For some unexplained reason we are constantly being told that capitalism is so different from previous societies that it is not subject to the law of social evolution which governed the development and decay of previous societies. The point is, can capitalism make history stand still and do its bidding? Can the profit system, in effect, ensure that it will continue to exist simply by the power of private property ownership and accumulation of capital which most people worship but very few enjoy? Presumably, if capitalism can make its own historical rules there can be no prospect of its abolition.
Looking at the evidence around us, the working class shows no sign of challenging capitalism’s rule. There is plenty of social discontent, but this is largely concerned with social reforms or trade union issues and cannot be regarded as revolutionary activity. What are we left with? First, we have a solidly entrenched social system whose defenders have millions to spend on their lies; second, an apparently disinterested working class who persistently whinge at their predicament but periodically vote into power capitalist political parties; and third, a relatively small but principled revolutionary Socialist Party with limited funds whose monthly visitors to its web site is about 0.0017% of the world’s population. Little wonder we are dismissed as dreamers, utopian preachers and sectarian cranks by our opponents. Yet we persist. An organization which takes on the task of making workers Socialists in the face of tremendous difficulties is considered to be either unrealistic or motivated by spiritual rather than material influences. We are neither.
We do not accept the permanence of capitalism any more than we accept the fact that the workers’ ideas of society cannot be changed. History shows that social systems change, and that these changes are accomplished by thinking people and that men and women’s ideas change with them. This includes ideas on all subjects – religion, politics, morality, science, law and art. Ideas have changed considerably over the centuries and dramatically in the last 100 years. The spread of opinion or social consciousness, as with people’s social life generally, develops in accordance with the development of their productive forces. Today, the artificial organs of men and women, their greater control over nature, play a decisive role in their social existence. These artificial organs are not individual but social in character.
If social men and women’s intellect, their opinions and culture, are dominated by their circumstances of their economic conditions, at what point can we expect a change in their ideas which will result in a political decision to establish Socialism?
The body of opinion today, or the prevailing ideology, is overwhelmingly capitalist, because capitalist ideas are socially sponsored, propagated and broadcast at all levels. Socialist ideas, which arise from the same economic conditions, are ignored or misrepresented as State capitalist or distorted in other ways. Yet the battle of ideas can be fought against such overwhelming odds. In the first instance, we are not merely dealing with people’s opinions but with the social factors which give rise to those opinions.
The old French materialists were nearly right when they said opinion governs the world. For example, the political domination by the Catholic Church as in Feudal society is no longer feasible or tolerated, yet the Catholic Church was the political centre of Feudalism for over a thousand years. Further back in some earlier societies it was morally acceptable to have incestuous sexual relationships, group marriages, infanticide and cannibalism. These were the product of well-defined social conditions. The absence of these practices today has nothing to do with moral enlightenment or higher idealistic standards, but to the changed social conditions. Capitalism produces its own sophisticated form of barbaric cruelty and inhumanity on a far greater scale than these seemingly outrageous practices of yesteryear.
Idealists, and this includes proponents of all religion, moralists, humanists and so on, constantly refer to the innate goodness of men and women and what the world ought to be – the world of the true and the just. This conception of the world as it ought to be bears no relation or connection with the world as it is, but also with the historical development which has occurred.
The idealist’s conception of history, which claims people’s development to be purely intellectual, based on some timeless ethical cause, is the happy hunting ground for the ostensibly reasonable apologists of capitalism – reason will solve everything they claim. Pure reason, like abstract truth, does not exist. Every thought process must be related to social men and women’s material needs. This is what society is all about, the organization of a system of production to meet people’s material needs.
The question which obviously arises is does capitalism satisfy or can it be made to satisfy men and women’s needs? The answer is obviously – no. The contradictions within the system of poverty in the midst of plenty, is dependence on the deliberate scarcity caused by the market economy, it unpredictability and general anarchy, disqualify it as a social system rendering social service in the real sense of the term.
The capitalists’ monopoly of propaganda undoubtedly influences the millions of workers who give their support to it generally. But the performance never matches the promise. You cannot indefinitely persuade people that the temperature at the North Pole is 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The greatest ally of the Socialist is the temperature of the economic conditions. We apply our materialism, our factual analysis, continually to the economic background. Socialist propaganda is not aimed at people’s “innate goodness” or “social justice” but at people’s material needs. It will be this factor alone which seen as a practical and reasonable alternative to the anarchy of capitalist production will create revolutionary class consciousness and the subsequent political action based on that consciousness.
Opponents of Socialism can be divided into two main groups. One, the dedicated supporters of capitalism and the other, the false friends of Socialism; all those social democratic and liberal parties, labour movements and trade unions, supporters of state nationalisation and, of course, the communist parties supporting the likes of Russia, China and Cuba. Of the two groups, the latter are the most pernicious, confusing what Socialism means and offering unattainable social reforms to non-Socialist workers instead of creating class conscious Socialists.
These social reformers, the capitalist Left, attack our Socialist case on the false grounds that workers want “something now” – not Socialism, which, to the leaders of these organisations, workers do not have the capacity to understand. The Labour Party believes the preposterous proposition that capitalism can be reformed to be equitable and fair. Socialism, if the word is used at all by the Labour Party is a “philosophy” not a social system. For the various ‘socialist workers parties and the Communist Party, this is nothing more than State Capitalism. Their politics is anything to get the workers angry; to demonstrate, march and riot. They are obsessed with gesture politics like the recent re-enactment of the 1932 Jarrow March which was ill-attended and an abject failure. They chant out “the Right to Work” but no capitalist is obliged to employ the working class particularly in an economic depression. And they oppose “war” but everywhere embrace violent rebellions and nationalist struggles by aspiring capitalists in developing countries of the world.
Most of our critics who tell the Socialist Party of Great Britain the workers cannot understand Socialism do not understand it themselves. Socialism cannot be established without working class understanding and this we accept as a core Socialist principle. There is no alternative other than to work to achieve mass Socialist understanding.
Workers are not fools. If a proposition is presented to them in a reasonable way they will consider it. At the moment information about Socialism is rare in most working class circles because of the present size and influence of the Socialist Party and Socialists around the world.
There is a vast difference in having a sound and valid scientific case against capitalism and being able to propagate Socialist ideas and for these ideas to be heard. This is the real reason why workers currently do not understand Socialism. The lack of Socialists is purely a technical problem of communication and not, as our critics would claim a flaw in our case.
The responsibility for the extension of Socialist propaganda is the working class at large. The speed in acceptance of Socialist ideas by the working class depends on that. There are no innate principles in people’s existence. Human beings with all their views and feelings, is what nature and society has made them. The establishment of Socialism is a task well within the capacity of the modern working class. The alternative is to watch civilization degenerate and deteriorate under an obsolete social system.
