Nationalism, a Menace to Socialism

 The typical liberal seeks to give the rights of self-determination to all the various nationalities. The Socialist Party denies the necessity of the existence of nations; it wants to abolish all countries and states. However, we do understand the attachment to hearth and home, to one's community and neighbourhood, to familiar traditions and customs. As a socialist, we love our land. But we also love other people’s lands, too, when we visit them.

The liberation aimed at by the Socialist Party is freedom of development for the individual as for society. This liberty the Socialist Party sees to be impossible under a regime of private property-holding in the means of production. All the existing limitations on freedom, alike for the individual and for society, the Socialist Party finds traceable to the system of private ownership in these means of production. Starting from the fundamental basis of socialism, that the common ownership of the means of production is essential to human liberty, it is right to assume the collectivist basis of socialism, is, indeed, only a means whereby such liberty can be realised. The policy of the Socialist Party is subservient to this goal.

It is capitalism that attacks and destroys all the things close to the human heart. Capitalism ruthlessly discards people’s heritage and ideas opposed to its progress It exploits and corrupts those customs and practices once held sacred. This country is not "our" country.

 

Nationalism involves the doctrine of “My country right or wrong” which the Socialist Party contends is utterly incompatible with world socialism. Socialist principles and socialist interests take precedence over all national interests whatsoever. Socialists cannot recognise any duty, of whatever nature, that is at variance with these principles. Patriotism is an objectionable sentiment since it means the placing of one’s own country, its interests and well-being, above those of the rest of humanity. Patriotism is ridiculous for propertyless proletarians. We all know what patriotism means nowadays. A gang of thieves who by fraud or otherwise lay hold of the power of the State, and with that power in their hands proceed to start a quarrel with another people, whom they consider sufficiently weak and defenceless to be a safe prey, in order to enrich themselves and the class they represent by the plunder and enslavement of the people.  A citizen must on no account condemn their actions or reveals oneself lacking in “patriotism” and like a true “patriot,” must cheer them on.  Patriots see in their “country’s enemies”  any unfortunate people whom its governing and parasitic classes wish to plunder. A patriot nowadays is either an empty-headed knave or an unthinking fool.

Nationalism first appeared during the rise of capitalism, in the struggle of the nascent capitalist class to establish the nation-state as a framework for the expansion of private property, freedom of enterprise and trade.  The nation did not come into being because of mystical or cultural impulses; it was the product of a definite process of economic and class development. Nationalism is based on mythical history. While race and language have been convenient expressions of the nation, the nation has itself created “race” and “language,” and often suppressed or amalgamated them in the fulfilment of its historic mission.

It is undeniable that the attitude of the Socialist Party’s internationalism joins hands with that of anti-patriotism, with that of anti-nationalism. The consistent socialist certainly does relegate nationality to a place secondary to that of Humanity. All socialists have an abhorrence of the cant of the patriot and the lying humbug of the Jingoism which would attempt to whitewash every crime committed in the name of their country.

The national struggle is a diversion from the class struggle. It is proper to look forward to the day when nationalism and patriotism shall be swallowed up in worldwide brotherhood and when supposed differences shall vanish in human solidarity.

No person is duty-bound to fight or sacrifice oneself in defending from attack his or her country. The political independence of a nation is not worth the degradation. Let us cast off all sectionalism, all parochialism, and sit down as brothers and sisters together in an earnest effort to find a common cause against the capitalist enemy. The class struggle is the supreme issue for the Socialist Party. No socialist would suggest for a single moment that a mere change from a foreign to a native-born capitalist would help the workers. Socialists adopt a policy of unrelenting antagonism toward nationalism. We find nothing inspirational in the thought that we are wage slaves of one government than another rival one. Hasten the day when the working people of the world will finally abandon the national flags of their masters, and muster themselves under the red flag of socialism for human brotherhood. The Socialist Party regrets that all the dedication and devotion to the service of the modern nation-state is not forthcoming when it is a question of a new society, for the Socialist Cooperative Commonwealth.

What If?

 

The members of the Socialist Party are the party and their collective will is what guides it. The Socialist Party is organised and run from the bottom up. There is no Party boss or central committee leaders and there never can be unless the Socialist Party abandons its principles and ceases to be socialist. Each member has not only an equal voice but is urged to take a role in all the party’s activities and administration. The Socialist Party relies wholly upon the power of education, knowledge, and mutual understanding. It buys no votes with election promises.

Socialism can only come when enough workers want it. Do not resign yourself to the fate that the world as it is cannot be changed. It can be changed. You can most certainly play a part in changing it. First you must understand what needs changing and how to change it The problems we face all arise from the fact that the means of producing goods and services of all kinds are in the hands of the employers. Because of this profit is society's motive force instead of needs; because of this the struggle for oil and markets, etc., exists, which leads to wars. To send socialists (not reformers) to Parliament backed by understanding for the one object of making these means of living the common property of all  is the only answer. This means no wages, no money, no market, profits or wars, but world-wide cooperation to produce enough and happiness for everyone. The working class now runs industry to its own misery for the profit of its oppressors, but the day is near when it should take those industries that have been built up with its blood and sweat and transform them from means of profit for a handful of parasites into the means of its deliverance from slavery and degradation.

The more the minds of workers are lulled with mystical views the less clear the thinking they can do about their fundamental problems. The worst of the matter is that people derive a temporary relief from putting these problems behind them as insoluble or accepting them as inevitable. In this they are like the early Christians who gave up hope of improvement in their earthly life and despairingly accepted their miseries without resistance, treating them as scourges on the path to paradise. The problems of the workers, endless toil, poverty and insecurity, are neither inevitable nor insoluble. They are the product of the economic conditions of today just as the problems of the chattel slave and the serf were the product of the economic conditions of the times in which they lived. In fact, the fetters that bind the producer are a heritage from the dawn of civilisation, when a portion of mankind grabbed a privileged position and forced others to do the work.

The means shape the ends: means are ends. A policy based on the idea that the position of servitude of the working class can be gradually abolished by reforming the relation of wage-labour and capital cannot produce the abolition of wage labour and capital. A policy which allows for co-operation with avowed anti-socialist parties cannot lead to the establishment of socialism. The nature of a government is not determined by the name which it takes or which it may be given. In so far as we are discussing the question of capitalism and socialism the nature of the government is determined by the mode of production and distribution in being during its time of administration. The only solution to working-class troubles is to be found in the establishment of a socialist system of society.

Marxists do not regard the state as part of some eternal dispensation. It can be shown that the state is a historical product and, like all other social institutions, it has an origin and growth. Marxists point out that there have been societies without states, hence society is both logically and historically prior to the state institution. The state as an organised coercive agency does not in fact emerge until the break up of early tribalism, with its basic egalitarianism, which was brought about by the development of private property relations and its concomitant privileged and unprivileged social classes.

With the division of the community into owners and non-owners of the sources of wealth production, the state as a social power becomes the means of ensuring the continuance of this division against disruption from within, as the result of social conflicts engendered by antagonistic class relations of production and enemies from without. The state thus serves to guarantee the legal titles of those who own the means of production and gives them the right to appropriate the labour of others, be they slaves, serfs or wage workers. In the ultimate instance these legal relations can receive a physical sanction by the control of the state over the armed forces. Thus any class which is the dominant class in a given set of private property relations of production must have direct or indirect access to the state apparatus.

When Marxists say that the state is the protector of private property, they mean that it guarantees the class interests of a given set of property relations. But the significance of these property relations do not consist in the mere ownership of things like the possession of a pair of trousers or the tools of an independent craftsman. Capitalist private property relations means a social relation between men, a relation between owners of the means of production and non-owners. The social relations of production of capitalism are linked then with a definite class interest which confers upon those who own the wealth resources the right over the disposal of the labour of others. And it is to maintain and enforce these social relations of production that constitutes the primary function of the state.

Marxists point out that class social systems, with their corresponding state structure, are the outcome of social development. They have come and gone, and there are good historical reasons for stating that capitalism, which is the latest of such systems, will also be the last and in turn will give way to a class-free and hence state-free social organisation.

Reformists accept the fact of the class structure of capitalist society, but they do so on different grounds to Marxists. For them, social classes and state organisation have always existed and always will. That is why Labour propaganda, although it at times makes veiled references to the injustices of a class society, never advocates the abolition of classes. For them, capitalism is part of an eternal dispensation. Their theory is then unhistorical and uncritical.

If, according to such a view, there must always be a class differentiation in the social structure, what purpose does the state serve? Their answer is that the function of the state is to minimise the conflict between the classes to the greatest possible extent, in order to maximise social harmony. On such an assumption the state is not a class organ but a classless agency which exists to reconcile divergent economic interests for the greatest common good. Translated into actual political practice, it is the class collaboration theory of the old political parties, whereby the state serves as a means of seeking to blunt class antagonisms. Accepting as they did the contest between Capital and Labour as a social norm, they claimed that they would see it was fought under the Marquis of Queensbury rules. Whatever changes the reformists envisage in capitalism, it always unchangingly assumes capital in eternal control. Something for which the capitalist class no doubt feel eternally grateful.

Capitalism and Democracy

 

"...the democratic cultures based on equality, liberty, justice, reason, science, secularism, tolerance and mutual respect for dissenting and diverse opinions are declining across the globe.

...The capitalist assault on democratic governance is creating conditions of political, economic, social and cultural crises, and giving rise to reactionary forces. 

...The democratic governments are not representing their citizens interests but standing behind the crony capitalist corporates. 

...Such a trend helps capitalism as a system to survive and to expand their control over every spheres of lives 

... In search of profit, capitalism creates conflicts to control human and natural resources with the help of a securitised police state.

...The millionaires and billionaires are funding political parties to participate in the democratic electoral processes to access state power and legitimise their profit seeking illegitimate systemic drive to control all resources. 

...The corporate led consulting firms are managing public relations and manipulating public opinions with the help of false propaganda.

...The corporate led consulting firms are managing public relations and manipulating public opinions with the help of false propaganda.

...The working of democracy depends on deepening the struggles against capitalism. The local, regional, national and global solidarity of all struggles against capitalism is central to uphold democratic values in defence of people and the planet.

...Democracy is a product of mass struggles against all forms of inequalities and exploitations. It is time for the masses to struggle and reclaim democracy from the claws of capitalism..."

Bhabani Shankar Nayak,

University of Glasgow,

Taken from here

Capitalism And Unmaking Of Democracy| Countercurrents

Opposing the System

 

The earliest and most universal form of social organisation known to history is the gens—an organisation based upon kinship and the common ownership of the means of life., such as the Scottish clans. This primitive communism lasted millenia. Many of these old primitive forms of society still exist and in its relations with them the socialist movement adopts the historical viewpoint and with a view to developing the conditions which make socialism possible. The new society will be based not on exchange but on a self-sufficient economy. Between production and consumption of products there will not be the market, buying and selling, but consciously and systematically organised distribution. All economic obstacles to development will be abolished under the new system. Thus, the application of machinery, which under capitalism is determined by considerations of profit, under the new system will depend entirely upon productivity. As we have seen, machinery which may be very useful for saving labour is very frequently useless from the standpoint of capitalist profits. In socialist society such a point of view will not prevail and there will therefore be no obstacles to the application of labour-saving machinery.

Discontent is growing. The workers are chained to exhausting toil for wages which are lessened every day by the rising cost of living. The capitalists are amassing greater profits than ever.

Socialism is the reorganisation of society on the basis of shared ownership by the working people of the land, mines, factories, means of transport, as well as the health, educational and cultural services required to fulfil their needs. 

The Socialist Party maintain that there can be no fundamental change in the living conditions of the people while a minority holds economic power over resources and the right to exploit the majority for individual advantage. The use of men and women for personal profits and power lies in the capitalist system. Reforms do not remove the villain of the piece from the scene of action. While he holds economic power the people will bear the weight of his oppression.

The Socialist Party believes that the fundamental basis of a truly socialist society must be a change from a capitalist system of ownership, exploitation and control to one of ownership, administration and control of the affairs by the men and women who produce its wealth.

 

The Socialist Party does not want a bloody revolution. Revolution means radical change. There have been revolutions in art, industry and social relations which have not caused bloodshed. It declares that the many have the right to organise and educate the people so that they will be able to bring about the change in the basis of the State and of our social system. By so doing it believe they reduce the dangers of a violent revolution. The workers have never yet developed or made use of their political power. They have played the game of their masters for the benefit of the master class - and now many of them, disgusted with their own blind and stupid performance, are renouncing politics and refusing to see any difference between the capitalist parties financed by the ruling class to perpetuate class rule and the Socialist Party organised and run by the workers themselves as a means of wresting the control of government and of industry from the capitalists and making the working class the ruling class of  the world.

In the name of the workers, the Socialist Party condemns the capitalist system. In the name of freedom it condemns wage-slavery. In the name of technology and science, it condemns poverty and famine. In the name of peace it condemns war. In the name of civilisation it condemns the destruction of our environment. In the name of reason, it condemns religion and superstition. In the name of humanity it demands social justice for every man, woman and child. The Socialist Party knows neither colour, creed, gender nor sexual orientation. It knows no foreign alien among the oppressed and down-trodden. It is first and last the party of the workers, regardless of their nationality, proclaiming their interests, voicing their aspirations, and supporting their battles. It matters not where the wage slaves  seek to shake off their shackles, or lighten the burden that oppresses them, the Socialist Party is pledged to offer solidarity to them to the full extent of its power. It matters not to what union they belong, or if they belong to any union, the Socialist Party. In the battles of the workers in the war of the classes, wherever and however fought, they are always and everywhere also the battles of the Socialist Party.

The Socialist Party is the only party of the people, the only party opposed to the rule of the plutocracy, the only truly democratic party in the world. The education, organisation and co-operation of the workers is the conscious aim and the self-imposed task of the Socialist Party. 

The laws of evolution have decreed the downfall of the capitalist system. The handwriting is upon the wall. In the coming social order, based upon the social ownership of the means of life and the production of wealth for the use of all instead of the private profit of the few, for which the Socialist Party stands, peace will prevail and plenty for all will abound in the land. The brute struggle for existence will have ended, and the millions of exploited poor will be rescued from  poverty and destitution. The socialist cooperative commonwealth will prevail. Humanity will have  a new destiny. There will be abundance for all, leisure for all and free access to the joys of life for all.

SOS - Socially Organised Society

 

The beneficiaries and defenders of capitalism never tire of declaring it the “best of all possible systems.” Yet, today, after decades of wars on poverty, civil rights, government regulations and deregulations plus a host of other reform efforts, capitalism still presents an obscene social picture. Millions who need and want jobs are unemployed, including many of whose jobs have been outsourced. Others are underemployed, working only part-time or temporary jobs though they need and want full-time work. Millions aren’t earning enough to maintain a decent standard of living for themselves and their families despite the fact that they are working. Racism bigotry and discrimination remain pervasive. The educational system is deteriorating. The health care system, despite heated debate for years, still fails to meet the needs of tens of millions. The world’s infrastructure continues to crumble. Widespread pollution of our environment worsens. A pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of society. Crime and corruption are widespread at every level of capitalist society. Many workers suffer from alcohol and drug abuse. Homeless men, women and children roam the streets of the mega-cities. 

Capitalism’s exploitation of workers and poverty continues to grow. A wide-ranging plague of social and economic problems arising from modern-day capitalism is imposing itself upon society. The bloated wasteful energy demands of capitalist consumerism have added to the environmental crises enveloping the world. Wars for the domination of resources and spheres of influence are serving to feed the capitalist appetite for profit. Problems endured by the working class have grown to monumental proportions.

 

Against this insane capitalist system the Socialist Party protests and condemns it. If our society is to be rid of the host of economic, political and social ills, the outmoded capitalist system of private ownership of the means of life and production for the profit of a few must be replaced by a new social system. That new social order must be organised on the basis of social ownership and democratic management of all means of production, distribution and all of social services. It must be one in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. It must be genuine socialism.

 

Who will pay the wages? No one. Money is discarded. Socialist distribution is free; a system of common ownership. But we must eat to live. Very well, the food processing factories, the docks and warehouses are in the hands of the workers. The flour mills, bakeries and the dairies are controlled by them. Farm labourers and smallholders send food to the cities. The railwaymen and lorry drivers deliver the food and the shop assistants and restaurant workers supply it to the workers and their families. Distribution will not be according to the amount of money a person has but according to need. Large families will receive more than small families or single persons. Children will have first call. Delicacies such as will go to the aged and infirm instead of to the wealthy overfed idle class. Clothing will be distributed to the needy. Power station workers will continue to produce electricity and distribute it to homes and factories.  Hospital and other health service workers will continue their work.

 The social economy is integrated without centralisation, that clumsy red-tape bound machine of the bureaucrat. By having the affairs of an industry controlled by the persons working in that industry, by district affairs being controlled by the district and factory affairs by the workers in that factory; by control from below instead of from above and by exercising the principle of election and recall federalism, instead of centralism, becomes the principle of the new society.

We are now poor and enslaved not because of a lack of reforms made by politicians, but because the employing class own and controls the means of production, without access to which we cannot live. So long as others control the means whereby we live so long shall we be slaves? Only by taking control of the means of production and distribution can the workers be free.

Some say to us. “But, you will still need supervisors and managers.” The worker is usually able to recognise a fellow worker’s outstanding skill and acknowledge it. The workers would have no social or economic motive in keeping a good person down, instead, it would be in their interest to nominate him or her for more responsible work. Here is a system of industrial democracy, the only true democracy, not the choice of choosing Tweedledum or Tweedledee every five, eight or ten years and is controlled by him and his partners for the period between, but the control of one’s own job and environment, the control of one’s own life. The government over people gives way to the administration of things.

Forging the tools for socialist revolution

 

The Socialist Party is the political expression of the interests of the working class and is part of the World Socialist Movement. The economic basis of present-day society is the private ownership and control of socially necessary means of production, and the exploitation of the workers, who operate these means of production for the profit of those who own them. It is the interest of the capitalist class to maintain the present system and to obtain for themselves the largest possible share of the product of labour. It is the interest of the working class to improve their conditions of life and get the largest possible share of their own product so long as the present system prevails, and to end this system as quickly as they can.

The aim of the Socialist Party is to establish socialism and abolish the right of one person to rob another of the fruits of his or her labour. This is what makes the Socialist Party different from all others. Nowhere in the world has socialism been established despite various claims and assertions. Socialism is where the bankers, landlords and profiteers no longer exist. Common ownership prevails. The Labour Party, as at present constituted and led, conducts no propaganda or fight for socialism. It preaches and practices class collaboration, rejects fundamental social change, accepts the capitalist state machine, which it has used and will use against the workers at home and abroad. In other words, it accepts capitalism and has no important disagreements with the Tories.

The capitalist state, by controlling  political parties, control the powers of the state and uses them to secure and entrench its position. Without such control of the state its position of economic power would be untenable. The workers must wrest the control of the government from the hands of the masters and use its powers in the building of the new social system, the cooperative commonwealth. The Socialist Party seeks to organise the working class for independent action on the political field for the revolutionary aim of putting an end to exploitation and class rule. Political action means  participation in elections for public offices to gain control of the powers of government in order to abolish the present capitalist system and substitute the cooperative commonwealth.

 Such political action is absolutely necessary for the emancipation of the working class, and the establishment of genuine liberty for all. To accomplish this aim of the Socialist Party is to bring about the social ownership and democratic control of all the necessary means of production — to eliminate profit, rent, and interest, and to change our class society into a society of equals, in which the interest of one will be the interest of all.

Recognising the class struggle between the capitalist class and the working class, and the necessity of the working class organising itself into a political party for the purpose of obtaining common ownership and democratic administration and operation of the collectively used and socially necessary means of production and distribution, we are opposed to all political organisations that support and perpetuate the present capitalist profit system and we are opposed to any form of trading or fusing with any such organisations to prolong that system. Ours is a great aim to make the working class the masters of their own destiny, to win political power, and establish socialism. 

The Socialist Party is the instrument of the working class for achieving this aim. The Socialist Party is based on the task of the emancipation of labour from the oppression of capital, the transfer of all means of production to common ownership. The Socialist Party calls upon the workers to rally under its banner for the purpose of advocating this revolutionary change, building class consciousness among workers and promoting the organisation that could implement this end.

 Despite the growing poverty and misery that workers are subjected to, a world of peace, liberty, security, health and abundance for all is within our grasp. The potential to create such a society exists, but that potential can be realised only if workers act to gain control of their own lives by organising for socialism. It will be the workers who make the people's ownership, control and administration of the new social structure a reality.

The Socialist Party calls upon all who may be increasingly aware that a basic change in our society is needed, to place themselves squarely on working-class principles. And to join us in this effort to put an end to the existing class conflict and all its detrimental results by placing the land and the instruments of social production in the hands of the people as a collective body in a cooperative socialist society. Help us build a world in which everyone will enjoy the free exercise and full benefit of their individual faculties, multiplied by all the technological and other factors of modern civilisation.