Co-ops are no Cure for Capitalism

 

It is too early yet to pronounce in detail what various forms socialist administration will take. That will become more clear  to decide closer to the time. But its outlines exist now. It will not be a government, ordering affairs from the top, with merely the acquiescence of the people. It must be giving effect to the decisions of the workers themselves where every  public office must be elective, responsible, and revocable. 

On some matters it is possible to give detailed instructions, on others, general orders only, the particular execution of them being left to the discretion of the delegate. We are convinced that when working people are ready to take possession of the means of life they will be ready to begin to control them democratically. But in all matters in the socialist commonwealth, the will of those whose work he is doing, and not his own, should determine his actions. The socialist way out of capitalism is the only way. Consequently the very necessity of socialist propaganda, as a prelude to the overthrow of capitalist society, and the establishment of socialism, is sufficient to guard us against pessimism. But in carrying on the work of socialist education, one qualification is necessary, and that is, we must be patient. The work of enlightening the workers in the knowledge of their slave position and the way out from their slavery, is essential to the establishment of socialism. 

We do not pretend to prophecy as to the details of the future working class organisations, but reasoning from past and present experience, it would seem that the greatest efficiency would be attained by forming one organisation for political work and another for economic work. These two organisations would be affiliated under some form, and where necessary would work together, until socialism was established. One organisation on the industrial field would not be on the basis of its class, unless the members understood their slave position and were deliberately working for their own emancipation, by organising for control of political power, in addition to being organised on the economic field for immediate purposes. Socialism will be established when a majority of the working class use the vote to wrest political power out of the hands of the capitalist class for that object. This will leave a minority either neutral or actively opposing the new order. Without the backing of the political power, with its armed forces, the master class are bereft of any “power”—economic or other. To retain possession of the means of life, they are completely dependent upon the control of political power, which is placed in their hands by the working class who are ignorant of their own interests. The mills, mines, factories, etc., can only be seized after the workers have gained political power with its control of the armed forces. Any other method merely leads the working class to the shambles. The possession of political power by the master class is a result of the lack of class consciousness of the workers, it is clear that only with the growth of class consciousness—knowledge of their class position—will the political power be wrested from the hands of the masters.

Since the early 19^th Century, groups of workers have tried to escape from their servile condition by creating either producer or consumer cooperatives as an aim in itself  or a much needed means of self-defence. Sometimes, cooperatives lessons were learned from it as a workplace experiment but at other times they proved to be a negative experience. Often they were expressions of  paternalistic reformism such as the Mondragon cooperative, which today has evolved into a large holding company. There are similar experiences of cooperatives failing across the world where the exploitation of the cooperative workers does not substantially differ from the exploitation of any other worker in conventional businesses. In short it leads to the cooperation of the workers participating in their own exploitation. Once a co-op  enters the capitalist market they are required to play by its the rules of competition and cost cutting to achieve returns. This situation forces them to compromise their workplace “democracy”. Above all, we should not think that the capitalist system can be gradually transformed by the multiplication of cooperatives.

Social Democracy

 

Working people may have not yet reached a socialist society  but the idea of revolution, of remaking society from below, is stronger than ever in the popular mind. We are told that not achieving socialism is proof of its impossibility and evidence of the permanence of capitalism. They say very little about  who calls themselves socialists and what is meant by “socialism”. We have heard different definitions. If you call toadstools mushrooms and eat them, you will poison yourself. The definitions of the intellectuals of all hues and gradations are just as false promoted by the ruling class itself to mislead and misinform.

Socialism should be described as a society of the free and equal, and democracy was defined as the rule of the people. The Communist Manifesto linked socialism and democracy together as end and means. The “self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority” cannot be anything else but democratic, if we understand by “democracy” the rule of the people, the majority. Constructing society where workers remain without voice or vote in the process is  foreign to the thoughts of socialists. The reformist idea that socialism can be handed down by degrees is an alien concept for socialists. The rule of the working class cannot be exercised by deceiving the  people, but only by their active involvement in every part of the political life of society.

 The emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves. The socialist reorganisation of society requires a workers’ revolution. Such a revolution is unthinkable without the participation and consent of the majority. Government nationalisation of industry and transport does not signify the establishment of socialism. 

 Socialism as a class-free society with abundance, freedom and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state, not even what’s called workers’ state. The Communist Manifesto depicts socialist administration as “an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”

Capitalism is a system of minority rule, and the principal beneficiaries of capitalist democracy are the small minority of exploiting capitalists; scarcely less so than the slave-masters of past times. While chattel slavery may be gone, wage-slavery still exists. Despite the formal right of free speech and free media, the small capitalist minority happens to enjoy an almost complete monopoly of ownership and control of all the big press, of television and radio, and dominate all other expressions of social media on the internet.

 Another definition of socialism is “economic democracy” the extension of democracy to industry, the democratic control of the means of production by the workers and their communities where  exclusive private ownership is excluded.  The ruling class never stop preaching that their form of government is the most democratic on earth yet those who run this world are a small handful of bankers and businessmen and billionaires and they own the vast productive forces–the factories, the mines, transport and communication systems and exploit the majority of the population, for their own private benefit and gain. The state, the police, army, courts, the bureaucracy of the civil service and other institutions are controlled by this capitalist class. It is not a dictatorship of one autocrat or a plutocratic clique. It is a concealed class dictatorship  under the camouflage of democracy, where a tiny handful of profit-makers rules society and uses the state as their machine to suppress the working people.  The capitalists do not openly admit their rule. Instead they claim that this is a democracy where everyone shares power and takes part in running the government.

Once power power has been acquired by the working people they will  socialise the ownership of the means of production, making them the common property of society and the state as such will be replaced by the common administration of society by all its members.

We do change the world. One generation merges into another. The hopes of yesterday’s socialist pioneers become the inspiration of the socialists of today, and by them are revolutionary ideas passed on to the socialist movement of tomorrow. Unite and rally around the red banner. Above all think for yourselves, and in thinking for yourselves we will develop an understanding which will give power to the working class.

A New Vision for the People

 

Imagine a new world. The Socialist Party is against private property because it derives from violence and from the exploitation of the labour of others We say capitalists regulate production with an eye to their personal profits and not the better to satisfy to the public need. It is necessary to substitute agreement and solidarity for strive and struggle among people, and to achieve this it is necessary first of all to abolish private property. Everything belongs to everybody. Without a change in ownership there would be no great improvement  would not bring any of the social benefits that would arise naturally in a society based on common ownership. Socialism is built upon workers’ common ownership of the means of production. 

The aim of the Socialist Party is to end the capitalist system of society, based on the exploitation of man by man, by means of the revolutionary overthrow of the ruling class of capitalists and to build a socialist society based on common ownership of the means of production, with economic life planned in the interests of the people – a society which will develop material abundance and proceed to the construction of a society based on the principle “to each according to needs”. 

The Socialist Party will help to end the present system of capitalist ownership of the land and the means of producing wealth and substitute in its stead the common ownership and democratic control of these means of production. Socialism strives to build a new economy based on the realisation of egalitarian, inclusive human well-being. Socialism requires democratic control of the economy and it entails not only more equality but also more widespread freedom. It will liberate people from the coercive domination of the boss class. Unless we change the world, the fate of so many vulnerable victims of capitalism around the world will be our fate, too.

Capitalism has its foundations in wage-slavery and there can never be social peace while  the people who work for wages are in bondage and their environment is despoiled. The discontent and unrest among our fellow-workers is widespread to-day yet it is often indefinite in form and does not imply an understanding of the roots of the trouble.

Some actually look to their masters for actual help. A privately owned world can never be a free world and a society based upon warring classes cannot forever. The education of the people, not the few alone, but by everybody. Industrial democracy can be performed only by themselves.

The Socialist Party’s position is that capitalist organisation of industry must be brought to an end where there will be no private profit. Under capitalism we have known only joyless drudgery. With socialism, we shall decide for ourselves how the supply of the  necessary goods and services is to be carried out, how long it is necessary to work and so on. People are entitled to receive by whatever methods deemed convenient what they requires from the common store. We shall carry through this revolution; but we shall have to do it together. It is not a job for a few. A few could not conquer the masters, and a few could not work a socialist system of industry. Rather than provide healthcare, housing and food security capitalism commodified basic needs. It has created economic precarity around the world.

We want the emancipation of the people, their intellectual, economic, social and political emancipation. Fellow-workers, count on no other than ourselves. We, wage-slaves as we are, have to emancipate ourselves. It can be done. It must be done. It shall be done. The Socialist Party is the growing expression of the revolutionary purpose of the workers. Our vision is one of a free world, without poverty and its pain. Socialism is merely an extension of political democracy into the economic field. At present, industry is ruled by the owners of  production and distribution, who have literally the power of life and death over us all. Socialism proposes to put industry in control of the people so that they may manage industry in their own way, as seems best to them. Today’s socialists does not pretend to forecast what measures the people will take under popular rule of industry. We only believe in the people, that it will be better and safer for them to manage industry in their interest, than it will be to longer permit the owners of the machine to dominate industry in their private interest is the solution of the problems that have hitherto baffled the ages. We know not what the people will do when they control the means of production, but we believe they will use them for the peoples’ own welfare and with a reasonable degree of planning. They can make it so:

 

No-one who wants to do productive work can be deprived of the opportunity of doing it, at any time. They can make it possible to banish want from the face of the earth. They can make it possible for every family to have a comfortable home And to be immune from the fear of want for themselves and their children. They can make it possible for every child to have a good education, to be able to see the world. They have been impossible in the past, only because the planet  and its wealth was withheld from the people by our masters.

Their Scotland or Our World?

On 6 May, you will have your occasional ration of democracy with the opportunity to vote for the glorified regional council known as the Scottish Parliament.

It's all very well having a vote—but are you normally given any real choice? Let's face it, if it wasn't for the politician's head on the front of the election leaflet, could you tell which party was which?

It's tempting—in the absence of any real alternative—to get drawn into the phoney war that is political debate today. Whether Labour or SNP, Lib Dem, Tory, SSP, ,Respect, they all spout the same promises. And it all amounts to the same thing—they offer no alternative to the present way of running society.

Do you really think who wins an election makes any difference to how you live? And do politicians (whether leftwing, nationalist or rightwing) actually have much real power anyway? OK, they get to open supermarkets and factories, but it's capitalism and the market system which closes them down.

Reality Check

Do any of the political parties address any of the real issues:

+ Why is there world hunger in a world of food surpluses?

+ Why are there unemployed nurses, alongside closed-down hospitals and waiting lists?

+ Why are there homeless people in the streets and empty houses with "for sale" signs?

+ Why do some people get stressed working long hours while others get stressed from the boredom of unemployment?

So what's the alternative?

We in THE SOCIALIST PARTY are not standing at this election ourselves but we still are putting forward an alternative to capitalism and the madness of the market—a society of common ownership and democratic control. We call it socialism.

But real socialism. Not the elite-run dictatorships that collapsed a few years ago in Russia and East Europe. And not the various schemes for state control put forward by the old Labour Party. For us socialism means something better than that. We're talking about:

+ A world community without any frontiers.

+ Wealth being produced to meet people's needs and not for sale on a market or for profit

+ Everyone having access to what they require to satisfy their needs, without the rationing system that is money.

+ A society where people freely contribute their skills and experience to produce what is needed, without the compulsion of a wage or salary.

If you don't like present-day society ... if you are fed up with the way you are forced to live ... if you think the root cause of most social problems is the market system, then your ideas echo closely with ours.

We are not promising to deliver socialism to you. We are not putting ourselves forward as leaders. This new society can only be achieved if you join together to strive for it. If you want it, then it is something you have to bring about yourselves.

If you agree with this, you’ll obviously not want to vote for any of the candidates on offer. But you can show you want real socialism by writing WORLD SOCIALISM across your ballot paper.

WORLD SOCIALISM

Common Ownership: The Only Solution

 The former Soviet Union tried to pass off the regime as socialism to try to deceive the Soviet workers and others throughout the world, just as the exploiters in this country try to pass the USA off as a democracy with “equal justice for all.” American capitalists were happy to call the USSR socialist or communist, because it allowed them to say, when more and more people were discontent, “look, there is no alternative to capitalism, see what a mess communism has made in the Soviet Union.” And of course, capitalism in the Soviet Union is just as rotten as capitalism in this country. But real socialism is something all together different. 

Socialism means that all the wealth created by the workers became the common property of the whole of society, no longer do the working people toil all their lives to enrich a handful of bosses. Exploitation becomes a thing of the past. Under capitalism, workers have no control over what is produced and how. All that is decided by how much profit some capitalist will gain. But socialism enables the people to decide how to organise themselves and the resources of society to meet the needs of the people. As long as profit for the few is the basis of the economic system, that system–capitalism–will continue to go from crisis to deeper crisis, with more misery for the people. Without the common ownership of the means of production, not only does inequality between rich and poor remain, but also, be cause of the competition between workers for jobs, housing, educational opportunities, the inequality inside the working class remains. This is a breeding ground for racism and sexism.  Capitalism, the private ownership of the means of production, is responsible for the insecurity of subsistence, the poverty, misery, and degradation of the ever-growing majority of our fellow-workers. The present system of social production and private property converted society into two antagonistic classes — i.e., the capitalist class and the propertyless class.

The Socialist Party declares its object to be:

First — The organisation of the working class into a political party to conquer the public powers now under the controlof the capitalists. 

Second — The abolition of wage slavery by the establishment of a world system of cooperative industry, based upon the social or common ownership of the means of production and distribution, to be administered by society in the common interest of all its members' and the complete emancipation of the exploited from the domination of capitalism.

Third - The solidarity of labour connecting the millions of class-conscious fellow workers throughout the  world will lead to world socialism, the commonwealth of humanity.

We aim to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a society, based on common ownership of our resources and industry, cooperation, production for use and genuine democracy, from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated.  

Only socialism can turn the boundless potential of the people and the planet’s resources to the creation of a world free from tyranny, greed, poverty and exploitation.

 Incapable of turning their technology and organisation to the needs of people, the oligarchs such as Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are collapsing under the weight of their ever-mounting hoarded wealth. They have distorted the economic development of the world so fundamentally—the resources they have acquired, for instance, could eliminate hunger in the world. There are no new frontiers for their multinational corporations. Their new technology will only intensify massive permanent unemployment, tedious and stressful jobs for remaining workers, and terrifying concentrations of knowledge and control in the hands of corporate CEOs. The socialist option is the only alternative. Socialism relies on the needs and creativity of people. If harnessed to democratic administration and planning, technology could help us achieve an era of abundance for all, and release us from repetitive drudgery. The flaws of capitalism are too basic, the power of the corporations too great, the chasm separating the compulsions of profit and the needs of people too wide, for anything less to succeed.

The needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of a socialist society. Under capitalism, labour is a commodity. Workers are used as replaceable parts, human appendages of machines. Employers have the power of ownership to devastate the lives of workers if they do not provide share-holder dividends.

The Socialist Party is the party of the dispossessed and the oppressed. We support the struggles against the injustices of capitalism. We offer a better future to build a new world. We invite all fellow-workers to eradicate a social system based on exploitation, discrimination, poverty and war. The capitalist system must be replaced by socialist democracy. That is the burning issue of our era, the only hope of humanity.

What the Future Holds

 

"The great appear great to us only because we are on our knees; LET US RISE."

The Socialist Party see that there is a way to the fraternity of all humanity, to the different people’s merging into one, to the end of battles and wars, which so far has stained the path of mankind. It is the reorganisation of our present conditions of production and to organise the association of workers to unload the heavy burden of labour by the wage slaves, and instead make the means of production the common property of the whole society, rather than the present and unfair randomly distribution of wealth with its unavoidable consequences, wealth for a few privileged and misery and poverty for the majority. Our revolution  can have no other goal and no other result than the realisation of socialism. The working class must above all else strive to get the entire political power of the state into its own hands. Political power, however, is for us socialists only a means. The end for which we must use this power is the fundamental transformation of the entire economic relations. All social wealth, the land with all its natural resources  and all factories and must be taken out of the hands of the exploiters and taken into common property of the people and place them under the control of society.

In  socialism the private employer will disappear and  no longer production aims towards the enrichment of one individual, but of delivering to the public at large the means of satisfying all its needs. Accordingly the factories, works and the agricultural enterprises must be reorganised according to a new way of looking at things. Production is to have the aim of securing for everyone a dignified life, plentiful food, a comfortable dwelling and providing all other means of existence. Just as the private ownership of one person by another had to be abolished years ago, so the socialist revolution of our time will have to abolish private ownership of property. All peoples began with  common ownership and with socialism we shall return to a far better form of it, up-rooting all the abominations of class society but cultivating anything worthy in the techniques and knowledge taken over from capitalism. Mankind can resume its upward climb once humanity is rescued from capitalist barbarism.

Socialism is a system of a free people, by the people for the people, solely in the interests of the people. Private ownership, by a class, of the land and instruments of production and distribution is opposed to this vital principle of justice, and is the fundamental basis of all oppression, political and social. Our goal in the Socialist Party is the conversion of the means of production and distribution into the common property of society, to be held and run by a various expressions of democratic control in the interests of the entire community. 

The Socialist Party, stands committed to abolish wage slavery by making common property of all the means of wealth production where all enjoy all the fruits of a liberty that knows no master, when chains of the mind and shackles of the body disappear. It is the political party of the working people and is opposed to all others which are parties of the rich and which work for the continuation of capitalist exploitation and wage-slavery. Our principles express genuine socialism, the system which guarantees the genuine emancipation of the working class. Our Party fights against the rich of the country and against those who are their servants, to overthrow capitalism and build socialism, end the exploitation of man by man and, build a society class-free society as the next stage in human social development. We demand that the land, the instruments of production (machines, factories, etc.), and all the products of labour become the common property of the whole people; and, that all production be organised cooperatively, and be carried on under the direction of the commonwealth; as also the cooperative distribution of the products in accordance with the service rendered, and with the just needs of the individuals. And to realise our demands, we strive by all proper means to gain control of the political power. The Socialist Party recognises the existence of an oppressed class of wage-workers as its fundamental truth, and the emancipation of this oppressed labouring class as its foremost object.