Why we contest elections
We stood 4 candidates in the local elections on 1 May. Why?
Capitalism, the system of society we live under, is based on the means for producing what society needs to survive being owned and controlled by a small section only of the population. We’re talking about the land on which food is grown and from which natural resources are extracted, the factories where these resources are fashioned into useful things, the power stations that provide the energy, the ships, planes, trains and lorries which transport the raw materials and the finished products, the warehouses and retail outlets where the products are stored, the media and communications. In short, all the natural and industrial resources needed to produce and distribute useful things and services.
This results in the division of society into two classes, those who own and receive an unearned property income and those who don’t and who, to live, have to work for a wage or salary. Useful things are not made and useful services are not provided to directly satisfy people’s needs but to be sold to make a profit which goes to those who own the places where the work takes place. The interests of the two classes are completely opposed as the profits of the one come from the work of the other.
Capitalism is a profit-making system that can only work for the few who own, not the many who work. It can only be run in the interest of capitalists, the tiny minority who invest money for profit and enjoy a privileged lifestyle on the proceeds.
That’s why the needs of the majority are never met properly and why for them there are always going to be problems over housing, health care, schools, and public services. The politicians blame each other but profits coming before needs is not something any government can change.
All the other parties that stand in elections support the profit system and are squabbling over which of them should run the administrative side of it. They think the profit system can be made to work in the interests of the majority. But it can’t be and, if they win office whether at national or local level, they end up having to do the system’s dirty work of saving money on public services so that taxes on profits can be kept down. At local level, Labour, Tories, LibDems, Greens, and Scots and Welsh nationalists have all done this. They will now be joined by Reform UK after its gains in last month’s county council and mayoral elections.
Profits first, people second (even third after military spending), that’s the only way the profit system can work. Despite the politicians’ promises, it can never be made to work for the majority working class whose income comes from working for a wage or salary.
But if nothing changes…
But, if changing governments changes nothing, why do we in the Socialist Party contest elections? Some people think that the government serves the rich because the rich own the means of wealth production. But, in fact, it is the other way round — they own the means of production because they control the government. And they control the government because, currently, when there is a general election, the vast majority of voters vote into control of political power — the power to make and enforce laws — parties that don’t challenge their legal right to own the means of wealth production.
The capitalists don’t own the land, the factories and the rest in the same way that people own their personal possessions. They don’t physically possess them. They own them because they have a legal right to own them, a right granted and enforced by the state. In fact, today very few means of production are even owned by individuals. They are owned by companies and corporations which are fictitious individuals created by law.
The conclusion to be drawn from this is that the way to end minority class ownership of the means of wealth production is not to directly take these over physically and kick out the bosses but to win control of the political power which granted and backs up their owners’ legal right to own.
To abolish capitalism, what is needed is to first win control of political power. In theory this could be done by seizing the central state in a violent insurrection but, unless this has majority support, the result would merely be a change of rulers — and, if it does have majority support, would be unnecessary as there is another, easier way to win political control — through the ballot box.
If a majority wants to abolish capitalism, it can use the electoral system to send to the central law-making body delegates mandated to end all private property rights, dissolving all companies and corporations and declaring all stocks and shares null and void. The means of production would then become the common property of society under democratic control. Capitalism will have been abolished. This will allow the socialist-minded working class majority, self-organised democratically outside parliament, to get on with managing the change-over to socialism at ground level through workplace committees, local councils and other associations, while the central administration, transformed from being an instrument of class rule, deals with wider issues.
So, the main reason why we say socialists should contest elections is an understanding that the capitalist few own the means of producing because the state grants them the right to do so and that the working class needs to win control of political power so as to be in a position to annul that right.
It is why we say workers should not vote for any party that supports capitalism as that is to leave political control in capitalist hands and so endorse their ownership of the means of production. That’s why when there is no socialist standing we don’t vote for them and either abstain from voting or cast a write-in vote for socialism.
Of course, today, as the results of elections show, only a tiny minority want socialism — the vast majority of workers still accept or at least acquiesce to capitalism — so when we contest elections now we are showing that we think that the working class, once they want socialism, should take political action to bring it about. We are also showing that we think that the electoral system, imperfect as it is, is still sufficiently democratic as to enable a socialist majority to win control of political power. And, of course, using the occasion to further publicise the case for socialism.
ADAM BUICK
Kent County Council Folkestone West: RefUK 1748, Lab 1152, Green 996, Con 852, LD 414, Soc 47.
Kent County Council Folkestone East: RefUK 1712, Lab 1076, Con 513, Green 509, LD 233, Homeland 50, Soc 38.
Gloucestershire Count Council Stroud Central: Greens 2166, Lab 799, RefUK 697, Con 309, LD 195, TUSC 49, Soc 25.
London Borough of Lambeth Herne Hill and Loughborough Junction: Greens 1,774, Lab 1,459, Con 183, RefUK 135, LD 121, TUSC 30, Soc 16.
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