises them. At the same time, no political party can offer real convincing solutions to the problems facing the country.

The world is presently in the throes of a serious economic recession. How is it possible to have such a crisis in a planet so rich in natural resources, manpower and technology? Crises like these are an integral part of capitalism. They are rooted in the capitalist class’s insatiable thirst for profits. Economic crises break out regularly. Some, like the Great Depression of the ’30s and the present crisis, are particularly serious. Each capitalist is out to make the most profit, and to achieve this he produces as many goods as possible. The different groups of capitalists, the sections of the bourgeoisie, are engaged in deadly competition each trying to seize more  profit and control over the economy. The employers  are wracked with divisions and contradictions.This is the anarchy of capitalism. These crises spread around the world to all the capitalist countries. The system as a whole is plunged into crisis. Governments has tried everything over the years to put an end to these crises. It has resorted to massive government spending to try to stimulate the economy. It has given huge gifts to the big business and the banks. But ir will be spending cutbacks , the wage freezes and all sorts of attacks against working people, which will  transfer the weight of the crisis onto the working class and restore the employers profitability.

As people lose hope and their lives become meaningless, families fall apart and crime, drug abuse, violence and sexual violence increase. The working class’s anger, its struggles for its demands and its refusal to pay the price of the crisis intensify daily. Workers can either submit to wage slavery or fight it. The working class has always fought against the capitalists. There can never be class peace between exploiter and exploited, between boss and worker. The working class cannot eliminate exploitation and poverty unless it overthrows the capitalist system. It must wipe away the nightmare of capitalism. It must destroy the State, its Parliament, its courts of “justice”, its prisons and its army. Only socialism can respond to the just aspirations of the working class. 

Unpaid Overtime

Unpaid overtime has become a fact of life for one in four British employees, who clock up at least seven hours over their contracted working time each week. 'The culture of staying late has become so common that more than a third of those questioned in research by health insurer AXA PPP said they felt guilty if they left the office on time. ......... More than one in 10 (11 per cent) of those workers questioned said they remained in the office because they were afraid they might lose their job if they didn't clock up extra hours.' (Daily Mail, 13 June) So much for the common illusion about so-called lazy workers. RD

The Socialist Plan

In capitalist society, the capitalists own the means of production and engage in production for the sole purpose of making profits and satisfying their private interests. Therefore, though there may be planned production in a few enterprises, competition is rife and lack of co-ordination prevails among the different enterprises and economic departments as a whole. A socialist economy is a planned economy. The establishment of common ownership of the means of production and the  identity of the interests of the working people in socialist society make it possible to arrange the whole society’s labour force and means of production in a co-ordinated way. Socialist planning and control is not a command economy by the State or technocratic bureaucracy. When we socialists speak of planned economy we do not mean schemes similar to that of Stalin’s FiveYear Plans. When we socialists speak of a society organised on the basis of planned production and distribution we mean something entirely different. What we have in mind is very simple. It is clear-cut. Do away with production for profit.

Capitalism has evolved a system of economy - the anarchy of the market, within political conditions guaranteed by the capitalist state, the accumulation of capital, money, property, etc. This system is the fundamental basis of the maintenance of rule by the capitalist class, and the oppression of the working class. The control exercised by capitalism over production comes chiefly from two different directions - from the top-down diktat of the owner or whoever holds the purse strings; and from the outside-in, via the constraints of the market, with or without the active intervention of the capitalists. The liberation of the working class and the achievement of socialism is of course synonymous with the abolition of this system. Once the idea of the exclusive right of the owners of capital to exercise control over the means of production is set aside, the concept of workers control extends over the whole range of social activity. Initially, it must express the class struggle of the producers to wrest control of production away from the capitalists.

Let us suppose it is possible, while preserving the capitalist system, to reduce unemployment to a certain minimum. But surely, no capitalist would ever agree to the complete abolition of unemployment, to the abolition of the reserve army of unemployed, the purpose of which is to bring pressure on the labour market, to ensure a supply of cheap labour. Planned economy presupposes increased output in those branches of industry which produce goods that people need particularly. But you know that the expansion of production under capitalism takes place for entirely different motives, that capital flows into those branches of economy in which the rate of profit is highest. You will never compel a capitalist to incur loss to himself and agree to a lower rate of profit for the sake of satisfying the needs of the people. These people see nothing but their own interests, their striving after profits. The capitalist is riveted to profit; and no power on Earth can tear him away from it. Without getting rid of the capitalists, without abolishing the principle of private property in the means of production, it is impossible to create a planned economy. The State is an institution that organises the defence of the country, organises the maintenance of "law and order"; it is an apparatus for collecting taxes for the upkeep of the infrastructure and to ameliorate poverty. The capitalist State does not deal much with economy in the strict sense of the word; the latter is not in the hands of the State. On the contrary, the State is in the hands of capitalist economy. The capitalists will say: “Presidents come and presidents go, but we go on forever; if this or that president does not protect our interests, we shall find another.”

The Socialist Party propose, in brief, that all resources, all land and buildings, all manufacturing establishments, mines, railways and other means of transportation and communication, should be, not private property, but the common property of all people. Socialist economy on the basis of common ownership without any class division will avoid anything resembling the crises in capitalist society. Experience has proved that planning under capitalism is impossible. The present order is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth and opportunity, by chaotic waste and instability; and in an age of plenty it condemns the great mass of the people to poverty and insecurity. Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of financiers and industrialists and to their predatory interests the majority are habitually sacrificed. When private profit is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression, in which the common man's normal state of insecurity and hardship is accentuated. We believe that these evils can be removed only in a planned and socialized economy in which our natural resources and principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated by the people.

Socialism encourages scientific advance on a colossal scale. It reduces human labour to the easy task of maintaining machinery a few hours a day. It leaves mankind free to engage in the higher intellectual pursuits. It makes everybody responsible for the welfare of all. It inscribes on its portals: Let everybody work according to his ability; let everybody receive from the common stock of goods according to his needs. There is no exploitation, no oppression, no insecurity, no poverty. Life is made humane. People receive dignity and respect. As a species we can do better if we believe in the human family and in ourselves.

Against the Vanguard

We say our revolution will set everybody free.

“World socialism?  Every country that used to be communist is now capitalist. We have democracy and freedom of choice. We say what we want, go where we want, and buy what we want. Nobody tells us what to do or how to think.” argues our anti-socialist critics.

We all heard it said as we campaign for socialism. All that much vaunted free will and freedom of choice quickly disappears when the person’s money does. What we reply is that socialism has never before been tested.

The development of technology and the productivity of labour have become such that it is now possible to relegate scarcity to the past. Humanity now has the possibility of developing civilization on the basis of an economy of abundance. A new era of production is possible a system of almost unlimited productive capacity, automated and self-regulating, which requires progressively less human labour. The only way to turn technological change to the benefit of the individual and for the service of the general welfare is to accept the process and to utilise it rationally and humanely. Production would not be organised on the basis of the blind capitalist market, but in accordance with the needs of the people. Production for profit would give way to production for use. Economic life be democratically managed and controlled carried out to satisfy the needs of the people. Production for use, by its very nature, demands constant consultation of the people, constant control and direction by the people. No matter how  wise they might be, specialist planners could not design production for the needs of the people.

Society no longer needs to impose repetitive and meaningless (because unnecessary) toil upon the individual. Society can now set the citizen free to make his own choice of occupation and vocation from a wide range of activities. People will not live primarily to work; they will work primarily to live. It offers a life-style qualitatively richer in democratic as well as material values. A social order in which men and women make the decisions that shape their lives becomes more possible now than ever before; the unshackling of people from the chains of unfulfilling labour frees them to become citizens, to make themselves and to make their own history. Mankind would no longer be the slave of the machine. The machine would be the  slave. It is clear that the distribution of abundance in a socialist society will be based on criteria different from those of an economic system based on scarcity. Democracy, as we use the term, means a community of men and women who are able to understand, express and determine their lives as dignified human beings. Democracy can only be rooted in a political and economic order in which wealth is distributed by and for people, and used for the widest social benefit. With the emergence of the era of abundance we have the economic base for a true democracy of participation, in which men no longer need to feel themselves prisoners of social forces and decisions beyond their control or comprehension.

Socialism is a practical necessity for freeing all the people from class rule. The idea of a stable society on this basis of peaceful co-operation of classes is an illusion. An educated and conscious working class will insist on democracy. And not the narrow limited democracy of voting every few years. Every day you will have something to say about the work you’re doing, how it should be done and who should be in charge of it, and whether its being directing properly or not. Democracy in all spheres of communal life from A to Z.

Many political groups fancy themselves as ‘leaders’ of the working-class. We do not. The relation of the ‘party’ to the masses plays a large part in Left discussion. The importance and indispensability of the vanguard party is taken as said. The militants who call themselves the vanguard believe that one or other of the myriad parties must direct the class struggle. The Left may remix the song all they want over and over again but the tune remains the same: the cadres of the ‘revolutionary’ party can find the answer yet the mass movements of the people cannot liberate themselves. Repetition doesn't make things true.

The Socialist Party do not see ourselves as yet another leadership, but merely as an instrument of the working class. We function to help generalise workers’ experience of the class struggle, to make a total critique of their condition and of its causes, and to develop the revolutionary consciousness necessary if society is to be totally transformed. What we want people to come to the realisation that they should take over their workplaces, communities, and put themselves in a position to control all of the decisions that effect them directly, and to run things themselves. If we were to be leaders in a vanguard, in the sense of an enlightened minority seeking to gain power over others, we could never achieve this aim, because WE would have the power, rather than people having power over their own lives, collectively and individually. We would also be assuming the arrogance to think we have a monopoly of truth, rather than certain views which we debate with others including among ourselves, coming to a better viewpoint at the end of it. There is a big difference between an organisation that produces propaganda and so on, and helps promote the popular will where people accept decisions because they have been convinced by the case and have freely chosen to do so and a vanguard in the common sense of the word, meaning a party seeking to gain power over the masses. A global revolution is coming that will sustain the environment and ensure basic needs are met for all.

Revolution will be a process of self-education. The 19th Century worker-cum-philosopher Joseph Dietzgen put it this way:
 ‘If a worker wants to take part in the self-emancipation of his class, the basic requirement is that he should cease allowing others to teach him and should set about teaching himself.’