We need socialism

 Socialism opens up a great range of new possibilities. With the populations of all countries co-operating as one people, working together in their common interests whilst celebrating their cultural differences and joining in democratically deciding a new future, the prospects can only be seen as exciting. Decision-making would not be confined to the serious work of production and the running of the workplace. People in socialism will be free to create sporting and other cultural festivals. The entertainment of visitors from other parts of the world would bring diversity and richness to local life. The possibilities for decision making and the planning and enjoyment of such events are endless. It is the ideas of capitalism that are dead because they have nowhere to go and represent an ideology that is incapable of being developed as principles for a better world. But the ideas of socialism are rooted in the constant need of all people to live in peace with each other and to co-operate in creating a life of material security. Co-operation is sometimes said to be impossible because there is an inherent conflict between self-interest and the interests of others. In fact, the reverse is true. The interests of the individual are best realised when people are working together. The best achievements of one person can enhance the lives of all people.  It is through co-operation that we develop as individuals. Our individuality grows and finds its expression in relation to others and this would be impossible in social isolation. In this process of individual growth, we draw not only on personal relationships but also draw on society in general and even on the lives of those who lived in the past.

In practical terms, the change from capitalism to socialism will not mean the introduction of anything materially new so much as the immediate removal of redundant features of an existing structure of production and social organisation. The establishment of common ownership does not and could not imply a sudden transformation of all the material processes of living. There could be no sudden change in the actual work processes of people in mining, industry, manufacture, transport and distribution, farming, building and construction, energy supply, health services, etc. All these people would carry on with what they are doing but within the new relationships of voluntary co-operation. From this point, a period of rapid re-organisation and development would also be commenced after production and administration have been released from the economic constraints of capitalism. This will necessarily take time. Seen in this practical perspective the change from capitalism to socialism can be seen as combining elements of both short and long-term change.

 We depend on the richness of all the Earth’s resources, industrial as well as natural. What is vital are all the means of producing and distributing wealth. These means of life are also a common inheritance. They result from the development of productive techniques that began at the dawn of history with flint implements and continued down to the automated systems and electronically controlled robots of today. These are not the products of individuals or of a tiny class. Each new advance rested on the accumulated efforts of many previous generations. This has been a human achievement and that is why it can be said to be the common inheritance of us all.

Surely, therefore, the fact that these means of life are owned and monopolised by a tiny section of society, and used by them for their own enrichment whilst the vast majority of non-owners have to struggle to live and countless millions live in desperate poverty and many starve, is an obscenity that cannot be defended in any kind of moral or rational sense? It can only be remedied through their common ownership.

Socialists do not hold a monopoly on social concern. For example, many people are concerned with the plight of the hungry and they try to do something about it. We share that concern, this is something that we have in common with them. So it is not true that we are hostile to all non-socialists. So how can we be more engaged with these people with whom we share some common ground? we should build on our economic and political analysis and apply its logic to the fantastic development of all the socially useful factors of modern world society in setting out how socialism could operate. Then armed with this set of practical proposals we make every attempt to be more positively engaged with the many non-socialists with whom we share a common ground of concern and indignation and the need to establish a world of equality, democracy and cooperation.

Making sense of socialism

 Today’s politics is in a state of great confusion. There is uncertainty, disillusion, a prevailing sense of failure and, above all, a lack of clear direction. It isn't enough just to have a clear understanding of what causes the problems of the working class; we must also have a very clear understanding of how they could be solved. That solution is socialism.

It can be said that we now live in a "global village". What this means is that socialism would have no difficulty in organising the world as one productive system directly for human needs.

It is likely, however, that when socialism is established some populations could enjoy greater advantages arising from prior development within capitalism. These populations could benefit from developed industry, manufacture, agriculture, energy supply and systems of transport and distribution. Together with this, there would already exist health and education services, a highly developed system of administration including planning departments, local services and an accumulation of statistical information which would be immediately useful in the organisation of society directly for needs.

In many parts of the world, these useful facilities may not exist.

One of the first priorities of world socialism would be to rapidly expand food production in line with needs. World action would include assistance with any local agriculture that was poorly developed in relation to local needs. In South America, where food production could be vastly increased through irrigation schemes. Similarly in Africa.

Another problem that would require urgent world action in socialism is the housing problem. Even in Europe, the housing problem is bad enough, with many homeless families and chronic urban blight. Throughout the world, particularly in Asian capitals and such cities as Mexico City, millions of people live in the squalor of shanty towns, with no sewage, supplies of clean water or decent services.

Free from all the constraints of capitalist production, people throughout the world would concentrate their energies on solving these problems, taking the necessary initiatives in their own areas. It is likely, however, that the world centres of developed industry and manufacturing would initially need to supply machinery and equipment, installations, storage facilities and technical know-how to the underdeveloped areas, to assist with such projects as housing development and irrigation schemes for food production. As well as this it is likely that there would be an urgent need to set up education and health services, and infrastructures for transport and communications.

As a world system organised directly for human needs socialism cannot be conceived in any exclusive regional context. Concern and action for need would be universal. Notwithstanding any particular advantages which may exist in some regions as a result of capitalism having previously developed the forces of production there, in socialism such advantages would be at the disposal of the whole world community. This is what the socialist object spells out when it speaks of common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community. The whole community is simply every person on earth. The days of national politics are long since ended as a useful framework of political action. The existing parties offer nothing more than a destructive future within a framework of national divisions. 

In a socialist society, for the first time ever, the globe-spanning communications networks - which capitalism itself has built up and which socialism will develop even further - will be used to ensure that everyone can have an input into the decisions which affect their lives on a global, regional and local basis. A united humanity, sharing a world of common interests, would also share world administration.

In socialism, for the first time, local communities will be free to make decisions about the development of their areas. With the release of productive resources solely for needs, for the first time, they will enjoy real powers to act on those decisions. These would be decisions about local services such as health, education and transport, public facilities such as parks, libraries, leisure centres and sports grounds; local housing, the location of production units, management of farming, care of the local environment, cultural events, and so on.

We anticipate that with people being able to co-operate much more in their own interests there would be a stronger and more active sense of local community than exists now and this would be expressed through bodies adapted from present parish and district councils. The principle determining the practice of local democracy would be that decisions affecting just local populations would be made by them and not for them by any larger or outside body. The importance of local democracy has to be seen in the context of modern production which is worldwide. There may be some scope for local production for local needs but in the mean, even simple articles of use are made with additions of labour that extend across the globe. For example, a simple basic ball-point pen needs world mining, the oil industry, chemicals and world transport, etc. We eat fruit, vegetables and spices from every climate. Our lives would be much more limited if we were restricted to what could be produced or grown in our local areas.

With the abolition of capitalist corporations many of which duplicate their operations on a world scale it is likely that socialism would want to use the most economical and structure of production. This could operate from world-scale extractive industries like mining to regional centres of industrial processing and manufacture and final distribution to local populations. This could correspond to a similar network of administrative levels on world, regional and local scales. This is not to suggest that such a single agency based in New York or Geneva or whatever would be making policy decisions for everyone on the planet. Its function could be to provide information and propose various development strategies so that alternatives could be decided democratically. From where we stand now a lot of people would say that priority should be given to ecologically benign methods such as wind, wave, solar power, etc. With the freedom to make such a decision without the economic constraints of capitalism, socialism could do it. The sole motive would be the needs of people and this would be in sharp contrast to the way in which governments decide matters now from the point of view of national economic and military interests.

As well as the face-to-face contacts of our daily lives at work, home, at the shops, in the library, at the football pitch or leisure centre with friends, neighbours and relatives, and as well as our part in local affairs, at the same time, we would be involved with all other people in world issues and events of every kind.

The Insanity of Capitalism

 It has been argued by those on the left that a "workers government" and a “workers state” could be formed to run society in the interests of the working class and to carry out measures that would change the structure of society. Such a system would enact a programme of reforms to improve conditions of work, create shorter working hours, expand health and education services. There would be a massive programme of house building and generous pensions for the aged, the disabled and the disadvantaged. Unemployment would be abolished. Nationalisation would be the beginning of common ownership of the means of production and fiscal measures would ensure that the rich would be taxed out of existence.

The reality is that in any system of commodity production and capital accumulation, irrespective of whether it is privately managed or run by the state, there is an irreconcilable conflict between the value factors and the socially useful factors of production, in which the value factors must always predominate. The driving force is capitalist accumulation and this works within a set of constraints that limit time action in every social, economic and political sphere. Whatever may be done in any of these spheres is conditional on the governing factor that capital should accumulate through the economic exploitation of workers involved in the exchange of labour time for wages. Workers generate value over and above the value of their own labour-power and this surplus value is realised through the sale of commodities in the market. In this way, the original capital investment is expanded and realised in its money form. It makes no difference whether it is state capital operating through a state enterprise or private capital operating through private enterprise, the profit motive and the conditions of the world capitalist market limit the social possibilities of society under capitalism. In the light of this hard economic reality, the reformist dreams of left-wing movements are shown to be completely impractical. In power, as we have seen over and over again, a left-wing regime would mean the now entirely discredited policies of nationalisation, the retention of capital, the wages system, commodity production, the market and the profit motive. It would mean all the sectional privileges arising from this, imposed on the working class by the forces of the state.

Working-class struggles will always be fought on a battleground where the forces of capitalism will always win. While the capitalist holds control of the state and commands the forces of repression — the police and the armed forces backed by the law — workers must always face ultimate defeat. On the other hand, a socialist majority would win because it would, in the most determined democratic manner, take political power and bring all the powers of government under its own control. It would then enact common ownership and replace the state with a system of democratic administration, concerned solely with the organisation of production for use. A socialist society can only be established and operated by a majority of men and women who have decided that a world organised solely for human needs is the world they want and prepared to act on that basis. Therefore socialism can only be established by a majority of conscious socialists.

 Production solely for human needs will replace the present capitalist system of exploitation where workers sell their mental and physical abilities for wages or salaries and produce commodities for sale on markets. Production solely for human need on the basis of common ownership will mean people cooperating to produce goods and maintain services directly for needs and in line with democratic decisions. This will be a practical and straightforward system of useful work producing useful goods free from the economic constraints of production for profit, without any exchange of any kind and without therefore the use of money.

Production will be humanised in the sense that human beings won't have a price put on either their ability to work or the product of their work. Jobs won't have a price on them, nor will goods, nor will needs. Instead of working for wages, people will cooperate, and this will bring work under the control of those who carry it out. It will be the self-determined activity of individuals responding to the needs of the community of which they form a part and who have the responsibility and the real power of decision-making and action.

That is the sane system we must establish and it is the only sensible definition of socialism.

WHY WE ARE FOR SOCIALISM

 Since there is frequent use of the word "socialism", it is useful clearly to define what the Socialist Party means by the word. This can be summarised under three main headings — common ownership of the means of life; democratic control of society; and production solely for human need.

Common ownership means a relationship where the means of producing goods and services, and the earth's resources, are held in common by the whole community. This is distinguished from minority class ownership of the means of production under capitalism, in either its privately owned or state monopoly forms.

By democratic control we mean a system of administration through which the whole community would be able to make democratic decisions about the use of productive resources, the general arrangement of social affairs and the immediate priorities and long term objectives of social action. This is distinguished from the operation of systems of government which impose decisions on the wider community through the enforcement of law. By their nature, governments express class interests.

By production solely for human need we mean direct co-operation between people in producing goods and maintaining services directly for need. This requires the abolition of the market, including that for labour power in socialism, production would not begin with an economic exchange of labour time for wages and salaries, but would arise as social co-operation in direct response to community requirements. Free access by the community to available goods and services would replace the present restricted access to goods based on buying and selling, and the use of money as a means of exchange.

This is what socialism means for the Socialist Party.

Socialism will relationships and organisations centred on human needs and not on economic forces external to human needs. Socialism will be a society where the whole community will relate on equal terms about the means of production and the earth's resources and co-operate to produce goods, services and amenities solely for use. This will be an association of men and women in conscious control of their own lives, living for themselves with the freedom to decide upon social projects and to organise resources to complete those projects. Socialism places man at the centre of social organisation. Equality, co-operation and democratic participation will bring productive efficiency in response to human needs. But more than that, it will do so in circumstances in which the self-directed individual will live positively, integrating his own life with the development of the whole community. Socialism means democratic control of society in the human interest. This will be a society where the means of producing wealth and the whole of the earth's resources are held in common and at the free disposal of the whole human family. The object of socialism is fundamentally different to that of capitalism, and provides for a completely different social organisation. 

The possibilities of organising the world as a single productive unit have been given historically by the spread of capitalism and the development of trade and a world division of labour. But all the present political, economic and war-mongering chaos is now part of a redundant system which forms an unnecessary barrier against the organisation of the world in line with human need. To continue with it is madness. By establishing the world as a commonly held resource operated with co-operation all these absurd national divisions can be swept aside. The co-ordination of the world division of labour for production for use can be achieved by modern information and communication systems without the need for centralised control. A complete monitoring of world production is now technically possible at any level throughout the entire system. With a shared and equal interest between all people in world production, control can be maintained by a system of decentralised co-operation.

What is required is the removal of the present capitalist features which are now imposed on this useful structure. so that its useful features would be free to operate through co-operation directly for human needs.

Thus in socialism, with a system of production solely for use, needs would arise expressed as definite quantities of required goods among the whole community. These would be registered and communicated to regional centres of manufacture. As a result, regional manufacturing units would know the amounts of required production. This would be passed on throughout the entire network of production eventually to the mining and processing of such raw materials as tin. This would be a direct and practical response of social productive activity based on co-operation in line with social needs. But it can only be free to take place once the market system is abolished, which requires that the entire means of production and distribution must be converted into common ownership by the whole community.

Towards a New Freedom

 

At present, although we're supposed to live in a democratic society, the machinery for decision making is not in our hands.  The only power we have is to decide every so often by a cross on a ballot paper who is going to have power and make the decisions for us. And every time we vote in a local or national election, we give our consent to this state of affairs — if we vote, that is, for the parties who wish to perpetuate it and who compete with one another on how best to run it. In fact, their choices about how to run it are very limited. That's why whichever party is in power, it's like Tweedledum and Tweedledee — what they do is strikingly similar and changes very little in our daily lives. The plain fact is that all these parties are committed to running a system where the single most important factor in decision making at all levels is, and must be, "how much does it cost?" — profit takes priority and human needs come a poor second. And they're committed to running this system — because it can't be run in any other way — for the benefit of the small minority of people who own most of the wealth of society and to whom the profit from the labour of the majority goes.

In the world today we have the resources, the technology, the skills and the knowledge to satisfy everyone's needs — in food, clothing. shelter and everything else several times over; no informed person would deny it. But we cannot fully use those assets in a society where the fundamental aim of production is profit. We can only use them in a society where the fundamental aim of production is human needs.

This means establishing a society without money — where we don't use bits of metal and pieces of paper to needlessly ration ourselves, and don't all walk around with a cash register in our heads.

This means a society without wages — where we aren't forced to work for an employer just to get by, but where we can choose the work we want to do for our own satisfaction and for the benefit of the community as a whole.

This means a society without frontiers and nations — where the world's resources and knowledge are used rationally and not in the crazy, haphazard way determined by "market forces" or governments, causing millions to die of starvation or go short while food and other essentials are stockpiled in huge quantities.

This means a society without wars or the threat of wars — because wars in the modern world are caused by economic and trade rivalries between nations, and in a world that is united there won't be such rivalries to fight over.

 Capitalism is the real cause of poverty and the poor health that goes with it. It is a diseased, cancerous system that needs revolutionary surgery, not useless elasto-plast reforms.  The quality of life for most members of our class is poor if not abysmal. We are quite capable of producing ample wealth for everyone.

 

 We're not asking people to be "good" or "idealistic". We're simply asking them to see that a fundamental change in the way society is organised — which we call socialism — is in their individual interests, in their children's interests, and in the interest of society as a whole. The Socialist Party exists to spread the ideas we've outlined and to be used, if people want to use us, to vote out the present system of buying and selling and production for profit and vote in a new system of common ownership, production for use and free access to all goods and services. And just as it must be voted in democratically, this new system can only be run democratically — by everyone — with all having equal access to everything it produces.

Socialism describes an alternative society based on equality of access and cooperation. Socialism implies a positive intention to create a needs-based society. It would not only be a more rational and efficient economic system but would "enhance the dignity of man" with relationships based on cooperation and equality.  Socialism alone could provide a basis for solving social problems, disbanding armies, reducing waste, ending unemployment, hunger and homelessness. 

For Barbarism or Socialism?

 The Socialist Party seeks the universal brotherhood of mankind. Socialism becomes the means whereby men and women realise their humanity, individually and socially. Socialists want the freedom of the whole community to deploy its productive resources and all the talents and skills of the working class—be they scientists, professional workers, craftsmen, technologists of whatever—in the long-overdue work of solving our problems. Under capitalism, science and technology have flowered mainly to serve the interest of capitalist profit-making. This is a great contradiction. Mankind has the know-how, yet poverty, misery and the threat of war remain.  Capitalism cannot avoid a continuing ferment of discontent, albeit generally expressed in negative ways, through hate, violence, cynicism and even despair. Paradoxically, this may form a background for building up useful knowledge about where man's true interests lie. Capitalism subjugates great numbers of people to wage slavery and its barrier of private ownership must be dismantled and the means of living be used to satisfy the needs of mankind.  capitalism as the dominating system of production and distribution can never be rationally organised in such a way that it serves the needs of the community. Private ownership, economic exploitation and the distribution of commodities through a marketing system with a view to making a profit from the barriers that prevent mankind from making the fullest possible use of labour, technology and natural resources. It will mean the free application of human labour to the earth's resources with the most efficient utilisation and further development of technology.

The aim of socialism is to unite humanity and to solve social problems by building a society that can satisfy the universal need for cooperation and material security. Socialism involves a creative outlook concerned with the quality of life. In association with others, the individual will develop oneself as a social being. With enlightenment and knowledge, mankind will replace the ignorance, false illusions and prejudice from which it suffers in our own day. Socialism is the form of society most compatible with the needs of humanity. Its necessity springs from the enduring problems, the economic contradictions and social conflicts of present-day society. Socialist society must be based upon common ownership and democratic control by the whole community of the means of life. The building of socialism requires a social reorganisation where the earth's resources and the apparatus of production are held in common by the whole community. Instead of serving sectional interests, they are made freely accessible to society as a whole. Production will be organized at the world level with coordination of its differing parts down to local levels. Life will be based on human relationships of equality and cooperation. Through these relationships, man will produce useful things, construct amenities and establish desirable institutions. Socialism will resolve the conflicts which at present divides people. Regardless of ethnic or cultural differences, the whole world community will share a common interest.

In socialism, there will be no market, trade or barter. In the absence of a system of exchange, money will have no function to perform. Individuals will participate freely in production and take what they need from what is produced. The fact that Socialism will be based on common ownership does not mean that an individual will have no call on personal effects. It means essentially that no minority will have control over or possession of natural resources or means of production. Individuals will stand in relation to each other not as economic categories, not as employers and employees or buyers and sellers, but simply as human beings producing and consuming the necessary things of life. Socialism will end national barriers. The human family will have freedom of movement over the entire earth.  World policies will be subject to the control of the world community. Elected delegates will carry local viewpoints to a world congress where broad decisions on all aspects of social policy will be made. From that point, the social machinery would be implemented to carry out these decisions, subject to democratic control through both local and world bodies. Decisions affecting only local interests would be made democratically by the local community.

The World Socialist Movement’s commitment is to the solution of working-class problems confronting mankind. If social problems can be shown to be inherent within capitalist society then it follows that capitalism must be replaced by different social arrangements which will not generate the same problems. Programmes of social reform leave the basic structure of capitalism intact. Therefore programmes of social reform cannot hope to solve social problems. The solution is to bring productive relationships into harmony with human needs. The means of producing wealth must be commonly owned, the earth's resources must be at the free disposal of the whole of mankind. In these relationships, freed from the economic barriers of capitalism, man can co-operate to simply produce the wealth that humanity needs. Socialism will not only achieve productive efficiency but will establish a pattern of relationships in which the dignity of mankind's coming together will be enhanced through equality and cooperation.

This is a positive goal that we can all work for. There is no way in which the internal structure of capitalism can be altered by reform so that it works in the interests of the whole community. We can only break away from the self-repeating failures of reformism by recognising that the problem is capitalism itself.

 

THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE FUTURE

 

It is good that workers are prepared to demonstrate their international solidarity, but it should be a demonstration of really understanding solidarity. Not mere words and emotion that, like a weathercock, can be changed with every wind. Lack of genuine understanding of the workers' unchanging wage-slavery while capitalism lasts, enables the capitalist rulers to line up the workers against each other.  We take very seriously the human condition in capitalism — so seriously, in fact, that we are engaging in the political action we think is necessary not just to patch up capitalism but to abolish it and replace it with socialism. That, and not "theoretical purity", is our sole objective.

We also think that those involved in meaningful political activity do need theory — in the sense of an understanding of why society is the way it is, what could be achieved given what we know about the world and an idea of how that objective is going to be attained. Without such a conceptual map to guide political action then many sincere political activists become hopelessly lost or find themselves somewhere very different from where they intended. This is not a question of "religious belief" in theoretical purity, but a matter of practical political necessity.

What we understand by the term class consciousness is a recognition among workers that they are indeed members of the working class and. as such, share common interests with other workers worldwide — interests that are in direct opposition to those of the owning class. Class consciousness also means a recognition that those collective class interests cannot be met within the present system of society and therefore political action is necessary to abolish capitalism and bring about socialism. Our conception of socialism is of a society in which all wealth is held in common and is democratically controlled. In other words socialist society will be based on voluntary cooperation. For that to be possible, people would have to want socialism and be prepared to actively participate in making it work. Class consciousness within capitalism is therefore a necessary pre-requisite for socialism.

How does that class consciousness come about? We think that class consciousness arises for all sorts of different reasons. Some workers may well gain a greater insight into their position in society from reading the works of Marx and Engels or other socialist propaganda. Many are likely to be driven into becoming socialists as a result of their daily experience of life in capitalism — its contradictions, deprivations, insecurity and so on.  We do not think that it can suddenly arise and then subside again so that workers drift back into an unconscious' state. 

It is certainly not the view of The Socialist Party that the time is not yet ripe for change. On the contrary socialism is an urgent and immediate task and the technology, knowledge and skills exist to make socialism a practical possibility now. However the sad fact remains that what is lacking is the political will to make socialism happen, among a majority of the working class.

We do not think that capitalism has provided democratic institutions for the benefit of socialists; neither do we think that the capitalist class will "go out of its way" to assist us to get socialism; we insist that socialism must be established democratically and we agree that propaganda for socialism can be made in all areas of life. Eduard Bernstein and his revisionist followers destroyed the German Social Democratic Party as a revolutionary socialist organisation not because he believed in parliamentary methods, but because he was willing to sacrifice the party's revolutionary socialist principles in order for the party to achieve political power on the basis of a reformist programme.

The Socialist Party thinks that it is essential for there to be a majority of socialists before we can have socialism, then it is necessary to have some kind of measure of support.

 Elections (for all their limitations) are one way of finding out whether sufficient support for socialism exists. There is the added advantage that contesting elections provides a useful platform from which to make socialist propaganda. But let us make it quite clear. We do not propose to form a socialist "government" (which is a contradiction in terms); neither do we believe that parliamentary elections are the only kind of political activity socialists should engage in. Indeed most of The Socialist Party's energy goes at present into talking to people at meetings, on the street, in trade unions, at work, in schools and in colleges with the intention of trying to persuade them about the need for socialism.

We do not believe that it is either inevitable or desirable to form alliances with other "progressive” forces. We certainly do not think that we hold the monopoly on truth, but what we do think is that we have a coherent set of ideas which both explains capitalism and makes the case for a socialist society. It makes sense to us. Why then should we compromise those ideas by forming alliances with other groups whose views we don't share? While we are always willing to discuss our ideas and debate with other political organisations, we have not as yet found any which shares our view of what socialism is, let alone how to achieve it. Surely for a political alliance to be forged there must at the very least be broad agreement about ends and means.

Finally, even though there is a majority of socialists, we do not believe that the capitalist class will necessarily give up without a struggle. For that reason we take the view that in order to establish socialism it will first be necessary to take control of the state machine to prevent its forces being used against the socialist majority. And we do not rule out the possibility of force being used to defend socialism from attack by a minority of capitalists and their supporters. What we do not accept is that socialism can be established by means of insurrectionary violence undertaken by a small minority who claim to be acting in the interests of the majority. Action of this kind — no matter what the declared intention of the insurrectionists might be — could not lead to socialism since, if there was not majority support for the new society being established, the minority would be forced to use coercion and repression. Such a society would not be the cooperative, harmonious and democratic society that The Socialist Party is working for.