A Planet to Save, A World to Win

Another day of protests by schoolchildren over climate change has taken place in Scotland.

A number of gatherings were held, with two of the largest at the Scottish parliament and Glasgow's George Square. Protests also took place in Aberdeen, Fort William, Skelmorlie, Aboyne, Peebles, Nairn, Stirling and Ullapool.

Socialists argue that a system of ownership of the means of life by individuals, corporations and states directly causes the problems of climate change. Therefore your political support of such a system will necessarily and inevitably lead to the continuation of global warming, and the unthinkable consequences that accompanies it. it is not mankind but the capitalist economic system itself which is responsible for ecological problems. The environment is not under threat from humanity as such, but from profit-seeking.

The Socialist Party is not urging the Friday for Climate school strikers to believe us uncritically. We are confident that overwhelming evidence will be found in day-to-day experience to support our claim that the major environmentalist problems are the results not of inefficient politicians or ineffectual policies, but rather of the global capitalist system. To understand the economics of our society as a system that operates by certain laws is not an academic pursuit but a way of empowering ourselves. It is easy to feel angered at our society, to hold that there is little we can do to make a better world for ourselves and for our children. But fully comprehending how things are run for the benefit of the enrichment of the few generates an unbridled determination to fight for the better world now, for a different system which works in our favour. 

End the capitalist system!

We are all one

Social friction is not caused by the influx of workers from abroad. The cause of that friction is in the inadequacies of the capitalist system in its housing problems, its unplanned economy, in its inherent poverty. Migrants may highlight these problems but the problems are with us all the time. The Socialist Party condemns racial persecution and the exploitation of race hatred by politicians. The Socialist Party does not think that unrestricted immigration nor open borders would solve any working class problems, any more than draconian immigration controls has done. We stand for a social system in which human beings would be able to move freely all over the earth and in which there will be none of the national barriers of capitalism. The problems associated with large scale migration of workers are problems of capitalism, which always needs a mobile pool of unemployed, sometimes national and sometimes international. And we should not forget that while some problems may be associated with large scale immigration, others are associated with large scale emigration. The main task before all workers of all skin colours and nationalities is to abolish capitalism but while capitalism lasts they must defend, and struggle to improve, their living standards. These tasks can only be done in unity. when "indigenous" and "newcomer" workers all recognise that their interests are one against their common enemy, the capitalist class. This fact may be obscured for some workers by "patriotic loyalty" — a euphemism for prejudice — but it is nevertheless valid. Capitalism has always exploited its workers as best it can and its competition has always been cut-throat — what other type can there be?

Not everyone opposing immigration and deportation of “illegal” migrants are racists. Many are but most of our co-workers aren’t but rather confusion and angry. Demagogues are using the immigration issue for political gain as they always have, tapping real fears among native-born working people because of concerns about future jobs and personal security. People change country for one primary purpose – to work and earn a better living than is possible in their home countries. This is true whether for the lowest paid worker or the highly paid skilled worker. The driver is economics. Employers seek cheaper labour. The employers are not those promoting more restrictions. Stopping immigration is not the objective. It is controlling the flow of immigration. The expansion of legal visas provides a more reliable and stable workforce. Another way to look at the immigration debate is to see it as the flip side of outsourcing. Both allow employers to get the skills they desire at the lowest cost – outside the borders and domestically. Those industries that can’t send the work abroad, however, must rely on importation of immigrants to drive down costs. The drive for ever higher profits has led to a higher level of exploitation of domestic worker, the increased use of exploited workers globally.

All immigrants should have the right to work anywhere to earn a living and feed their families. Labour should have the right to cross borders in a similar manner that workers can freely travel across the European Union. Once workers are able to migrate freely it is up to unions to organise them, as they seek to organise all unorganised workers. The realities of exploitation creates the openings for organising and press for demands that are beneficial to all workers whatever their status. We support the basic democratic right of any individual to emigrate to any country in the world. Yet we do not countenance the incursionist policies of Israeli West Bank settlements (unless the Palestinian exiles are given the same facility to relocate within Israel) or Han Chinese expansionism into Tibet or Xinjiang. World socialist revolution, not mass migration, is the socialist solution to the misery and destitution of the majority of mankind under capitalism. What is needed is the emergence of independent organisations to represent the interests of the working class.

Child poverty in the news again

A classroom of children a day could fall into poverty unless benefits changes are brought in sooner, IPPR Scotland, an independent think thank has claimed. It also cited "UK benefits cuts" leading to falling living standards.

If family income supplement measures were not introduced quickly, 50,000 more youngsters would be affected by 2023-24. That is the equivalent of 25 children a day entering relative poverty.

IPPR Scotland director Russell Gunson said: "It's not right that almost a quarter of children in Scotland are locked into poverty. And without action that figure is due to rise dramatically."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-48380558

FORWARD TO SOCIALISM!

Today, another Friday Strike for Climate takes place as the younger generation try to focus political attention upon the looming environmentalist crises. Many in the environmentalist and social justice movements hold anti-system politics, but do not consciously seek to overthrow capitalism itself. They fail to understand the nature of the system they oppose nor comprehend the political strategies necessary to end it. There even appears a reluctance about using the term capitalism and seeks to see the problem not as the system that runs our lives, but merely the policies pursued by those in government. These movements can be better understood not as being anti-capitalism but anti-corporations in outlook. As long as profit for the few is the basis of the economic system, capitalism will continue to flounder from one crisis to another, piling on more misery for the people. The Socialist Party declares that socialism is the only alternative to capitalism, they mean, firstly, that socialism is the next higher stage in society’s evolution; and, secondly, that it provides the only progressive solution of capitalism’s contradictions. Capitalism is not an eternal system which has existed from the beginning and will prevail to the end. On the contrary, it is only one system in an historical series (primitive communism – slave owning society – feudalism – capitalism), each of which evolved out of its predecessor, and each of which constituted a higher social stage than its predecessor inasmuch as each carried the development of society’s productive forces, and therewith also production which is the material basis of life and civilisation, forward to a higher level. In this series, capitalism was the last and highest: in a comparatively brief historical period it developed society’s productive forces and production itself to a pitch unprecedented in human history. Like all preceding social systems, however, capitalism too must die.

The very production relations which enabled capitalism to develop the productive forces of society to the highest level in human history are today strangling those productive forces, and therewith society itself. Production relations, i.e. the relations of men to each other in the productive process, find their social expression in property relations, e. the relation of men to things, and the characteristic feature of capitalist property relations is private ownership of the means of production. This relation of men to things reflects itself socially in the emergence, or rather existence, of two opposed classes at the two poles of capitalist society: the capitalist owners of property, i.e. the capitalist class on the one hand, and the propertyless owners of labour power, i.e. the working class on the other. The capitalist property relation described above has this important consequence, viz, that the actual producer, i.e. the worker, cannot have access to the means of production, i.e. cannot produce, except through the capitalist. That is to say, the worker has to hire himself out, i.e. sell his labour power, to the capitalist. And the capitalist buys this labour power of the worker only if he (the capitalist) can make a profit out of the transaction. No profits; no employment.

How can this profit be made by the capitalist? Only in one way. Only by compelling the worker to produce, in the course of the production process, more values than those he receives in the form of wages. The worker is compelled to produce surplus value for the capitalist; which is only another way of saying that he is compelled to do a certain proportion of unpaid labour for the capitalist. The capitalist relation is thus an exploitative relation. Which is why the Socialist Party repeatedly points out that if you preserve private profits, you are bound to preserve exploitation. What enables the capitalist to exploit the worker is precisely private ownership of the means of production. Which, is why we point out that the only way to abolish capitalist exploitation is to abolish private property which is but the capitalist means to private profit. No profits; no production: that is the capitalist law. For, the whole purpose of the capitalist production process is – private profit, which is but another name for the self-expansion of capital. The capitalist throws into the productive process a certain quantity of capital as a means to expanding it. That is the whole point in the process – for the capitalist. If at the end of the process the capital thus thrown in has not expanded, i.e. increased in quantity, the whole process is, from his point of view, useless. Which is why we say that capitalist production is but a means to capitalist profit. Production, which is essential to society, is only incidental to the process; profit is its motive, and profit its purpose.

The basic contradiction of the capitalist system is that between the associated labour process and the individual appropriation of the product. The socialisation of the means of production, a progressive solution inasmuch as it would preserve the associated labour process while freeing the productive forces from the fetter of private profit. Marxists say socialism is the only progressive alternative to capitalism, the only solution of the contradictions of capitalism which can carry mankind to a higher stage of social organisation. For, this solution alone preserves the technical gains of capitalism and enables them to be used as a basis for further development of the productive forces in the service of mankind. Socialism is thus the road forward from capitalism, the next higher stage of progressive social evolution. The economic basis for socialism has been created under capitalism. The world has been ripening under capitalism itself for socialism.

The final agent of social change is mankind. For, on the manner in which humanity acts on social forces depends the pace and outcome of their development. When Marx spoke of the “inevitability” of socialism, he meant, on the one hand, that, given correct human action it could come into being, and, on the other, that he anticipated that this human action would be taken. He did not mean that socialism was bound to come, mechanically of itself, independent of human action. On the contrary, he expressly stated that the destruction of capitalism could lead to socialism – or barbarism. That the latter could come out the world has proof of already of capitalism’s probable disintegration if the climate emergency is not mended. Should the socialist solution fail to be applied, capitalism is doomed to accelerated disintegration. One thing is impossible – the stabilisation of global warming through capitalism.

Marx did not say or imply that if you somehow destroy capitalism socialism must dawn. That is a fatalist and mechanistic conception with which Marxism has nothing in common. What Marx did teach and demonstrate was that if you destroy capitalism in a certain way, that is, by a certain form of social action, the road to socialism would be opened. If socialism is to be the outcome of capitalism’s downfall, it is necessary that mankind take conscious action in that direction. The basic classes of capitalist society are the capitalist class and the working class. Between them there is already a struggle going on; the struggle by the capitalist class to maintain its system of exploitation, and the struggle by the working class to overthrow it. Marx taught and demonstrated that the road to socialism lay through the carrying forward to its logical conclusion of this struggle by the working class against the capitalist class. Why did he teach this? Not out of “selfishness” or “hate” but by reason of necessity. Marx showed that the successful carrying forward of the struggle of the working class to free itself from capitalist exploitation would open the road to socialism by demonstrating that the working class could not emancipate itself without also emancipating all society. In order to emancipate itself, the working class would have to expropriate the capitalists and socialise their property. But the process of socialising the means of production and distribution is also the process of bringing in the worldwide, class-free democratic society. The process of the working class emancipating itself from capitalism is therefore also the process of emancipating all mankind from exploitation. The carrying forward of the class struggle to success means the overthrow of the capitalist state power and the expropriation of the capitalist class. You cannot keep the capitalist state power and expropriate the capitalist class. You cannot, because the capitalist state power is precisely the instrument for the defence of capitalist property. Marx saw and demonstrated that socialism is the only progressive alternative to capitalism and that the bringing of the socialist society into being demands the carrying forward of the revolutionary class struggle to its logical conclusion, i.e. the overthrow of the capitalist class and its state. Abandon the end, and you abandon the means. Abandon socialism and you abandon all hope for civilisation's survival.

Join us in the Socialist Party

There are those who live in the dream world of a happy society of a peaceful, ever-progressing capitalism having lost the ability to think clearly and logically on what has happened in recent years and why. They blissfully and blindly continue to watch Fox News, content in their belief that they are the opposition to the globalist elite intent upon taking over and ruling the world. But if they were genuinely against the oligarchs and the plutocrats of Wall St, it would be impossible to explain why capitalists support them.

The spectre of system collapse is haunting the world. Bankers, bosses, politicians and economists talk about it but none of them know what to do. World capitalism is on the edge of an abyss and the ruling class is seeking a way out of the various crises by reversing all the hard-won gains of the working class who are left powerless and lacking any credible alternative to the politicians who betray them at every turn., yet still hoping against hope that an economic upswing will bring relief. The real solution to the impending disasters, the only real deterrent to the attack on working people by capitalism, is the socialist revolution because capitalists will yield minimal sops and reforms only out of fear of mass resistance that they cannot control. Capitalism has tried to strip us of our humanity and our longing for community. But it has not entirely succeeded. There is a road forward: the rediscovery of Marxism. If you want to learn the truth, if you want to fight the only battle worth fighting, for the socialist revolution – join us in the Socialist Party. Our socialism means a feeling of kindred toward all humanity, a wish to help those in misery and to find a way to make them happy and joyful.

Although world political and financial leaders may at times seem to be running scared, they are still running the world. The challenge for the workers' movement is to move beyond mass campaigning and demonstrating, in the propaganda war, which will all be necessary in the future. We need to try to stop capitalism in its tracks. In the final analysis, capitalism depends on workers for its continued development. Workers move the goods, build the factories, produce the goods and services of the system. If we cease to do so, we’re unlikely to see an army of sweating billionaire CEOs erecting the scaffolding, or slaving away on the production lines to keep their system working.

We Serve the People

We live in an age, where the dominant mood is one of cynicism and despair, where horizons are narrow and aspirations low. The economy continues to crumble and poverty reaches new levels. Each day brings new revelations of corporate crime and corruption. Capitalism is as mired as ever in its own contradictions, yet any talk of an alternative society is dismissed with scepticism. Too many radicals have lost their sense of direction having rejected fundamental principles as ‘old fashioned’. There seems to be little hope for bringing about a society not dominated by the most voracious and destructive capitalist system ever known. Capitalism offers no solution but only one savagery after another, to make a genuinely human existence appear hopeless. We face a world of massive inequality.

We face a world in which we have been trained to obey those with money and power, and where it seems natural to spend many hours a day being bossed around while working for others so that they gain profits.

A human existence is possible. The productive forces have reached the point where life without starvation and homelessness is within reach, for all. Only the rule of one class over the rest prevents it. Capitalism exacerbates every social division to keep the working class divided. Clearly the world faces a choice between authentic socialism and an increasingly apparent barbarism. There is no room left for any alternative but socialist revolution. What does that mean? That all the problems of the world will need to be solved, and it will be the working people of the world who will have to develop ways to make decisions, ways to work together, and ways to protect ourselves and everyone from the damages that capitalism will have created.

The Socialist Party see the present time as one of opportunity to help with the rebirth of socialist thought, based unequivocally upon the concept of self-emancipation, centred on human freedom, and it is upon the richness and breadth of Marxist ideas that we wish to grow. The process of winning working people to the knowledge that life, work and culture can be more meaningful and fulfilling, as well as safer and more stable, with the socialist reorganisation of society, is long and difficult but can be exciting and rewarding. The working class does not need still more middle-class and bureaucratic “condescending saviours.” They have been a big part of the problem and not the solution. Come and help build and defend the society you want, a movement that is not built on sacrifice, anger, frustration and guilt. The gains of the past must be defended now. But the best way to do this is by understanding that unless the capitalist system itself is overthrown, those past gains and any temporary victories will be reversed by what drives of the bosses who own and control it. Trickery will not advance the cause of revolution. We call upon all workers everywhere to join us in the fight for humanity and a class-free world. Consciousness of the need for revolutionary change is growing.

By brutal means, capitalism has brought technology and the organisation of production to a point where the potential to adequately feed, clothe and house the entire world population is reachable. But the creation of abundance would end exploitation and destroy profits, so the capitalists themselves stand as a barrier to a society fit for human beings. Socialist revolution is the only solution. Our efforts are devoted to exposing, not hiding, the vacillations, capitulations and betrayals of the reformists. Many in the left have abandoned even the semblance of socialism and are disappearing into the ranks of the traditional reformists. Whichever road to reformism they choose, they use their new formations to promote class collaborationist populism with “Greens” and other reformers. They have taken up the role, virtually abandoned by the traditional parties, of left defenders of the capitalist system in the guise of its opponents and become a corrupted and gutted doctrine which passes as Marxism.

Given our different histories in different geographical areas we will have different conceptions of our immediate needs and interests, and of which problems it is most urgent to solve. We will also disagree over the best ways to organise decision-making at workplaces, in localities, and globally. All these disagreements will lead to differences within the working-class that we hope and expect will become united people of the world in solidarity through these struggles. If successful, we will create a world of freely associated labour where we decide what use values need to be produced, make them available to those who need or want them, and do this in an environmentally sustainable way in which we find ways to enjoy our lives and fulfil our potentials through actions that are sociable and helpful to ourselves and others as well.

The future is ours

People on every continent have risen in resistance. Developments show in every way that the capitalist world system inevitably leads to crises and war. The goal – socialism and throughout the world – is a common one. And the need for consensus is great. The workers' movement in most countries is weak and involves a lack of “roots” within the our fellow workers. The has led to great discord, division and desolation. One might say that the situation of the working class is difficult. But the situation is not exclusively dark. We are capable of participation in active cooperation on different tasks of common interests. There is today an urgent need to strengthen workers solidarity across the borders. It will strengthen class struggle

Capitalism's enormous development of the powers of production, and an enormous technological revolution but under capitalist forms of production this development leads to ever deeper contradictions within the capitalist system, and between different states, and leads to enormous problems and suffering for the working class and the masses. No short-lived cyclical economic booms can stop this development. With socialism new labour saving technology could have led to a comprehensive liberation of human beings, and paved the ground for great social and political advances. It illustrates the need for an alternative future – socialism. The idea that reformism is radical and pro-working class movement is a myth. In fact, reformism is today one of the biggest barriers to the development of the forces of revolution. The tasks are so large reformism will not solve any of the fundamental problems.

We have recently seen many protests against the power of the corporations whether it is Monsanto, the oil companies, or the computer industry.

As long as the capitalist system remains unchallenged, why a corporation does what it does and the logic driving them is not questioned. Where the faults of the capitalists are attributed to “corporate greed” we are left with a moral argument of “good versus bad” corporations which encourages an assumption of capitalism’s potential to be kinder and gentler. The fight over pharmaceuticals, for example, is not just about monopoly pricing and mega-profits. It’s about private property rights (patents and intellectual ownership) and commodification—where access to essential medicines is not constituted as social rights, but as commodities bought and sold for profit. The corporations, as powerful as they are, are only vehicles for capitalists. In other words, they are a means to an end.

Anti-corporatism isn’t necessarily anti-capitalist. Small businesses tap into popular anger and resentment against corporations by pushing a populist agenda of breaking up monopolies and restoring competition and competitive pricing. Anti-corporate populism is based on the recognition that the capitalist system needs competition if it’s to be efficient, effective and constantly expanding. The end result is that while investors may suffer temporary losses from bad publicity that results in a fall in share-value and sometimes are obliged to restructure and reorganise their business empires, the capitalists are far from defeated. The protectors of capitalism recognise that unless anti-corporate populism is effectively contained and concessions are made, then there’s a real danger that discontent could escalate and actually transform into anti-capitalism. The Socialist Party seeks to engage in a struggle against capitalism itself and not restrict ourselves to attacking just specific corporations. The Socialist Party are not trust-busters, but system-breakers.

All for One, One for All, All for All

It is the division of society into property owners and propertyless people which lies at the root of the crisis of the capitalist world. One of the fundamental. truths which a study of socialism teaches, and it is a basic principle, is the existence of the class struggle. This class struggle is based upon the antagonism of interests between the propertyless working class, who are forced to sell their energy in order to live, and the property-owning master class.

Millions of workers extract raw material from the earth. They own neither the land nor the machinery they use, nor the products they raise. Millions of other workers manufacture the raw materials into finished products. They own neither the machinery they use nor the products they manufacture. These are the property of the capitalists and the landlords. The vast majority of people in society to-day are thus at the mercy of the private owners. They cannot organise the distribution of the wealth which they and their comrades have co-operated to produce, because they do not possess this wealth. It is the property of the private owners. 

Here is to be found the fundamental reason why the socially necessary goods are obtainable only in the market-place as commodities. The private property owners have no other means for the disposal of the goods others have made for them. They cannot give the goods to society, for that would be an abandonment of the right of private property to extract profit. They cannot distribute the goods according to the needs of the people, however vast and urgent those needs may be, because private property production is governed by the law of production for profit irrespective of the needs of the people. The criterion of all capitalist enterprise is—does it make a profit? When it ceases to make a profit it goes bankrupt—it is finished and the workers are cast on to the scrapheap of unemployment. Capitalism is one big gamble. Since its fortunes hang on the tail of its unpredictable market, it can never be sure of what to do to secure its own interests. The great tragedy is that the gambles are always paid off in working class lives and their insecurity.

People tell us, we will have socialism, but the world is not ready for it yet. They argue with us that they are being “realistic.” We say they’re not being realistic and their position isn’t coherent. Other critics of our position are merely cynics. The cynic thinks everyone is stupid. They accuse their fellow workers of never being ready for socialism because they’re mean spirited as well as stupid. They don’t want other people to have decent lives, they want people to suffer, they want it so much that they will allow that desire to over-ride their own individual self-interest. Most people don’t realise the socialist ideas they oppose are in their own interest. Believing that one day we will get socialism even though people who like the idea but nevertheless are unwilling to vote for socialists is not simply unrealistic – it’s fantastic. It’s downright delusional. For the proponents of lesser evilism, winning is everything. There is hardly anything more shameful after all, than losing. Even cheating is acceptable if the cheater manages to win. Lesser evil supporters are cowards, people who are incapable of seeing the incoherence in voting for someone who opposes things they profess to want, while persisting in believing that we will one day get these things anyway, without having to vote for the party who seeks them. If people want socialism, then they’re going to have to vote for candidates who advocate it, rather than for candidates who oppose it. It takes more than one person or one party to change the world.

There is no need to attach an adjective to the word "Capitalism", as in "Casino Capitalism" "Crony Capitalism", "Neo-Liberal Capitalism", "Financial Capitalism", "Disaster Capitalism", "Shock Capitalism", "Unregulated Capitalism", "Private-Equity Capitalism," or that old standby, "Greedy Capitalism". It is Capitalism, pure and simple. There is no such thing as “Compassionate Capitalism”. The vision of the world’s future appears completely dystopian and has descended into the dark abyss where the unimaginable has become imaginable. The politics of terror and the culture of fear legitimises the militarisation and regimentation of public life and society and fosters the criminalisation of social problems. Brutal modern-day capitalism has released corporate and military power and throughout the globe we witness particularly savage, cruel, and exploitative regimes of oppression. The planet itself is now under threat. Capitalism has made a virtue out of self-interest and the pursuit of material wealth. Capitalism is devoid of any sense of social responsibility and is driven by an unchecked desire to accumulate capital at all costs. Money now engulfs everything in this new age of disposability. 

Moreover, when coupled with a weakening of movements to counter the generated power of capitalists, the result has been a startling increase in the influence of predatory capitalism, along with inequities in wealth, income, power, and opportunity. Such power breeds anti-democratic tendencies.

In place of the present economic system based on the class ownership of the means of life and their consequent use to provide profits for the owners, we are suggesting that the means of life be vested in the community as a whole and be under its democratic management so that wealth can be produced solely to satisfy human wants. Freed from the barrier of profit, we shall be able to produce in abundance all the things we need. Gone will be the absurd paradoxes of poverty amid plenty, of food being burned while children starve, of building workers being unemployed while people live in hovels. Naturally. socialism can only exist on a world scale.

If the Socialist Party grew strong enough and a majority of voters backed us then we would not form a government, with a prime minister and cabinet, to administer a system where workers and millionaires would still exist. We do not seek political power in order to run capitalism, but to abolish it. So that, if there were a Socialist majority, steps would immediately be taken to end private property in the means of production and to put in its place common ownership and democratic control. The Socialist Party is made up of conscious socialists organised on a democratic basis and so has no leader or leaders.

We have seen that a socialist majority would use its power to change the basis of society from class to common ownership. This of course will amount to a social revolution. But this doesn’t mean we’ll be starling from scratch. Socialists have always maintained that capitalism paves the way for socialism by, for instance, developing the large-scale co-operative production that makes class ownership an anachronism. This large-scale co-operative productive system, including its administrative apparatus, will be the basis of socialist society. The basic function of the state is to be the public power of coercion and for this purpose it is organised as the police, the armed forces, and the prison service. A public power of coercion is necessary only in class society with its built-in class conflict. In Socialism the state will no longer he needed and will be dismantled. However, today the government has itself assumed other, purely technical and administrative, tasks and this aspect of its work is in fact part of the productive system. We have in mind the old Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Transport, or the Ministry of Power. No doubt the administrative apparatus that is these and other ministries can be adapted for use as part of the socialist administration of industry. We can’t go into details (that’s something for the socialist majority) but we can say that the adaptions will be far-reaching— everything to do with finance will go, and the internal structure will have to be reorganised on a democratic basis. What we say about these technical ministries applies equally to the large corporations not part of the government machine. Obviously, there'll be a certain continuity in institutions between capitalism and socialism and at the start we'll have to make do with what we’ve inherited. Common ownership and democratic control will mean that everybody will be socially equal.

Understanding why we fight

Exploitation and oppression goes hand in hand in class societies, having reached new peaks under capitalism. To unravel the real nature of exploitation in capitalism is therefore an important part of the struggle against it. That is what Marxist economics is all about. We are concerned to understand the underlying realities of capitalist economy. We recognise that capitalism is a particular form of human society in which one class owns and controls the means of production while the other major class, the working class, is reduced to the status of sellers of labour-power in order to facilitate the maximum production of exchange values, which in turn facilitates the maximum growth of capital itself. Capital then is an expression of a particular class control, but one that is in perpetual motion as capitals compete with one another, compelling each to grow. This in turn necessitates the exploitation of working people to take the form of the production of values and surplus values. The only common social factor in this whole circuit of social activity is human labour. For that reason Marxists talk of labour as the source of value. Marx referred to socially-necessary labour as being the measure of value. Differences in skills and types of work are reduced to homogeneous units of ‘abstract’ labour or ‘labour in general’ in the same way that capital, in order to expand, abstracts from the concrete or physical nature of goods and services (use-values) reducing them all to values. The principle is simple enough. All the consumed goods and services are themselves die result of labour, living and dead. Workers of higher skills will therefore have consumed greater amounts of socially-necessary labour and accordingly both the value of their labour-power (wages) and the use-value of their labour (work) to capital will be enhanced.

Capitalists demand for the bosses a “fair and just return upon their investments.” But why should the bosses get a return on “THEIR” capital? What do they mean when they say it’s “theirs”?

Such capital is “theirs” only by virtue of property “rights” – “rights” written into law by themselves to maintain the fiction of justice for their confiscation of the produce of labour. The source of such capital is no mystery. Capital represents the stored-up labour of millions of workers accumulated in the hands of the bosses. Nor is the role of such capital any. mystery. “Capital,” the great teacher of socialism, Karl Marx, said, “is dead labour that vampire-like only lives by sucking living labour and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.” With the greed of every capitalist, they believe that the additional labour daily stored up in machines by the sweat and toil of the workers should “return” to the bosses. Once workers realise, however, that the “return” should be to them instead of to the bosses, they will have begun to see the socialist solution. The boss has no other interest in the worker. Meanwhile, however, all the accumulated labour of the workers, stored up in machines, becomes ever more potentially productive of goods which, utilised for the workers, would unfold possibilities of unlimited development. But, capitalism, no matter how it plans and hopes and prays, would never actually be able to do more than drive the worker to the bedrock of subsistence – although there is plenty to provide a featherbed of luxury for all. Only socialism, where the stored-up labour is utilised for the social good, can realise the potentialities of human productivity and spiritual development. Only when accumulated labour belongs to those who produce it – to the worker who turns the wheels.

The decisions which effect the whole of society, such as what to produce, how much to produce, when and where to produce it, and how to use and distribute it are the decisions which affect the total resources of the economy, and the lifestyle and opportunities of everyone within society. Control over these resources and decisions, that is society's management of the economy, is the socialist alternative to capitalism.

Socialising Our Democracy

The goal of the Socialist Party is socialism, not a reformed capitalism. Its tactics must be those that will bring about socialism. Our function, as we see it, is to re-assert the claims of Marxism, as a relevant and meaningful guide to social comment and analysis. Marxism, as a system of ideas, has either been ignored, or dismissed somewhat contemptuously, as an outworn, superseded ideology. Marxism, however, still dominates intellectual debate, and is the most fertile “idea”. The Marxists have the best explanations and the best alternative. Marxist materialism provided a healthy antidote to the mystic misanthropy of many.

Capitalism is a society of privilege, in which one class owns the means of wealth production and employs the other class to work for it. Here is one cause of dispute, for the employing capitalists have interests opposed to those of the workers they employ. Strikes, lock-outs, and so on are the battles in a war which is continually going on between capitalists and workers over the division of the wealth which the workers produce.

“We are”, observed Erich Fromm, “a society of notoriously unhappy people: lonely, anxious, depressed, destructive, dependent—people who are glad when we have killed the time we are trying so hard to save” (To Have or to Be?) Life, in short, has become a kind of spectator sport. We move through it, each in his or her own little fragile bubble of existence, buffeted by forces too diffuse to comprehend and too powerful to overcome.

Capitalism subjects its unprivileged class—the working class—to a degrading life of employment, poverty, and frustration. A worker's life is not simply a battle to make ends meet; there are also the warping influences of life in soulless new towns or neurotic suburbs, or in the slums of the big cities. Here there is little chance for human beings to grow up freely and naturally. Capitalism draws some of its most hopeless and vicious criminals from places like these. At the same time, the system is itself a standing incentive to crime. Since it is a society of private property, it denies the vast mass of its people abundance or even security; they are reserved for a minority. But of course some people, perhaps in especially desperate circumstances, try to find a short cut out of the frustrations and humiliations of the unprivileged; they try crime in preference to the humdrum existence of the wage slave in the office or factory. That is why something like 90 per cent of crime consists of offences against property, some of which are accompanied by ruthless violence with cosh or pick-axe handle or gun.

Capitalism is a system of wage slavery notwithstanding the spurious freedom of the wage contract. It cannot be otherwise where the means of production are monopolised by a small minority. It imposes upon us conditions that conflict with our deepest needs.

Capitalism is a world of violence, dispute, and frustration. It cannot provide its people with safety, or plenty, or happiness. None of its religions, none of its philosophers, none of its political parties, has any solution to its problems. They all operate on the assumption that capitalism will continue. What if we assume the opposite—that capitalism is abolished and replaced by socialism?

Socialism is a society in which the means of wealth production are commonly owned. The wealth which is produced will not belong to any class; it will be a common pool to which all human beings will have free access. Thus Socialism will end class divisions, it will end privilege, and it will end poverty.

Socialism is a society in which all humans will have a unity of interests — to co-operate in the production of the world’s wealth. There will be no competition between one group and another for economic supremacy.

Socialism will make its wealth for use and not for sale. This will release society from the restrictions of having to turn out cheap goods for a market. Everything that is produced will be the best we are capable of—we shall not build slums, we shall not make shoddy clothes, we shall not grow sub-standard food.

Socialism is a world without nations and frontiers. It will have one people working together for the common wealth. The crimes and disputes of capitalism will fade into history.

Socialism is necessary now—and we can have it now. All that is needed is for the working class to realise the viciousness and futility of capitalism and to appreciate that it can be ended only by a fundamental social change. Socialism will come after a revolution, as the conscious, democratic act of the world working class.

Socialism will uproot every vestige of the market economy. As socialists, we do not accept the need for some “invisible hand” beyond the control of human beings, to govern human affairs and give them coherence.

For many “market forces” are a code word for misery. The best response to the sadistic whims of the Market-gods is to send packing the market-loving messiahs and abolish the market by bringing the resources of society into common ownership and democratic control. A market-free society is the only sane alternative to the mad-house which we live under. Tinkering with it will be of no practical use; it would be like buying a new suit for Frankenstein’s monster and hoping that newly-clothed a monster he will no longer be. The urgent task before us is to unite to take society away from those whose sole intent is to sacrifice needs for profits. Then, once society is in the hands of all of us, we can begin having free and equal access to the available wealth of this abundant planet.