Be a Socialist

 

What is the nature of our civilisation? What is the controlling force which is guiding our destinies, and regulating our actions? What is the nature of the system? Is it operating for good or evil? could it be replaced by a better or a worse one?  Is our social system a success, or is it a failure? These are questions some of us ask ourselves. We pride ourselves in being called “civilised.”  We point at our great culture and grand works of art, our wonders of scientific achievement, our massive cities and communications, our complex technology as our glories of civilisation. It is our labour alone which supplies all human wants. The workers never cease toiling to satisfy the insatiable demands of the owning and employing class. It is the worker alone who carries on civilisation and keeps humanity going, too. 

What about the capitalist? What is his place in our social system? It is to extort another huge slice out of the worker, by buying his or her services as much beneath their true value as he can possibly procure them, and selling them as much above their worth as the circumstances will permit him to extort. The more extensive his trade, the greater will be his power over his employees.

Civilisation is successful so far as it is associated with harmony. Civil conflict, political intrigue, and internal strife of all kinds are its destruction. Mutual peace and prosperity mark its success. Which course are we now pursuing? Whether it be a theocracy, autocracy, constitutional monarchy, or bourgeois republic we find in all alike the one common political basis – the division of the people into the rulers and the ruled. The government may differ in form, but they are alike in fact; whatever they may be called, presidents are virtually kings, plutocracies are intensified aristocracies, elections are conquests by oligarchs. Whatever the form of government, they are all marked by this general characteristic – they all rest upon APPROPRIATION and EXPLOITATION. Slavery, in some form or other, is found to underlie the social structure. Those who have appropriated the world to which all are justly entitled, hold in slavery the millions whom they have expropriated and live upon the results of their toil. And the State holds guard with all the machinery of law, police to protect the idle proprietors’ extortion.

That the present social system has failed must be apparent to all. It has made the many subservient to the few; it has thwarted the best human endeavours, and facilitated every method of exploitation; it disinherits the great mass, and fore-ordains their lifelong misery before they are even born. It is an incentive to pillage and plunder.  It creates jealousy, hatred, and injustice. All political institutions are destructive and reactionary, self-seeking, dishonest, and tyrannical, and ever ready to dominate and oppress those over whom they exert authority; and not only does it corrupt those who rule it, but its evil effects extend to those whom they govern, for every extension of governmental function assists in decreasing and dwarfing the energies self-reliance of the people themselves and making them more helpless, cowardly, and servile than before.

 

No reform can end the evils which the capitalist machine has brought into being.  The existing evils of society are too gigantic to toy, tinker or tamper with. “Remedies” are no remedies at all.  The slavery and the robbery of the workers by rent, interest, profit must be abolished – abolished peacefully, expeditiously, and permanently. And to do so, we must start from where we now stand, and despite all the disadvantages which surround us, and with all the ignorance, all the bigotry, all the intolerance, and all the debasement and cowardice which characterise the down-trodden, we must side by side make our way along the path which so many have found slippery until we reach the long-cherished goal of labour’s emancipation.

But how can we do it? How can we get from the present unjust, destructive system, into one in which justice and happiness shall be the distinguishing characteristics? How shall we fight out of the present blood-thirsty system without the shedding of blood and without the disastrous reaction which has marked the bloody rebellions of the past? How shall we walk from bondage into liberty?  Slaves as we are, have to emancipate ourselves. It can be done. It must be done. 

 

Is it "our nation"?

 Land equals power. If you own land it gives you economic, social and often political muscle. And the more of it you own, the more potential power you have.

 According to Shona Glenn from the Scottish Land Commission, "At the moment the balance of power really sits with landowners and we need to shift that so that communities and society at large have much more of that power."

The BBC in a 2-part programme sets out to find out  'Who owns Scotland?'

One thing is sure, it is not its working people. 

There are 47,000 long term empty homes in Scotland - the number's doubled since 2005.  If you were to place all the vacant and derelict land in Scotland together in one space, the area would be twice the size of the city of Dundee. The most concentrated areas of dereliction are spread through west-central Scotland and down the Clyde coast.

 In Glasgow, the derelict properties seem to be spread out, spanning much of the city with no obvious pattern - until you add another layer. When you superimpose the areas of greatest deprivation onto the map, they sit almost precisely on top of the places where you find the most derelict land.

Tom Smith explained: "When you add that layer (to our map) there does seem to be a direct correlation between the vacant and derelict land in Glasgow and its deprived areas."

Private Ownership or Common Ownership

 

Private ownership divides society into two distinct classes. One is the class of employers, and the other is the class of wageworkers. The employers are the capitalist class, and the wageworkers are the working class. The capitalist class, through the ownership of most of the land and the tools of production — which are necessary for the production of food, clothing, shelter and fuel — hold the working class in almost total economic and industrial subjection, and thus live on the labour of the working class. While the working class, by their labour, produce today — as in the past — the wealth that sustains society, they lack economic and industrial security, suffer from overwork, enforced idleness, and their attendant miseries, all of which are due to the present capitalist form of society. The working class, in order to secure food, clothing, shelter and fuel, must sell their labour-power to the owning capitalist class — that is to say, they must work for the capitalist class. The working class do all the useful work of Society, they are the producers of all the wealth of the world, while the capitalist class are the exploiters who live on the wealth produced by the working class.

As the capitalists live off the product of the workers, the interest of the working people is diametrically opposed to the interest of the capitalists. The capitalist class — owning as they do, most of the land and the tools of production — employ the working class, buy their labour-power, and return to them in the form of wages, only part of the wealth they have produced. The rest of the wealth produced by the working class the capitalists keep; it constitutes their profit — i.e., rent, interest, and dividends.

Thus the working class produce their own wages as well as the profits of the capitalist class. In other words, the working class work a part only of each day to produce their wages, and the rest of the day to produce surplus (profits) for the owning capitalist class. The interest of the capitalist class is to get all the surplus (profits) possible out of the labour of the working class. The interest of the working class is to get the full product of their labour. Hence there is a struggle between these two classes. This struggle is called the “Class Struggle.” 

The crises of the world capitalist system are becoming more acute than ever before and are intensifying the suffering of the people. It is absurd that the social character and higher efficiency of the new technology in the means of production should bring about more unemployment and worsened working conditions. This is because the capitalist relations of production require that firms maximise their profits and win in the competition with rivals by increasing high-tech equipment and by cutting wages. We must understand the inherent laws of capitalism which lead to the chauvinist and racist notion that migrant workers are to blame for taking jobs away from the host people.

 

The aim of the Socialist Party is to overcome the capitalist class. The Socialist Party shows how the working class is exploited by the capitalist class; why capitalism must be overthrown and replaced by socialism, and how the working people must realise these goals. This theory provides the essential tools workers need to orient the struggle for their emancipation. The primary task of the Socialist Party is the political education of our fellow workers through our agitation and propaganda to explain the true nature of the system that oppresses workers, and the need for socialist revolution. Our task is to bring class consciousness to the working class. The Socialist Party will also use the forum presented through elections and parliaments to expose the true nature of these institutions. We will use them as a tribune to denounce the injustice of the existing social order and urge the workers on in their fight.

We are living under a system that is more and more revealed as the enemy of humanity. It has vast productive potential, but it means poverty and oppression for most people. It brings hunger to many of the working people of the world. Capitalism is responsible for the destruction of the environment. War and the armaments industry monopolise most of the world’s research and development, cynically profiting from destructive conflicts. The root cause of all this is capitalism’s guiding principle, the quest for profit, which takes precedence over any human interest.

We, socialists, organised in the World Socialist Movement declare that to the working class through the ballot box, will abolish the capitalist system of ownership with its accompanying class rule and oppression, and establish in its place socialism — an industrial democracy — wherein all the land and the tools of production shall be the common property of the whole people, to be operated by the whole people for the production of commodities for use and not for profit. We ask our fellow workers to organise with us to end the domination of private or state ownership — with its poverty-breeding system of production — and substitute in its place the socialist cooperative commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his or her faculties.

The Future We Want

 Environmental destruction is always a consequence of capitalism. The only sure cure for the climate crisis is the replacement of a society based on accumulation for a profit with one based on production for need. It is the mad drive of capitalists to accumulate capital that is now threatening the very thing on which human life depends - our planet’s health.

In the fierce commercial war where businesses compete with one another, the blind drive of capitalists to keep ahead of each other, the collateral damage is the environment’s eco-systems. People attending COP26 hope the 'great and good' will listen to reason and many wait patiently for the solutions. Many eco-activists trusts that capitalism can control carbon emissions but a socialist understanding of the economic system might help enlighten them a bit more. None of the solutions on offer will save the planet or stop climate catastrophes.

Climate change causes species extinction on a scale hitherto unknown and it is costing lives across the world. malaria, dengue, tick-borne diseases, zoonotic plagues related to Covid are spreading. Changes in climate are resulting in more numerous and intense hurricanes, droughts and floods inflicting increased suffering and misery. The huge devastation and death is being wreaked upon people around the world. The extreme weather is being caused by the capitalist system, largely by burning fossil fuels, which has made storms far more potent and powerful. Sea levels are on the rise, vast regions may be too hot for human habitation and millions of climate refugees can be expected to be on the move. Thus, for good reason, socialists often emphasise a “dystopian” future if capitalism is not replaced, rather than an emancipatory vision of the future that the socialist movement once espoused.

 Capitalism has simply proven incapable of stopping or limiting the detrimental impact of global warming. The engine of capitalism is profits, competition and the need for each business to grow and expand. “Accumulate, accumulate, that is Moses and the prophets” as Marx said. It is an inherent law of capitalism.

Capitalism is driven by its hunger for profits. Investment decisions are made on the basis of what will make the greatest return in the quickest time. Capitalism is based on the cheapest and fastest exploitation of labour and nature and the endless expansion of exchange value. The business-as-usual pursuit of profits and growth is destabilising life on earth and is no longer something we need to read about in scholarly journals. We witness the signs unfolding before our very eyes. 

Lifestyle changes and campaigns against consumerism miss the point. It is not about consuming less for most of us. It is about ensuring capitalism doesn’t consume the planet. The World Socialist Movement is trying to win over environmentalists to revolutionary change. Our civilisation is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money. Our biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people can live in opulence. It is the sufferings of the many, which pay for the luxuries of the few.

A global economy that requires constant expansion of markets and increased production, has to be transformed at its roots. We’ll have to develop an economic structure fundamentally different and more equitable than we have now. Until we start focusing on what needs to be done, rather than what is politically possible, there is no hope. Solutions within the system are implausible and so we should change the system itself.

Too often many green-minded activists advocate de-growth and austerity, rejecting technology rather than acknowledging society’s capacity for the abundance that could abolish poverty and offer freedom from drudgery and toil.

 The WSM hold that the potential of prosperity and abundance is the key to mobilising our fellow workers to the socialist cause, not depictions of compulsory rationing. Socialism means the goal is to transform the relations of production, to usher in new relations of consumption. We place the environmentalist shaming about overconsumption into perspective for the deprived slum-dwellers and poverty-stricken around the world where so many endure lives based on under-consumption.

 Nor is socialist abundance about the “abundance” of material goods and mere objects, but the relationships between work and the individual to acquire more free time for social interactions concentrating resources upon healthcare, childcare, and care for the elderly and infirm, making care a primary purpose of society.

We have not come to COP26 in Glasgow to beg world leaders to care. They have ignored us in the past and will ignore us yet again. They have run out of excuses, and we are running out of time. 

We have come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to working people. We cannot achieve a socialist zero-growth steady-state economy simply by citing the latest climate science statistic and hope that will be sufficient to awaken the need for change. The World  Socialist Movement needs to convince people of a more inspiring and positive future where the basic premise that our universal access to our basic needs (food, energy, housing, healthcare, companionship, leisure) can still be built by organising production integrated with our ecological knowledge.

What can the Socialist Party do?

 

ABOLISH WAGE SLAVERY 

The aim of the Socialist Party is to help make a social revolution and put an end to capitalism. Standing in the way of socialism is the capitalist class. In making the social revolution, the capitalist class is our main enemy. It is the ruling class that holds state power and is principally responsible for the hardships facing working people. Against this minority stands the vast majority of the rest of the population. Capitalism is characterised by the division of people into classes according to their role in the production and distribution of social wealth. In a capitalist society, the capitalist class and the working class are the two basic classes. The capitalist class owns the means of production and holds state power. Through their ownership and control of the means of production they control the economic life and live off the profits they squeeze from the working class.

The working class is composed of all wage-earners - mental and manual, urban and rural - whether in basic industry, manufacturing, service, farm, sales, domestic, clerical, public or other jobs. The working class is composed of skilled and unskilled, employed and unemployed.

Although the capitalists rule, they do not do so through open violence and terror. Working people enjoy a wide range of democratic rights - we can vote in regular elections, we can organise trade unions and political parties, we can set up protest groups, publish newspapers and leaflets, go on strike, hold meetings and demonstrations, and travel freely around the country. If we get arrested for anything, we are not held in detention without trial and we have the right to legal defence. These rights are vital for the working class to defend and promote its interests. Without the rights to form trade unions and to strike we would be at the absolute mercy of every whim of the employers.

But these rights have not always existed. Nor were they generously granted by the employing class. They have been fought for with great effort and sacrifice by many generations of working people in a struggle that goes back to Chartism and the reform campaigns and the formation of trade unions. Despite the importance of the democratic rights that we have won over the years, the working class can never achieve complete political freedom under capitalism. In this society, only the capitalists have the money, time, knowledge and influence to use capitalist democracy to the full. The government of today serves the interests of the ruling capitalist class. No matter which party is in power, the state apparatus - parliament, government departments, the courts, prisons, police and armed forces - protects capitalist private property and administers the capitalist economy. In every major industrial dispute, the state has taken sides with the bosses against the workers. The State organises infrastructure - roads, airports, communications, ports - funds research and development and manages economic conditions inflation, interest rates, exchange rates - to promote capitalist accumulation, "the economy". From control and manipulation of the media to the education system, the State spreads an ideology of respect for private property, individualism and the law, that the rich are entitled to their wealth and that the government should be left to govern.

The Socialist Party is internationalist. We are carrying out the socialist revolution in Britain and elsewhere to make our contribution to the struggle of the workers of the world to bring about the dawn of cooperative commonwealth.

Parliamentary elections provide an opportunity for the capitalist class to test their ability to deceive the masses of the people. Every few years we are asked to choose between capitalist parties offering minor variations of the same diet of falling wages, reduced social services, poverty and desperation for many, and support for imperialist wars., many people feel obliged to support one of the capitalist parliamentary parties as “ the lesser evil”. This is mistaken, however, as it strengthens those forces that are trying to defeat us. The Socialist Party does not shy away from the electoral struggle, however. We do not seek salvation in the false promises of the capitalist parties. We see the election as an opportunity to criticise capitalism, but not with empty phrases.

Every political party defends the interest of one class or another in society. On all questions, in every battle, the Socialist Party defends the interests of the working class and works to prepare its victory over the capitalists. The Socialist Party’s role is to educate, organise and mobilise the working class. 

Deadline Glasgow

 

Capitalism is an enormously wasteful system of production, which is geared towards competition in the market, and to making profits. Corporations engage in practices that destroy the environment as they need to make the maximum profit possible. Apart from the legal obligation to do so on many companies, the capitalist system enforces the imperative that corporations must grow or die.  We have witnessed decades of climate conferences passing pious resolutions to halt global warming and environmental destruction yet both remain serious issues requiring urgent action because capitalist production is for profit and capitalists will not reduce carbon emissions if that reduces profits. The truth is that only through abolishing capitalism and building a society that produces for human needs instead of profit, does humanity have any chance of thriving. Only in a society where the means of production are social property and production is for human need, where states and borders are abolished and control is by a system of working people themselves can we begin to reverse the terrible damage which capitalism has inflicted on the planet.

 

 Capitalism is an economic structure based on private property, wage labour and production for profit that has become a fetter preventing humanity from addressing the urgent problems facing the whole planet. Capitalism's relentless pursuit of profit at the expense of the wider welfare of people and their natural surroundings. Things are only going to get worse as long as capitalism carries on.  The ruling will never find answers to the ills of this profit-driven system. And as well-intentioned as many of the campaigners on the streets may be, their whole strategy comes down to lobbying politicians to repair the unfixable. The protesters’ demands fall upon deaf ears because their appeals run counter to  the basic laws of the capitalist system itself, which is to make a profit

 

Some of the more radical elements demand that the government legislate the Green New Deal, government investment in green businesses, incentives for renewable energy, and tax breaks for those who engage in carbon off-setting and trading carbon credits on the stock market. Even if capitalism could somehow be successfully reformed to curb climate change, the decision would have to be made globally and agreed by all countries to have any effect – something that individual nations have not been able to fully accomplish domestically, much less regards rival competing national economies.

 

 Furthermore, as Michael Moore’s movie “Planet of the Humans” points out, many of the solutions favoured by the green movement involve environmental destruction and pollution themselves and much of the alternative ‘green’ technologies require scarce resources and are manufactured conventionally using methods that contribute to global warming. Unless the fact that capitalism requires continual growth and each company and country is in competition to gain a competitive advantage over its rivals is accepted as the chief cause of global warming, then environmentalists are chasing their own tails with lobbying governments.

 

The planet will not be saved without getting rid of capitalism. No meaningful changes under capitalism can be achieved which will curb climate change. It cannot be stated often enough that capitalism is only concerned with short term profits.  For CEOs, it’s more important to accumulate capital and make profits than for children to grow up in a healthy world.

The World Socialist Movement insists that only a world society is based on the production of human needs instead of profit. Humanity lives in a relationship with nature, and capitalism threatens that existence. Attempting to reform elements of capitalism while production for profit remains can only lead to failure. We need to start producing for human needs in a globally planned way. This means the overthrow of this insane economic system.