An open letter to the workers of the world
Fellow Workers,
The world we live in at the beginning of the 21st century is one that
is fraught with contradiction. Some 800 million of our fellow humans
are chronically malnourished and at least 1.2 billion will, on any one
day, go without food. At the same time, the governments of the world
order the destruction of vast mountains of food to keep prices high,
stockpile food until it rots and pay farmers to take land out of
production because the laws of supply and demand insist that
overproduction is bad for the market.
Some 600 million of our fellow humans are homeless, many sleeping rough
on the streets of the world’s cities, yet there is no shortage of
vacant buildings – countless millions of acres of empty living space in
the major cities of the world – and certainly no shortage of building
materials or skilled builders and craftsmen presently out of work.
Again, we find that the market not only dictates who does and does not
eat, but who does and does not sleep comfortably.
Well over one billion of our fellow humans have no access to clean
water, while its growing scarcity is calculated to spark many wars
across the globe this coming century. Meanwhile, the technology exists
to desalinate millions of gallons each day and to set up treatment
plants capable of cleaning the dirtiest water. However, there is not
much profit in selling something which covers five-sixth’s of the
planet, so the investment never comes.
While millions of children die each year of curable diseases and while
we still await breakthroughs in medical science that can cure the
presently incurable, we find there are literally thousands of
scientists around the world employed in weapons programmes – paid by
their respective governments to devise new methods of murder, including
germ warfare.
The list is as endless as it is insane. At every turn we find evidence
of how capitalism destroys us physically and mentally, retarding real
human development. At every turn we come smack up against the iron law
of our age – “can’t pay, can’t have”. At every turn we find capitalism
running wild like a rabid dog, infecting all it comes into contact with.
Credit where credit is due. Capitalism has enabled us to carry out some
pretty fantastic technological and scientific feats. Advances in
warfare sparked a race for rocket technology that has enabled us
explore the furthest limits of the solar system. The search for oil and
other resources has allowed us to plumb the deepest oceans and map out
the ocean beds. We can split the atom, map the human genome, and
perform the most amazing organ transplants. Nothing, it seems, is
beyond us. Our productive powers are unprecedented. Our capabilities
are awe-inspiring. Sadly, however, and in spite of the technology at
our disposal, the never-ending battle for profits means that we have
entered the 21st century dragging with us every social ill that plagued
the previous century. War, hunger, poverty, disease, and
homelessness are still making the headlines, and each of these problems
is, to a lesser or greater degree, rooted in the way we continue to
organise ourselves for production. The terrible irony is that we are
already capable of solving the major problems that face us. Indeed, we
have been capable of solving them for quite some time – though
obviously never within the context of capitalism.
Over 20 years ago, the World Health Organisation revealed that the
technology existed to feed a world population twelve times its (then)
size. Five years ago the UN reported that Africa could easily feed a
population six times its current size if western farming technology was
introduced. Science and technology are in fact so advanced as to enable
us to solve all these problems. However, the requirements of profit
everywhere act as a stumbling block not only to the full use of the
productive forces, but also to the full and unhindered use of science
and technology in the service of humanity.
Socialists long ago realised that the problems we face are in fact
social problems, not natural ones or the vengeance of gods – social
problems because they have their roots in the way our world is
organised for production, that is production for profit, not need. If
you think seriously about it, you’ll be hard pressed to find any aspect
of our lives that is not subordinated to the requirements of profit.
This is the case the world over. We are all of us at the mercy of the
anarchic laws of capitalism.
What is to be done?
If this is the case, then what can we do about it? Socialists, real
socialists, believe the only way forward lies in abolishing the
money/wages/profit system that we know as capitalism and establishing a
world socialist society or, in other words, a world of free access to
the benefits of civilisation. Only then can we gain real control over
our world and reassert control over our own destiny. Only then can we
produce without polluting our world and only then can we enjoy a world
in which there is no waste or want or war.
Since 1904, the Socialist Party has been advocating the establishment
of such a world system: a global system of society based upon the
common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments
for producing and distributing wealth, by and in the interests of all
people.
We advocate a world without borders or frontiers, social classes or
leaders, states or governments or armies. A world devoid of money or
wages, exchange, buying or selling. A world in which people give freely
of their abilities and take according to their own self-defined needs
from the stockpile of wealth. A global system in which each person has
a free and democratic say in how their world is run.
Human nature no barrier
Of course, many we come into contact with agree that such a world would
be a beautiful place to live in, but that “human nature” will always be
a barrier to its establishment, because humans are “by nature” greedy,
selfish and aggressive. It quickly becomes apparent that what they are
describing is not human nature as such, but various traits of human
behaviour exhibited under particular circumstances. Socialists maintain
that human behaviour is shaped by the kind of system people are brought
up to live in – that it is not our consciousness that determines our
social existence but our social existence which determines our
consciousness. Nobody is born as a racist or a patriot, as a bigot or
with a belief in gods. Nobody is born a murderer, a robber or a rapist,
and our alleged greed for money is no more a function of the natural
human thought process than were slavery or witch burning.
In general, the ideas the common people hold have been acquired
second-hand, passed down from the ruling class above us. This is
because the class which owns and controls the productive process, also
controls the intellectual life process in general. Any anti-social
behaviour is likewise influenced by our social circumstances at any
given time, i.e., when we are poor, depressed, lonely, angry and
frustrated.
In most cases, those who produce the world’s wealth (some 95 percent of
the world’s population) have had that second-rate education that makes
free-thought difficult – an upbringing that conditions us to accept
without question the ideas of our betters and superiors. Indeed, the
education system is geared to perpetuate the rule of an elite, insofar
as it never encourages children to question and take issue with the
status quo. Children may well cite that 8 times 8 equals 64, but how
many will ask about the cause of wars or query the destruction of food?
Socialists hold that because we can adapt our behaviour, the desire to
cooperate should not be viewed as irrational. We hold that humans are,
“by nature”, cooperative and that we work best when faced with the
worst and that our humanity shines through when the odds are stacked
against us. There are millions of cases of people donating their blood
and organs to complete strangers, sacrificing their lives for others,
of people giving countless hours of their free time to charitable work
– all of this without financial incentive. There is even the case of a
man throwing himself on top of a grenade to protect children in a
school yard. He died to protect children, none of which were his own,
and in the instant knowledge that his action was suicidal.
Today, world capitalism threatens the human race with extinction. The
reason this obnoxious system survives is because we have been
conditioned to accept it, not born to perpetuate it. Rest assured, no
gene inclines us to defend the profit system.
Not been tried
Many we come into contact with tell us that socialism has already been
tried and has failed. They then point to the former Soviet Union, to
China, Cuba and a dozen other states that claimed to have established
“socialism”. What they fail to grasp is that socialism has existed
nowhere, and that what existed – being passed off as socialism – was in
fact state capitalism, not socialism or communism (which mean the same
thing). A cursory glance at the affairs of these countries reveals they
never abolished the wages system. The rulers exploited their workers
and outlawed dissent. They produced when only viable to do so,
maintained commodity production, traded according to the dictates of
international capital and, like every other capitalist state, were
prepared to go to war to defend their economic interests. Moreover, in
all of these countries, it was believed that socialism could be
established by force, that socialism could exist in one country. The
Leninists who carried out the Bolshevik Revolution maintained that the
revolution could only be carried out by a minority vanguard party, that
the masses were too ignorant to understand the case for change.
Since 1904, our movement has maintained that socialism, like
capitalism, can only exist on a global scale, and that it will only
come about when a majority of the world’s people want it and are
prepared to organise for it peacefully and democratically, in their own
interests and without leaders. No vanguard can establish socialism –
“the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working
class itself”.
We can do it
But who are the “working class”? Agreeing with Marx, we believe that
there are two classes in society – the working class and the capitalist
class, each one determined by its relationship to the means of living.
The capitalist class own and control the means and instruments for
producing and distributing wealth, living as parasites off profits,
rent and interest. The working class, other than possessions we have
purchased with our own sweat, own little more than our ability to sell
our physical and mental abilities to the highest bidder. There is
no “middle class” as the working class includes land workers, doctors,
lawyers and teachers – anyone, indeed, who must sell their mental and
physical energies to survive.
This class, the working class runs the world and it is important to
grasp this fact. It is we who fish the oceans and tend the forests and
till the land and plantations. It is we who build the cities and
railroads, the bridges and roads, the docks and airports. It is we who
staff the hospitals and schools, who empty the bins and go down the
sewers. It is we, the working class, who produce everything society
needs from a pin to an oil-rig, who provide all of its services. If we
can do all of this off our own bats, then surely we can continue to do
so without a profit-greedy minority watching over us and, more, in our
own interests.
The ruling class, of capitalists and their executive, the governments
of the world, have no monopoly on our skills and abilities. These
belong to us. Moreover, it is we who are responsible for the inventions
that have benefited humanity and the improvements in productive
techniques. Most inventions and improvements are the result of those
who do the actual work thinking up easier and faster ways of completing
a task, the result of ideas being passed down from generation to
generation, each one improving the techniques of the previous. If
those who work have given the world so much, in the past say 2000
years, then how much more are we capable of providing in a world devoid
of the artificial constraints of profit?
Capitalism must go
It is easy to cite the advantages of capitalism over previous economic
systems. Many people believe that capitalism, though not perfect, is
the only system possible. One thing is certain, though – if we follow
the capitalist trajectory, we’re in for some pretty troublesome times.
Capitalism has undoubtedly raised the productive potential of humanity.
It is now quite possible to provide a comfortable standard of living
for every human on the planet. But, to reiterate, capitalism now
stands as a barrier to the full and improved use of the world’s
productive and distributive forces. In a world of potential abundance,
the unceasing quest for profit imposes on our global society widespread
artificial scarcity. Hundreds of millions of humans are consigned to a
life of abject poverty, whilst the majority live lives filled with
uncertainty.
Our ability to imagine has brought us so very far, from the days when
our ancestors chipped away at flint to produce the first tools, to the
landing of someone on the moon, the setting up of the world wide web,
and the mapping out of the human genome. Is it really such a huge leap
of the imagination to now envisage a social system that can take over
from the present capitalist order of things? Is it just too daring to
imagine humans consigning poverty, disease, hunger and war to some
pre-historic age?
Do we really need leaders deciding our lives for us? Do we really need
governments administering our lives when what is really needed is the
administration of the things we need to live in peace and security?
Must every decision made by our elites be first of all weighed on the
scales of profit, tilted always in their favour? A growing number think
not and have mobilised to confront what they perceive to be the major
problems of contemporary capitalism.
In recent years there has been a world-wide backlash against neoliberal
globalisation, corporate power and the iniquities of modern-day
capitalism. Everywhere where the world’s ruling elite have assembled to
decide their next step they have been met with protests and
demonstrations that have attracted hundreds of thousands.
Demonstrations at Seattle, Gothenburg, Prague and Genoa, for instance,
have fuelled the ongoing debate on the nature of modern day capitalism.
Thousands of articles have been written on the subject and hundreds of
books have been published that explore the alternatives offered by the
anti-globalisation movement.
What is now clear is that the anti-globalisation movement, however
well-meaning, does not seek to replace capitalism with any real
alternative social system. At best it attracts a myriad of groups, all
pursuing their own agenda. Some call for greater corporate
responsibility. Some demand the reform of international institutions.
Others call for the expansion of democracy and fairer trading
conditions. All, however, fail to address the root cause of the
problems of capitalism.
One thing is certain: capitalism cannot be reformed in the interests of
the world’s suffering billions, because reform does not address the
basic contradiction between profit and need. The world’s leaders cannot
be depended upon because they can only ever act as the executive of
corporate capitalism. The expansion of democracy, while welcome, serves
little function if all candidates at election time can only offer
variations on the same basic set of policies.
Capitalism must be abolished if we as a species are to thrive, if the
planet is to survive. No amount of reform, however great, will work.
Change must be global and irreversible. It must involve all of us. We
need to erase borders and frontiers; to abolish states and governments
and false concepts of nationalism. We need to abolish our money
systems, and with it buying, selling and exchange. And in place of this
we need to establish a different global social system – a society in
which there is common ownership and true democratic control of the
Earth’s natural and industrial resources. A society where the everyday
things we need to live in comfort are produced and distributed freely
and for no other reason than that they are needed. Socialism.
It is now no utopian fantasy to suggest we can live in a world without
waste or want or war, in which each person has free access to the
benefits of civilisation. That much is assured. We certainly have the
science, the technology and the know-how. All that is missing is the
will – the global desire for change that can make that next great
historical advance possible; a belief in ourselves as masters of our
own destiny; a belief that it is possible to free production from the
artificial constraints of profit and to fashion a world in our own
interests. And how soon this happens depends upon us all – each and
every one of us.
JOHN BISSETT
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