What is capitalism?
CAPITALISM
is a system of society based on the class owner¬ship of the means
of
production and distribution in which wealth is produced by propertyless
wage workers, to be sold on a market with a view to profit. Capitalism,
therefore, is a class society with a privileged few living off the
labour of the exploited many. It exists equally in Russia and China as
in Britain and America The basic contradiction of capitalism is between
social production and class ownership. The actual work of producing the
wealth is done by the co-operative labour of millions, while the means
of production and the products belong to a minority section of society
only, the capitalists. It is this contradiction that causes modern
social problems since it means that production cannot be carried on to
meet human needs. Consequently, where such needs con¬flict with
profit-making the needs must come second.
Human needs are only
met under capitalism to the extent that they can be paid for. This is
no problem to the rich but it is to the men and women who have to work
for wages or salaries and who make up the working class. The working
class is composed of the men and women who, excluded from ownership of
the means of production and distribution, are forced by economic
necessity to sell their mental and physical energies in order to get a
living. For the purpose of this definition a worker is not
dis¬tinguished by the way he dresses, talks, by where he lives or
the
job he does, but by how he gets a living. Anybody who has to work for
wages or salary is a worker. In Britain, about 90 per cent of the adult
population are workers, retired workers or the dependants of workers.
Since
under capitalism the worker depends on his wage or salary in order to
live, it is clearly very important to understand what governs the rate
of wages. Wages are in fact a price, the price of the mental and
physical energies a man sells to his employer. They are not a reward
for having worked, a share in the product, or even the price of the
work done. Receiving a pay packet is a buying and selhng transaction no
different in principle from the sale of a pair of shoes or a motor car.
The price of a man's ability to work—or as Marx, who first saw this
clearly, called it, his 'labour power'—is fixed in much the same way as
that of a pair of shoes or a motor car, roughly by the amount of labour
used up in producing and maintaining it, by its value, it can thus be
seen that a man's wage can never in the long run amount to much more
than will cover the costs he must incur to keep himself fit to work,
with additions for his family. An engineer with a college deg/ee gets
more than an unskilled labourer because it costs more to train and keep
the engineer.
The wages system is a form of rationing. It
restricts a worker's consumption to what he needs to keep himself in
efficient working order. It means that he is deprived of the best that
is available in food, clothing, housing, entertain¬ment, travel and
the
like. This is made alf the worse because there could, on the basis of
modern technology, be plenty of the best for everyone. It is made worse
still because it is the workers who produce all the wealth, the best
that the rich enjoy as well as the utility items they themselves
consume.
That the workers are exploited under capitalism is not
hard to grasp. Exploitation does not mean that workers are shackled to
the factory bench or the office desk and terrorised by bullying
foremen. It simply means that they get as wages less than the value of
what they produce. There is no need to go into a complicated economic
analysis to prove this. Suffice it to say that, since the only way in
which wealth can be produced is by human beings applying their mental
and physical energies to materials found in nature, any society in
which a few live well without having to work must, on the face of it be
based on the exploitation of those who do work. That this is so under
capitalism is clear when the peculiar quality of labour-power is
understood. Labour-power can produce a value greater than its own so
that whoever buys it and puts it to use can reap the benefit of this;
which is precisely what the capitalist employer does. He buys
labour-power for wages, puts the men and women who are selling it to
work in his factory with his tools and materials, and realises a
surplus when he has sold the finished product. The source of this
surplus, with its divisions profit, rent and interest, is the unpaid
labour of the workers.
Because capitalism is based on the class
ownership of the means of production and distribution and the
accom¬panying exploitation of the workers, depriving them of the
fruits
of their labour, there is an irreconcilable conflict of interest
between the working class and the capitalist class. This is the class
struggle which goes on all the time over the ownership of the wealth of
society. Its obvious features are strikes and lockouts, trade unions
and employers' associations. These are the main weapons and
organisa¬tions of the two sides in the industrial field. In the
political field the capitalists have the government on their side.
Their ownership and control of industry rests on their control of
political power through their political parties, and as long as this is
so the purpose of the government is to preserve the capitalists'
monopoly of the means of wealth production. This is why in the end all
governments must take the side of the employers, by protecting their
ownership of property, by declaring states of emergency, by using
troops to break strikes, by imposing wage freezes. by passing
anti-union laws. It is also why the workers must organise politically
into a socialist party with a policy based on recognition of this class
struggle and its irreconcilable nature.
Capitalism is the cause
of the social problems that afflict the workers today. Under capitalism
the workers are, in the strictest sense, poor, that is, they lack the
means to afford the best that is available. People often talk of there
being a housing problem, but there is no such problem. There is no
reason why enough good houses for all should not be built. The
materials exist; so do the building workers and the architects. What
then, stands in the i The simple fact is that there is not a market for
good bosses since most people cannot afford to pay for them, and never
will be because of the restrictions of the wages systsm. So what is
called the housing problem is really bat an aspect of the poverty
problem or, what is the same thing — since it is the other side of the
coin — the class monopoly of the means of production.
A little
thought will show how capitalism, besides ensuring that the workers
stay poor, needs them to be poor. If they could get a living without
having to sell their mental and physical energies to the capitalists,
then the system could not function — for who would do the work? By
'poor' we do not mean 'destitute' though this is an extreme form of
poverty. Certainly, as long as capitalism lasts, there will be a
considerable minority of people who cannot stand the pace and so fall
into destitution and have to depend on Social Security.
Housing
is just one aspect of the poverty problem. The same applies to the
other necessities of life, clothing, shelter, education, travel and
entertainment. Here again, in a world of potential plenty the
consumption of the workers is restricted by the size of their wage
packets and salary cheques.
Capitalism cannot produce to satisfy
human needs as production is always geared to meeting market demand at
a profit. This means that production is restricted to what people can
pay for. But what people can pay for and what they want are two
different things so that the profit system acts as a fetter on
production and a barrier to a society of abundance. It is also
responsible for the business cycle, with its periodic trade depressions.
One
thing should now be clear about capitalism — it can never be made to
work in the interests of the workers. It is based on their poverty and
exploitation and can only work in the interests of the privileged
owning class. A recognition of this is one of the basic principles of
the Socialist Party of Great Britain. It can be summed up in the
sentence 'capitalism cannot be reformed' (at least not so as to be run
in the interests of the workers). Grasp this and you can quickly see
the futility of tinkering with capitalism and trying to tackle each
problem on its own.
To solve their problems the workers must
abolish capitalism and replace it with Socialism. This will involve a
social revolution, changing the basis of society from class to common
ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution. When
society owns and democratically controls the means of life then men and
women can begin to organise production to satisfy their needs.
Production solely for use can take the place of the anti¬social
principle of production for profit Exploitation will be ended and a
world of abundance made possible. |
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