The Planetary Cure: Socialism

The State is an instrument of power in the hands of the big industrialists, bankers and landlords, who by this token are the ruling class. The State is there to effect the exploitation and oppression of the workers and the poor by the ruling class. Many hate to be called “exploited” and “oppressed.” They have been taught false pride, not the pride of refusing to be exploited, but the pride of refusing to admit that you are slaves. However, it does not change the fact that the employers squeeze the last drop of your life blood for the sake of their profits and that when you go out on strike the State crush your resistance. You can easily recognize the State as the executive committee and the strong arm of entrenched wealth. the expression, “industrial dispute” suggests a disagreement among people on an equal basis. It infers a friendly bickering of parties to an agreement who happen to disagree on a certain point. It suggests an amicable and perfectly lovely settlement of mutual grievances. What a false and misleading notion! There are no industrial disputes. There is only the desire of the capitalist to extract even more sweat and blood out of the workers, and there is the wish of the workers to fight their enemy, who feeds on them. 

There is war. This is the class war. It is waged by one class, the oppressors, against another class, the oppressed. In this war, the State is always and invariably on the side of the oppressors. Some of its representatives may try to achieve the ends of capital by cajoling and wheedling. But they always keep the big stick ready. The State — that is the big stick of the owners of wealth, the big stick of the big corporations. Anyone who tries to persuade you that the State is your friend, your defender, that the State is impartial and only regulatory is deceiving you. They will tell you that the State is there to protect both industry and labor. But under capitalism you cannot protect both “industry” (meaning the capitalists) and labour (meaning the workers)! When you protect “industry” you give it freedom to exploit “labour”. When you protect labour you make it possible for labour to get more out of industry. Oil and water cannot be mixed. In reality the State is a more efficient instrument at the service of big capital.  Under the pretext of regulating industry it has made it possible for the big corporations to gain additional power at the expense of the worker. Socialists are the only group in present day society who recognize the basic nature of the capitalist State. The forms change, differing according to time and place but the essence remains. The essence of the capitalist State is service in the employ of capitalism for the preservation of capitalism.

The liberals and progressives are unhappy with the functions of the State. They point out its short-comings. They do not close their eyes to the fact that there is inequality. They know the war-breeding nature of the capitalist State. But what do they propose to do? They propose a little tinkering here and there.  But do nothing about the very nature of the State as a bulwark of private property and capitalist exploitation.  Improvements to electoral laws no matter how important for the working class, does not touch upon the fundamentals of the capitalist State, namely, its being an instrument of power in the hands of the big owners of wealth. Reform the State and you have made it more flexible, more capable of adapting itself to circumstances; you have made it a better instrument of oppression. Progressives  are not opposed to the capitalist system even in words. They propose to support such representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties as are willing to introduce reforms on behalf of labour.  The Republican and Democratic parties are the parties of big capital. They may fight one another at the elections for the control of the administration, but they differ little from each other and they do the bidding of the corporations. Their campaign funds are filled from the coffers of the industrialists and bankers. To expect these parties will help the workers achieve their end is to expect that the leopard will change its spots.

The World Socialist Party, on the other hand, is opposed to the capitalist system, denouncing the evils of the capitalist system. We do not  propose to “improve” capitalism by the power of prayer. The Socialist Party say there is a need of a revolution to achieve the cooperative commonwealth.  In a class-free society there is nobody to suppress or keep in check. Highly cultured men and women, bred in a spirit of collective life, masters of their own society, do not need the big stick of the State. They manage their affairs without the State force. Mankind is free, forever.

Does Capitalism Work? (1972)

From the July 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Professor Champions Capitalism” ran the gleeful headline in the Financial and Business supplement of The Scotsman (24 May). The story which followed told us that Professor H. B. Acton, who holds the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University, has written a paper for the Foundation of Business Responsibilities titled “The Ethics of Capitalism” in which he glorifies the capitalist system and its beneficiaries, the capitalist class.

The Professor’s paper contains a statement on the historical contribution of the early capitalists:

  The bourgeoisie, more scrupulous and pacific than the aristocracy and less deferential than the peasantry, so improved the arts of production that the system of warrior lords and dependent serfs was replaced by one in which large populations of free citizens enjoy a scope of living which goes beyond what the aristocracy formerly disposed of.

Then follows a list of benefits which the capitalist mode of production brought in its wake:

  Free speech, free movement of trade, free thought, exploration of the earth and oceans, an ideal of peaceful domesticity, etc.

There can be no question that the Professor’s summary is more or less correct. Capitalism was a definite step forward for humanity. Capitalism did abolish the productive methods of feudalism, took away the power of the aristocracy, decimated the peasantry and replaced it by a class of wage-slaves to operate the technology which makes possible modern living, standards – and more.

So, preceding any of capitalism’s benefits, was the forcible removal of millions of these “free citizens” and their children from their means of living to be herded into the industrial hells and slums of the towns and cities. There is no indication that the Professor mentioned this in his paper but possibly the study of Moral Philosophy doesn’t include a reading’ of, say, Gibbins’ Industrial History of England or Engels’ Condition of the Working Class in England, and whatever the benefits of capitalism they were most definitely not what motivated the bourgeoisie when they set about carrying through their revolution.

Certainly the Professor could claim that all this was yesterday. Nowadays the children have been banished from the mills, mines and factories while in the same issue of The Scotsman Mr. Julian Amery, the Housing Minister, did state that the slum problem could at long last be solved within the next ten years. A likely story, for whatever excesses of the system capitalism does manage to curb it can never eliminate the glaring contradictions and divisions it has given birth to in society. Capitalist is ranged against capitalist over the share-out of the spoils; the workers are periodically at one another’s throats over the available jobs and cheap housing. More important, the workers are at constant war with the capitalists over wages and conditions of work. Indeed The Scotsman carried other reports on such conflicts as the war in Vietnam, a 1,000 lb. bomb explosion in Belfast, a possible strike of BEA pilots, a strike by 200 workers at Rosyth Dockyard, and a squabble between Roxburgh County Council  and Scottish Omnibuses over subsidies for 26 uneconomic bus services’

Even more pointed was the story concerning the discovery that Ford Motor company in Detroit have conducted faulty anti-pollution tests on its entire engine line for all l973 passenger models. Should the Environmental Protection Agency insist on the letter of the law then Ford would be forced  to carry out new lengthy tests, or be barred from selling their 1973 cars as scheduled. Officials of the EPA have hinted, however, that the law might be bent to avoid such a disaster, for the article says:

  The situation brings into sharp focus the potential conflict between government safety and pollution regulations and the practical alternatives when big industry says it cannot meet these standards; the usual approach has been to change the rules.

So in order that capitalism’s day to day functioning isn’t interfered with too much the atmospheric poisoning (and Ford’s profits) may continue. Truly an excellent example of the “ethics of capitalism”.

Presumably all this strife and turmoil has eluded the professor’s notice. He is far too busy currying the capitalists’ favour by telling them to be proud of their role and to have confidence in fulfilling their prime function:

  to see that the things people need for life and civilisation are produced, modified, multiplied, protected,  stored, moved and delivered.

Do bombs, napalm, defoliant and pollutants come into the category of “things people need for life and civilisation”? Certainly the capitalists see to it that these are “produced, modified, multiplied, protected”. And do they see to it that the necessary food is “stored, moved and delivered” for the starving and ill-fed millions throughout the world? No, Professor, the “prime function” of the capitalist is to increase his capital and everything else including human need must take a back seat.

Undoubtedly the coming of capitalism was a progression in social development since it provided the technical impetus for solving the problem of production. Now it stands as a barrier between man and his product and has split humanity from top to bottom. We now need to abolish the private (including state) ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution and introduce instead a new society based on their common ownership and democratic control. The Professor’s defence of capitalism is, in the light of all this, as justified as advocating horse-drawn transport in the jet age because it’s an improvement over walking.

Vic Vanni

Capitalism has Failed

Glaring proof of capitalism’s legalised robbery is the fact that after 300 years of marvellous technical achievements and tremendous increase of wealth produced by the working-class, it has still left them in a condition of poverty and insecurity. Once working people comes to understand the wages-system and recognises it as the cause of their predicament, they will come to understand that all these fine sentiments about “liberation. freedom and independence, peace and social justice” are but so many sound-bite slogans to hide the brutal facts of their thieving system.  In the French Revolution it was “Liberté, égalité, fraternité ” which fooled the destitute masses into fighting the feudal enemies of their enemies, the rising capitalist class, with the result that down to this day the above mentioned fine words mock the poverty-stricken French workers. It is certainly remarkable that it should still be possible for politicians to find listeners to these old outworn hollow phrases.

What has been the result of all these revolutions, past and present? What cause have they served? Have they rid the world of poverty, insecurity, class-conflict and war? What problem have the wars and “liberations” in the last 300 years solved for the mass of the people—the working-class? Have the unspeakable tragedies, the untold ruins and rivers of blood and tears been justified that accompanied “national liberation” down to this day? Has the fundamental status of the world's wealth-producers as mere objects of exploitation been altered or even advanced one iota towards one of free men and women? Is it no longer a condition of the workers’ very existence that they have a job in some profit-making enterprise? Have they even secured the miserable enough right to work? 

Enough has been said on the preposterous Bolshevik claim of having inaugurated a new social order, a “people’s democracy’’— this swindle is now too obvious and well known. But how little “freedom, independence and democracy” mean to the working-class under capitalism even in the “free world” countries: the U.S., Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, is shown by the fact that the status of the workers there is likewise that of property-less wage-slaves, dependent for their very means of existence, on the precarious chance of securing a job with some employer. Such a status does not and cannot make for the enjoyment of life. Work under such circumstances can never be identified, as it ought to and will be under socialism, with real satisfaction and pleasure; it is only done to keep the wolf from the door. And wherever people have to work for wages, to make profit for an employer, any accident, illness, or other physical or mental disability—not to mention the factor of age—becomes something akin to a family catastrophe. The employers, even of the Welfare State, will quickly make you understand that they are not a welfare institution; but mean to make the concern for which they have hired you, pay—the shareholders want their loot all the time.

Unfortunately, in so far as workers have not become altogether apathetic towards politics, they are, despite all the disillusionments, failures and frustrations, still place their trust in leaders and fall for the day-to-day affairs that invariably are only concerns of their enemies: the capitalist class. The Left, far from getting the workers interested in and educated to socialism,  are busy assisting and strengthening the capitalist state. The fact is that rulers and leaders all stand for the appropriation and accumulation of wealth by a world privileged class, wealth that is produced by and filched from the mass of the people through the modem wages-system. Meanwhile  national liberations and revolutions have always meant the exchange of one bunch of exploiters for another, while native rulers of backward countries have often proved worse tyrants even than the foreign exploiters and oppressors they ousted. Neither the frequent frank and outspoken confessions in avowed capitalist publications of the shocking features of modern society, nor the evident humbug and hypocrisy, the lying, deceit and cant of political leaders seem to stir working people to intelligent action in opposition to the horrible system they all serve and want to perpetuate.

 Capitalist spokesmen can insult the workers by telling them to their face with brutal bluntness that they are nothing but HIRED objects to make profit. We ask, where is the difference between the cultured and the uncultured slaves, as far as enlightenment on their social position and a sense of human dignity is concerned? With all your greater experience and opportunities, you have not yet learned that it is the damnable system of capitalist exploitation that is the cause of your and their misery and degradation! 

The Socialist Party hope that the truth we keep hammering home, namely that all the freedoms in capitalism put together still leave the mass of mankind shackled and unfree, will soon be comprehended in wider circles and that the workers will at last strive for the ONE FREEDOM: the emancipation of the working-class of the world from the thralldom of the exploiters of labour.

No Leaders, No Followers

It is often claimed by opponents of socialism that the workers have not that superior mental ability necessary to control society which, it is alleged, is possessed by members of the capitalist class and their professional hirelings. Even workers themselves engaged in highly skilled occupations take up the same cry that some workers are unfit mentally to run society. They have imbibed these things from early youth, and never seem to question the veracity of such obviously foolish assertions.

Wherever you look, you  see who it is that to-day does all the necessary and essential work of society—run the railways and crew the ships, building them also; obtain the coal from the bowels of the earth ; in short, do all the needed work in producing food and shelter, and then ask yourself whether it is the over-fed capitalist, with his wonderful "directive ability," or his wage-slaves, the working class, who perform all the useful services in society. Evidence abounds on every hand to show the bungling and incompetence of the ruling class to-day. Could, then, the workers, with their inexperience in controlling society, and their lower standard of education, do worse? Emphatically, no ! If, then, the working class do all these things to-day, surely when they see the need for another system of society and unite to bring it about, they will have also the intelligence to control the society which they seek to establish.

The workers to-day have sufficient intelligence to produce a superabundance of wealth which they hand over to an idle, parasitic class. When they equip themselves politically they have at hand the necessary weapons to secure their emancipation and institute a system where social production will be accompanied by social ownership; in a word, socialism. Join up and work for it.

 The Socialist Party points out that every capitalist country can, or is rapidly reaching the point where it can, produce more wealth than it consumes, and is, therefore, compelled to join in the struggle for markets. The keener and more intense the struggle, the worse does the condition of the workers become. The success of one nation over others does not improve conditions for the workers of that nation, because the lack of employment in the beaten nations drives the workers into the countries where they are in demand (to mention one obvious reason). Thus capitalism makes the working class an international slave class—the very condition that, once given recognition by the workers, must form the basis of a genuine socialist International. As this international slave class is everywhere compelled to organise and oppose the greed of the capitalist class, which becomes more insatiable with growing competition for markets, the antagonism of the labour market over the buying and selling of labour-power, is transformed, by the spread of socialist knowledge, into class antagonism. The working class then takes up its historic mission—the abolition of classes through the establishment of socialism. Socialism is opposed to capitalism in all its forms and manifestations. Those leaders of working-class thought, therefore, who support war, in every country, and yet called themselves socialists, accomplished a double treachery against the working-class.

The Socialist Party has always argued that socialism can be established only when there is a majority of conscious socialists — people who understand socialism and want it. In line with this principle, we must obviously ensure, as far as we can, that our members all understand the case for socialism. In that sense we do ‘vet’ applicants for membership, which does not mean that joining our party is like being interrogated by the thought-police. The branch which deals with the application simply tries to find out the applicant’s political ideas. If he or she disagrees with socialism, then clearly they cannot become members; if they agree they are welcomed into our ranks.

We sympathise with the frustrations of workers who find political propaganda for socialism difficult because they live in a more remote part of the country. But it is only by putting the ideas of socialism across, all the time, that they will take root and flourish.

Membership does not entail any formal obligation to work for the party, but there is plenty of activity going and members are enthusiastic. For our size, we do a tremendous amount of propaganda.

Where there is no socialist candidate, socialists write ‘socialism’ across their ballot papers. We refuse to make the spurious choice between the parties of capitalism, which is like offering a condemned man a menu for his last breakfast. Writing ‘socialism’ on the ballot paper is not wasting a vote; it is a declaration that the other parties are not worth voting for and a manifestation of support for socialism.

Socialists are in favour of workers grabbing whatever crumbs may fall from their masters’ tables; so we recognise that some reforms can be said to have benefited the working class. This does not prevent us still struggling for socialism, which is the whole loaf rather than a few crumbs. It is not true that the Labour Party is the only party of reform; the Tories are also in the same business — a fact which amply illustrates the futility of reformism. The experience of Labour governments is that they always attack working class living standards — and, worse, they do this in the name of socialism.

Thus the Labour Party, far from bringing about a climate of opinion favourable to socialism, has confused the issue and has made our work that much harder. There is no place in it for anyone who is looking for a fundamentally different party, one which stands for a new society of freedom and common ownership.

The Burden of Debt

• 24% of people are concerned about paying utility bills
• 26% are concerned about paying rent
• 19% are concerned about mortgage repayments
• 20% are concerned about paying for food and essentials
• 21% are concerned about council tax
• 35% are concerned about their income levels in general

Scotland could be facing a “personal debt time bomb” due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Citizens Advice Scotland. It warned as the furlough scheme is reduced, debt payment holidays end, and job losses become more significant, it could cause a large increase in the number of people being unable to manage their debts.

CAS financial health spokesman Myles Fitt said: “The issue is most often a result of insecure or low incomes which are simply not able to keep pace with the cost of living.

“While concerns about unemployment have understandably replaced it for the time being, the issue of personal debt will become a real challenge in the coming months and years.

“An income shock from a job loss or reduced pay, combined with the cost of arrears such as council tax, housing or energy bulls built up due to Covid-19 payment holidays, will put individual and household finances under extreme pressure.

“Our fear is that many households will fall into unmanageable debt, causing financial hardship and pushing more people into poverty, or exacerbate existing poverty.”

Mark Diffley, who conducted the poll, said: "Once again, it is apparent that the highest levels of concern are recorded from those in the poorest socio-economic groups who are least likely be able to bear the financial burdens which they are facing as a result of the virus.”

https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/news/scotland/scotland-facing-personal-debt-time-bomb-due-to-covid-19/