Editorial – Jeremy Corbyn’s new ‘real change’ party
Let’s be clear: as socialists, we don’t necessarily dislike Jeremy Corbyn. Indeed, some things he says we’d agree with. Where we differ explicitly is on how our society can achieve ‘real change’.
We agree ‘poverty, inequality and war are not inevitable’, but to be rid of these troubles — and not merely partially, or only for a brief time — we contend that their root cause must be effectively dealt with. No tinkering. No sticking plaster solutions. What’s needed is major surgery.
The aggressive, deadly cancer killing and immiserating humankind in every country is the existence of the divisive, worldwide, capitalist system, so ignore nitwits who say North Korea, Venezuela, China, etc have ‘socialism’ or ‘communism’. They don’t. The current profit-driven system is the undeniable cause of poverty, inequality, war and so much else.
Where Jeremy Corbyn, Zarah Sultana and others on ‘the left’ go wrong is thinking capitalism can be reformed, incrementally or otherwise, so that it becomes useful and beneficial to the majority. Not only will reformism never bring about socialism, far worse, it misleads people into thinking their problems can be solved. Voters led to believe their difficulties can be reformed away will be diverted and put off from considering the ‘real alternative’ — real socialism.
All reforms tend to do is smooth over some problems but create or worsen others. Even when capitalism causes something appalling like the 2008 financial crisis, reforms that were rushed in to solve a crisis can then, over time, be gradually amended, weakened or even ignored because businesses will always be under pressure to cut expenses and increase profits.
Because the fundamental function of capitalism is for capitalists to make profits (otherwise they can go bust), and a fundamental function of government is to assist the capitalist class to make profits (otherwise the economy can go bust), this means even a Corbyn-Sultana government would have to give capitalists what they need to succeed and compete.
So when the going gets tough (which seems to be a never-ending situation now under capitalism), whether Corbyn and Sultana accept it or not, the needs of a profit-seeking few would have to come before the needs of the working-class many. This is why we reject reformism completely.
And nationalising industries etc — which is not socialism — is not a solution. State-run firms must still be profitable, and competitive in markets, so workers’ wages still tend to be the ‘going rate’, which often means little more than enough to pay for all of the essentials.
Therefore, when Corbyn says ‘hope’ is ‘something that is desperately missing from our broken political system’, in reality, the suffering majority has no hope of being freed from poverty, inequality and exploitation by a new left-wing party because the political system isn’t ‘broken’ — it’s biased — towards the asset-owning class.
To prevent a capitalist economy getting into trouble even left-wing governments put the needs of the asset-owning class ahead of the working class. The fact is both right- and left-wing governments have been hostile to the working class struggle for ‘real change’ in the past, and will be in the future. Corbyn says ‘real change is coming’. We say, only if the majority reject reformism and replace capitalism with socialism – the common ownership and democratic control of the resources society depends on to survive and where production directly to meet people’s needs will replace production for profit.