|
continued from previous page 14
In
the past
Capitalism’s great historic mission has been to make the production of
wealth social; socialists want to make the distribution of wealth
social. To achiever its purpose the bourgeoisie overthrew feudal
society and its aristocracy by means of violent revolution. To do that,
to get the political control of that combination of labour power and
the resources of nature, they had to contest and overcome the
prevailing public opinion.
A stalwart of the, then, prevailing public opinion was the church. It
proclaimed that the power of kings to rule was ordained by God. In turn
this ordinance of Divine Right was reciprocated by loyalty from king to
church. Power under the monarch was organised by patents of vast
estates to men who were favoured by the monarch for service to the
crown and who paid tribute and pledged loyalty to the crown. This
aristocracy of lords and titled personages in turn granted servitude to
the poor and dispossessed serfs who, in return for working their
landlords estates and being available for military service, were
afforded the privilege of a portion of land on which to provide
habitation and subsistence for themselves and their families.
As the medieval merchants, the burghers of the towns, grew more
affluent and nascent technological developments created the basis of
greater productive unit’s for the employment of labour the middle
class, the bourgeoisie, challenged the aristocracy for political power
in order that it could legislate political conditions conducive to its
interests. The public opinion that underpinned feudalism had to be
changed including the theological dictums of the church which upheld
the power base of the king and the aristocracy and condemned such
practices as usury, as banking was an important function in the new
fledgling capitalism.
So Europe saw the birth of Protestantism and ‘religious’ wars that
concealed the profane interests of the opposing owning classes. The
victory of capitalism over its archaic rival was assured; it
represented a progressive social development, in fact an idea whose
time had come and it was ultimately irresistible.
Public
opinion today
Today capitalism reigns supreme throughout the world not because the
majority support it but simply because the majority accept it and they
accept it because they know of no alternative to it. Socialists offer a
clear, practical and rational alternative but as yet the socialist
movement is small and unfortunately the broad Left, whatever its
intentions, has not only created massive confusion among our class but
in claiming state capitalism as its goal, these ersatz socialists have
created a mass consciousness of the cure being worse than the disease.
This notion of the immutability of capitalism is the bulwark that
defends that system and the ruling class and their political hirelings
are not slow to use lies and scare tactics in defence of their system.
The millionaires and billionaires do not invest their millions and
billions in the electronic and print media to inform the working class
about the cause of their problems; these are valuable instruments in
fashioning contemporary public opinion. The media will find space for
acres of nonsense: a man who bites a dog, a Prince of whose mother, the
Head of the Anglican Church, advised him to go killing in Afghanistan,
the lunacies of celebrities. . . Effectively, what we call ‘news’ is
part of the conditioning process of capitalism.
The fare served up by political journalists is simply the current
vicissitudes of capitalism; the vices and virtues, as they or their
masters see them, of the inevitabilities of the system. Rarely are they
equipped with a knowledge of the socialist alternative and even if they
were and wished to advise the public it is unlikely that their material
would pass muster with the concealed editors – the shareholders.
Socialism is not a palliative for the ills of capitalism; those ills
are endemic to the system and they have defied the best plans and the
best intentions of the wise and the well-intentioned right across the
political spectrum. Uniquely socialists do not suggest that they have
the answer to either the system or any the system’s problems; in fact
we argue that they are not problems, they are inevitable aspects of
capitalism; that instead of voting to change the politicians who run
the system we should be voting for representatives mandated to abolish
capitalism and establish socialism.
Still, whether they like what is happening or not, the media must deal
with what are deemed newsworthy situations They must report the
presence of 200,000 people demonstrating in Trafalgar Square about the
war in Iraq. The case for socialism, too, will become ‘news’ when
200,000 people are demonstrating not against a particular war but
against the system that causes wars and the multiplicity of social
evils of which the Left make separate causes.
The socialist objective
The public opinion that socialists want to promote is one that
encourages the public to consider the case for socialism and ultimately
to use the limping democracy afforded by capitalism to abolish that
system and establish socialism.
Socialism will mean that all the instruments of production and
distribution will be taken into the common ownership of society as a
whole and will be used solely to produce the goods and services needed
by the human family. The axiom: “From each according to their ability;
to each according to their need” will become the general principle
underpinning the production and distribution of wealth. The wages and
money system, so wantonly wasteful of most human activity today, will
become redundant; people will no longer be stratified by class
divisions; the nexus between property and crime will be broken and the
vested interests that promote armaments and wars and a frightening
threat to the entire biosphere will cease to exist.
The nature of the socialist case determines the means by which it will
be achieved. Socialism from its inception will need the voluntary
co-operation of its citizens. The mass of people will no longer be
anonymous wage slaves. Those who opt for socialism must know the
life-changing benefits to be derived from the new system; equally, they
must be clearly aware of their individual obligations to that system.
That is what socialism is about; it is not a quick-fix; it involves
clarifying the meaning of socialism and shattering the belief that
there is no alternative to capitalism and that cannot be done by claims
that we can patch-up the system with piece-meal reforms.
That is something we would ask out fellow-workers on the Left to
consider.
RICHARD MONTAGUE
|
|