Against Gradualism

The Road to Socialism

The Socialist Party’s conception of revolution is often criticised for its lack of credibility since it is assumed that people have to wait for the overwhelming majority necessary to “enact” socialism before doing something about their immediate problems. The Party does argue that the work for socialism must be the building up of a majority of socialists who will then be in a position to remove the capitalist features from production as a conscious political act and that until a socialist majority is achieved, the class monopoly of the means of production, the wage-labour/capital relationship, commodity production, the operation of the market, and the state, will continue to be both the form of social production and its administration by governments. The Party’s theory of revolution  insists that socialism can only be established by the democratic, conscious political actions of a majority of socialists and it is not just any theory culled from a textbook of bourgeois sociology. The theory is based both on the class struggle as the motor of social change and on an understanding of the economics of capitalism and the limits it places on what can be done within the framework of the capitalist system.

Members of the Left reject the Party’s theory of revolution as “impossible”. Their argument was that without a majority of socialists, and prior to the formal enactment of common ownership, a working class government could set society on a course of change in the direction of socialism. In control of the state and all legal processes, such a government would grant the widest freedom of action to the trade unions and thus set up a partnership with the trade unions pursuing working class interests on the industrial field and a government doing the same on the political field.

The unions would maximise the workers’ share of the social product at the point of production. The government would provide housing, health care and education, etc. At the same time, such a working class government would begin the process of establishing common ownership through the nationalisation of the means of production and through “taxing the rich out of existence”.

The Party rejected this gradualist policy at the beginning of the century and this rejection has been vindicated by experience and has led to the Party’s traditional case for abolishing class ownership by one short, sharp political act.

Reforming the class struggle

The Socialist Party neither promotes, nor opposes, reforms to capitalism. We believe that socialists shouldn't work for reforms to capitalism, because only a movement for socialism itself can establish socialism. Those which work for reforms hold either that reforms to capitalism will eventually result in socialism, or that supporting reforms is an appropriate way to convince workers to support socialism. Some put forward a reasonable analysis of capitalism, but then work to give capitalism a human face. Some claim that they want to end capitalism. Their bottom line is, however, just capitalism with reforms.

What are reforms? They are legislative and other enactments forced upon or necessary for governments in running the various forms of capitalism. A typical major one was the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948. It nicely represents the contradictory nature of reforms. For the NHS contributed to raising the standard of living for many workers, but was used by governments to hold down wages and has become a bargaining counter used by the various capitalist political parties ever since. We define reforms as political measures brought forward to amend the operation of capitalism in some way. We say this because in a class divided system like capitalism, it is the state, controlled by the political apparatus, that is the institution operating this entire process. By extension, ‘reformism’ is the attempt to seek support so that political power and influence over the state can be obtained to enact reforms (originally, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, reformism meant seeking support for reforms that could specifically lead to socialism). While political and economic measures are often intertwined , without their political character they can’t be reformist. So the key issue for socialists is not to advocate (or seek political support for) reform programmes, as this is reformism and leads to disastrous Labour governments. But we don’t do this and never have done. Do we oppose reforms? We are opposed to reformism – the policy of advocating reforms, either as a way of 'improving' capitalism or as a means to socialism – but we are not necessarily opposed to individual reforms which may be of benefit to the working class. However we do not advocate any reform, because we hold that to do so would lead to a socialist party changing into a reformist party, attracting the support of non-socialists.

Every organisation has to decide what it is working for, and whether that aim is important. When the first of the parties in the World Socialist Movement was founded in 1904, it decided it was going to work for socialism. Socialists are, of course, not immune to the human tragedies which occur daily, by the millions, and which has generate thousands of reformist groups trying to stem the tide. Socialists made a choice. They chose to use their time and limited funds to work to eliminate the cause of the problems. One can pick any problem and often one can find that real improvements have taken place, usually after a very long period of agitation. Rarely, if ever, has the problem disappeared, and usually other related problems have cropped up to fill the vacuum of destruction or suffering left by the "solution". The mistaken idea that we should devote our energies to improving capitalist society through reforms has led, certainly in absolute terms, to the most destructive century in history. What has been the most pernicious lie of the century? It is that hope for the future lay in the gradual, imperceptible, but certain amelioration of capitalism through the process of reform. The false hope of piecemeal improvement of an essentially cancerous system captured the imaginations of millions, exhausted their energies in the reformist struggle to humanise the profit system, and then left them dumbed by frustration. Whether the changes were to come through the division lobbies of Westminster or by gaining control of local councils or by humanitarian and "green" appeals for a nicer, gentler world, the system which puts profit before need has persistently spat the hope of humane capitalism back in the face of its advocates. The progressive enthusiasm of millions has been stamped out in this way. Dare we imagine how different it would have been if that energy—or even a half or a tenth of that energy—which has gone into reforming capitalism had gone into abolishing it? With a movement great in number, if still a minority, how much stronger would we be if our fellow workers had not experienced that bitter disillusionment of failed reformism and the indignity of abandoning principles for the sake of short-term gains? Should we who struck to undiluted socialist principles- the world for the workers with production solely for use, and nothing less—be the ones to bow our heads in defeat when the policy of reform, not revolution, has so miserably failed? Had we ever abandoned our socialist principles the very idea of a new society based on equality and co-operation would have been lost and that would have only compounded the tragedy. Whilst this is true, and in all circumstances, inescapable, one consequence of our principled stand is that for the most part we do remain alienated from the political life of society.

If there is one thing the employing class is more afraid of than anything else it is the possibility of the workers accepting the idea embodied in the term “the Social Revolution”. Revolutionists are described as wild visionaries, Utopia builders, and so on. In the not-so-distant past the Labour Party did talk in terms of changing society. True, this was only as a long-term prospect, but the idea of an alternative society was there. There was wide consensus among those calling themselves socialists as to what socialism was. Dissent among socialists was mostly not about the nature of socialism but about the best way of achieving it. At that time socialist organisations did not offer reform policies as an end in themselves but rather as strategies that would lead to the eventual overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. Now this has gone and those of us who are left proposing this are denounced as "unrealistic" for continuing to advocate a "big solution" when supposedly there is none. The real casualty of the errors and internecine disputes of the past has been socialism itself. Unfortunately, this has created a graveyard of broken hopes

The World Socialist Movement does not accept the view that nothing but socialism concerns the socialist and in regards to trade unionism has stated that the non-revolutionary phase of the struggle between the classes is as inevitable as the revolutionary. When the worker acquires revolutionary consciousness he is still compelled to make the non-revolutionary struggle. We fight in the here and now, where we are and where we can, rather than tell everyone to wait until the revolution comes and that all struggle is a diversion from creating a united Marxian socialist party of the world. It doesn't mean we have to sit around and wait for a revolution. A blanket opposition to everything that does and can happen in capitalism in the guise of being supportive of working class interests and being true to socialist principles, they would involve actions (or sometimes, inaction) would be ridiculous and taken to its ultimate, logical conclusion would lead to the situation whereby socialists in parliament determinedly resolved to oppose all reform measures as a matter of course, even those of clear benefit to workers or the socialist movement (and by doing so inadvertently allying themselves with the forces of reaction to keep wars going, or oppose factory legislation and anything else that might benefit workers). We do not deny that certain reforms won by the working class have helped to improve our general living and working conditions. Indeed, we see little wrong with people campaigning for reforms that bring essential improvements and enhance the quality of their lives, and some reforms do indeed make a difference to the lives of millions and can be viewed as 'successful'. There are examples of this in such fields as education, housing, child employment, work conditions and social security. Socialists have to acknowledge that the "welfare" state, the NHS and so on, made living standards for some sections of the working class better than they had been under rampant capitalism and its early ideology of laissez faireHowever, in this regard we also recognise that such 'successes' have in reality done little more than to keep workers and their families in efficient working order and, while it has taken the edge of the problem, it has rarely managed to remove the problem completely. After the Jewish Holocaust, people said "Never Again". But genocide didn't stop. It continued. The conditions promoting genocide didn't go away, and so neither did the genocide. If the reformists had solved the myriad of problems, or were even to be able to say that things were steadily improving, that would argue in favour of their approach to reform. But that is not the case. The same problems continue to appear and re-appear. It is often one step forward, several steps back.

We argue that the working class should organise for socialism, but that doesn't mean that nothing can be done this side of the revolution. Such things as basic health care came into being because the working class fought for them (even though politicians have since claimed the credit). Without the threat of action we would never have won such things. Strikes, or the threat of them, help to improve wages and working conditions. We have the ability to change things if we act together. The power to transform society lies in the hands of those who create everything - the working class. This is the source of our power, should we eventually use it. The power not to make a few reforms, but to change the whole system, to make a social revolution. The basis of the socialist argument is that the material conditions for socialism exist now but it can only come into being when the working class had matured politically to the point where it could commit itself to the new society. Leading the workers along the path of reform is not equipping them for their revolutionary role but was in fact establishing the contrary idea that capitalism could be made to function in the interests of the class it exploited.

Some reforms e.g. securing freedom of speech, extending the franchise, stopping a war, benefit the entire working class and socialist movement. Democracy is not a set of rules or a parliament; it is a process, a process that must be fought for. The struggle for democracy is the struggle for socialism. It is not a struggle for reforms, for this or that political system, for this or that leader, for some rule change or other—it is the struggle for an idea, for a belief, a belief that we can run our own lives, that we have a right to a say in how society is run, for a belief that the responsibility for democracy lies not upon the politicians or their bureaucrats, but upon ourselves. Our view is to let the upholders of capitalism work for reforms while we put the revolutionary alternative. Socialist MPs and councillors would be mandated to put the case for socialism and to criticise reform activity from the socialist perspective. However, the long-established socialist position is that socialist delegates in such an environment would be duty-bound to consider voting for measures that could benefit the working class as a whole and/or the socialist movement in particular. These issues would be judged on their merits at the time, and could, for instance, involve socialist delegates voting to stop a war, such as the recent war in Iraq. In such a case abstention would not be justifiable. In taking this position, they would still make clear their opposition to capitalism as a whole and to all parties of capitalism and would at no time seek support from the working class on the basis of a reform programme. The Socialist Party does not oppose reformism because it is against improvements in workers' lives lest they dampen their revolutionary ardour; nor, because it thinks that decadent capitalism simply cannot deliver on any reforms; but because our continued existence as propertyless wage-slaves undermines whatever attempts we make to control and better our lives through reforms.

An early article in the Socialist Standard clarifies the position in defining the political approach:
"...Socialism declares that all the social phenomena of our days are the results of capitalism, manifestations of the class war, which will cease only with the disappearance of classes. Therefore the Socialist Party is a party of class and of revolution. On the other hand, the desire for some immediate bettering of his lot is too well engendered in the heart of man for him to lose hope, even against all logic. Logic is weak against the power of an instinctive desire. The political parties promise reforms to their electors just as a nurse promises the moon to a child. The Socialist Party is thus caught between the logic of its scientific principle and the universal desire for an immediate amelioration - ”something now”. It cannot betray its principle, but it is likewise impossible that this party- of men - can escape this human desire for reforms. This contradiction is, however, not without a solution.
The conditions of existence of the wage-workers depends upon their wages. It is not determined by the legal law, but by the economic law of supply and demand...Social realities are outside of parliaments...the Houses of Parliament can do nothing - absolutely nothing - to modify the real wage of the workers. The legal law is of straw; the economic law is of iron. Why change the tax-gathering plate if you do not change what is put into it? To dream of bettering the conditions of existence by political means is Utopia.
Although the bettering of the conditions of existence by way of political reform is impossible, it is not the same as regards the conditions of fighting, and it appears to us to be possible to make easier the struggle of the proletariat against the capitalist middle-class.
To distinguish between the conditions of fighting and the conditions of existence is not to split a hair. The difference is real...
...By the very fact of capitalist production the proletariat is at war with the bourgeoisie. This struggle is sometimes hidden, at other times visible to the eyes of all, but it is without truce. Far from becoming less evident, conflicts increase daily. Some reforms would render the attacks of the proletariat more powerful, those of its adversary weaker, and would make the effort easier and more efficient..."

Another early socialist (Bebel) wrote "we avail ourselves of all means for bettering the condition of our comrades the workers. We do not spurn reforms; but what we do refuse, and that in the most explicit manner, is the coming to an agreement with any faction whatsoever of the middle-class [read capitalist class], no matter by what name it may go. An agreement of this kind cannot be of any other consequence than to make Socialism responsible for the oppression which the capitalists exercise over the masses of the working-class..."
It is true that some reforms benefit some workers, but they may also benefit sections of the capitalist class. In the time-honoured squabble as to who should pay for the reforms and upkeep of the working class it is but one between robbers over the cost of the robbery - the robbery of the working class in the field, factory and workshop. That does not, however, prevent our masters, inveigling the workers into the fight. Once the workers are drawn into the controversy a double purpose is served. First, they stop fighting their employers and exploiters – the active enemies; secondly, their assistance is secured in shifting the "taxation burdens” on to other capitalists. Why should we support the manufacturing capitalists against the financial capitalists? The pro-capitalist argument for Family Allowances in the 1940s was that the employer paid the rate for the job (including an increment to cover a wife and children) even when most of the male population were unmarried. The Family Allowances plan was a scheme based on targeting provision on those workers actually with children. This reform allowed employers to make wage reductions for workers without families.

The route of trying to change capitalism is the one that has been taken by most people who have wanted to improve society. Reformism has some attractions over revolution – especially if you lack imagination, don't like confrontation, prefer to think only in the short term, and don't want to be accused of not living in the real world. You are also assured of being in good company because large numbers of people think (or fail to think) as you do. Reformism is a most excellent strategy if you want only small changes in society, and are satisfied with what you get (which is usually substantially less than what you were promised). The idea that capitalism can be humanised and changed by a series of reforms is almost as old as the capitalist system itself. But reforms are implemented by political parties that seek and get a mandate to run capitalism. The motives for reforms may include anxiety to relieve suffering and keenness to promote well-being, but the measures have the effect of serving the system rather than meeting the needs of individuals or groups. However, reformism is futile for two groups of people: those who expect that capitalism can be reformed to operate in the interests of the majority, and those who believe that a programme of reforms will “win the workers for the revolution” and hence make a contribution to the achievement of socialism. Therefore there are two kinds of reformism. One has no intention of bringing about revolutionary change (indeed it may use reforms to stem such change.) The other kind cherishes the mistaken belief that successful reforms will somehow prepare the ground for revolution. Reforms are seen as necessary first steps on the long road to eventual revolution.

A revolution is the work of a class which has gained political power in order to transform society to suit its interests; a reform is carried out only within the framework of the social system. Hence reforms cannot end capitalism; they can modify it to some extent, but they leave its basis untouched. To establish socialism, a revolution—a complete transformation of private property into social property—is necessary. Since the struggle for reforms cannot alter the slave position of the working class, it ends by bringing indifference and disillusionment to the workers who look to reforms for emancipation. In order to accomplish the revolution nothing is wanted but the revolutionary lever. The BNP, for instance, are the product of the total failure of all the reformist parties to make capitalism a fit society to live in. And this is not the fault of the mainstream parties, for they are controlled by the system and not vice versa despite their claims and promises. When capitalism fails to deliver, when despondency and shattered hopes arise from the stench of the failed promises and expectations that litter the political landscape, is it any wonder that workers fall for the scapegoating lies of fascists and the quick fix they offer?

What we are opposed to is the whole culture of reformism, the idea that capitalism can be made palatable with the right reforms, By that, we mean that we oppose those organisations that promise to deliver a programme of reforms on behalf of the working class, often in order that the organisation dishing out the promises can gain a position of power. Such groups, especially those of the left-wing, often have real aims quite different to the reform programme they peddle. In this, they are being as dishonest as any other politician, from the left or right. The ultimate result of this is disillusionment with the possibility of radical change. In other words, although individual reforms may be worthy of support, the political strategy of reformism—promising to win reforms on the behalf of others—is a roundabout that leads nowhere. Those wanting to improve society should seriously question whether capitalism offers enough scope for achieving lasting solutions to the vast range of social problems to which it gives rise. Of course, some improvements are made and some problems are alleviated. Yet new kinds of problem also arise in society. Reformers, philanthropic individuals and other well-meaning folk in charities, have all failed. By now most of them realise they will never actually solve the problems they are tackling. They are like medics on a battlefield: all they can do is to keep slamming in the morphine, slapping on the bandages and hope that somehow the slaughter will stop. In addition, advocating a reform programme would attract the support of non-socialists and because a voluntary, co-operative society like socialism can only ever be created by a majority of convinced, conscious socialists, this would be counter-productive.

Many think that reform is positive, but why should socialists divert their energies to repair and patch up a system they want to end altogether? Doing something is not enough, we need to do the right thing. We need to campaign for socialism. Socialists are revolutionaries: we believe that the establishment of a socialist society will involve a fundamental change in the way people live, and will necessitate the capture of political power by the socialist working class. As revolutionaries, we do not advocate reforms, that is, changes in the way capitalism runs, such as alterations to immigration policy or the health service or the tax system. Reforms, however ‘radical’, can never make capitalism run in the interests of the workers. Nor should supporting reforms be some kind of tactic pursued by socialists to gain support from workers, for workers who joined a Socialist Party because they admired its reformist tactics would turn it into a reformist organisation pure and simple. Socialists must reject reformism as a distraction from the revolutionary goal.

R.Biel in The New Imperialism writes:
“The organised left has itself opted for a mode of action which downplays (without completely rejecting) the idea of directly challenging the system…The left has had to retreat for a time from organising an alternative political economy, and is working instead on the terrain of capitalism”

“Working on the terrain of capitalism” is a euphemism for reformism. There are two implications in what Biel is saying. One is that there was a time when the left – or at least part of it – was working for socialism. The other is that, since the retreat was only “for a time”, there will be a time in the future when working for socialism will come to the top of the agenda instead of being downplayed.

"Direct action" is merely a method, a tactic, not an end in itself and can in fact be employed for different ends. In the present political context it is being advocated as a better way to get reforms than elections. May be it is, but maybe it isn't. One powerful argument as to why it might not be has just been demonstrated: those with the biggest vehicles can reclaim the streets more effectively than those without. In other words, with direct-actionist, pressure group politics, those who can exert the most pressure will tend to come off best, and it is the more powerful who can generally exert the most pressure. Our view is that those who concentrate on trying to obtain reforms within capitalism—whether by direct action or through the electoral process—are on the wrong track. What is needed is precisely what most of them refuse—and in fact have consciously rejected doing—and that is raising the issue of an alternative society as the only framework within which the problems for which they are seeking short-term relief can be solved.

Our objection to reformism is, then, that by ignoring the essence of class, it throws blood, sweat and tears into battles that will be undermined by the workings of the wages system. All that effort, skill, energy, all those tools could be turned against class society, to create a society of common interest where we can make changes for our common mutual benefit. So long as class exists, any gains will be partial and fleeting, subject to the ongoing struggle. Socialists understand well the urge to do something now, to make a change. That makes us all the more determined, however, to get the message across.

Going directly for revolution, refusing to settle for anything less than the full monty of socialism, is a policy that will take time to bring results. Many people will have to be weaned off the superficial attractions of “achievable” reforms. But going for revolution isn't just a long-term policy – it is also a good short-term one. Faced with an electorate who refuse to vote for capitalism-supporting candidates, confronted by a majority who no longer believe “there is no alternative”, challenged by a growing socialist movement that says revolution is possible and shows how life and society could be so much better, what else can those who wish to support capitalism do than concede as much as possible, in effect to narrow the gap between the old and new systems?

No Labour government can rule under capitalism without making itself the slave of commercial interests at home and abroad. Those individuals who picture a working-class administration under capitalism cautiously and tentatively experimenting in social legislation while the employing class remains dominant in the industrial field, are the real utopians. Your Labour government only exist within the present system by helping to run the system. The capitalists still rule. Attempts to reform capitalism, whether through parliament or dictatorship, have failed. This leaves conscious majority revolution as the only way forward. Instead of Labour governments gradually transforming capitalism into socialism, the opposite happened. The experience of governing capitalism (in 1924, in 1929, in 1945, in 1964 and in the 1970s) gradually transformed Labour into the open party of capitalism and proud friend of the City and Business that it is today. So its political managers are reduced to arguing out differences which are mostly minor or sham, about how best to spend the money that comes to them, depending on their luck with the economy. And those who set out to change society through winning political power and reforms have had to accept what was always inevitable, that reformism is a graveyard for such hopes. This happens not because reforms have never made a difference to the way the system works. For anyone wishing to bring about a new and better world, reformism requires a pact with the devil where the forming of a government means being sucked into running the system. This is what has happened to Labour. It has fallen victim to a corrupting process in which the allurements of government power have ruled out any realistic sense of what can be done with such power. As a consequence, the Labour Party not only accepts the capitalist system but it is now fully committed to managing its continued development. We wish we had been wrong in our analysis of the situation. We wish the Labour Party and the Social Democratic parties elsewhere and their myriad of Left-wing supporters had succeeded in chipping away at the fortress of capitalism, had demolished it and created a sane socialist society.

Many have ridden the roundabout of reformism and, having enjoyed the ride, want to go round again, but socialists want no part in this fraud. Social happiness, common ownership, free access, democratic control; all can be achieved by the working class. Promising crumbs off the master's table has diverted attention away from the attempts by definite socialists to secure the whole loaf, the bakery, the flour-mills and the wheat fields.

One of the most frequent criticisms of the Socialist Party is that while the policy of advocating socialism is useful and necessary for the ultimate solution of working-class problems, it is nevertheless a short-sighted and unrealistic policy to neglect to support measures of social reform designed to improve the conditions of the workers whilst capitalism is still in existence. It is urged that a socialist party should wage a guerrilla warfare with the capitalists in order to gain benefits, even if only temporary and minor, and that in doing so it would rally to the cause of socialism many workers who otherwise would not be prepared to support an organisation which appeared to have an excellent programme for the future but not for the present. Our reply to that criticism has been that the task of a socialist party is to establish socialism, and that as this can only be brought about by a working population possessing an understanding of the issues involved, our propaganda at all times must be directed at spreading the essential socialist knowledge. Further we have argued that a socialist party which advocated reforms would attract non-socialist support from those interested in all or some of the reform measures, and that the non-socialist support would sooner or later (and in all probability sooner) swamp the socialist elements and the party would become just another reformist organisation with no better claim to working class support than that of the Labour Party, "Communists" and so on. We have pointed to the records of these “socialist” organisations which have adopted the policy of “getting something now” to show the futility of attempting either to build up a socialist movement with a reformist programme, or even to reform out of existence some of the minor disabilities suffered by the workers under capitalism. In this latter connection it can be said that the reform measures that have been passed have generally been instituted by self-confessed capitalist organisations which have recognised the need to adjust capitalism in the light of changing conditions. The usual process has been for the so-called workers’ parties to agitate (often for a considerable period) for particular measures of social reform and then in the end, when the capitalists can no longer resist the agitation, for these (or watered-down versions of them) to be brought about by the Liberal or Conservative governments, which have thus been able to steal the limelight which the workers’ organisations have sought to obtain, and use it to their own advantage. This in its turn has increased the confusion in the minds of the workers, who feel that there can be very little wrong with capitalism when capitalist parties themselves are prepared to adopt what have been proclaimed to be “socialist” proposals.

Critics of the Socialist Party are already telling us that here at last is something concrete that is worthy of the efforts of socialists and that the workers should get together in order to force the government to implement a host of reforms. We remain unimpressed. The great problem remains and that problem is the the poverty of the working-class, and not just the additional burdens in time of unemployment, old age and sickness. The poverty of the working-class is due to the private ownership by the capitalists of the means of production and distribution. Socialism alone can end that poverty. We shall not be diverted from our task in order to chase the shadows, but we shall continue to strive for the substance, socialism, which will abolish for ever the conditions which bring into being the evils of the modern world. Reformers do not create a new world of hope, but simply re-arrange and re-distribute the misery. The concept of class struggle and of revolution is alien to the rose-tinted reformists of the British left characterised by the Labour Party who are content to see every gain as the building of barriers against the tide of capitalism only to see them smashed down with the next tide.

As a socialist party we tend to be hostile to the activities of reformers. This has a simple logic. In one way or another reformists are supporters of capitalism. We are opposed to capitalism. Therefore we are opposed to the activities of those offering palliatives. However, what we find is that we share many of the basic hopes and intentions of many thousands of people who are active in all kinds organisations. Socialists do not hold a monopoly on social concern. For example, many people are concerned with the plight of millions of starving people and they try to do something about it. We share that concern, this is something that we have in common with them. So it is not true that we are hostile to all reformers. So how can we be more engaged with these people with whom we share some common ground?

They are in organisations like Oxfam. They work voluntarily collecting money and running charity shops to finance workers in the field in many places, doing what they can to provide seeds, tools and equipment and small scale irrigation schemes and things like fresh water wells. Others are in organisations such as the United Nations Association in the hope that agencies like the Food and Agricultural Organisation could do more to help the starving. We are quite right to say that these efforts do not stand a chance of ever being able to solve a problem that is getting worse. But rather than be hostile to the activities of these people we should adopt a much less alienated approach. Instead of emphasising the futility of their activities; instead of shouting abstract slogans at them such as common ownership, democratic control and production for use; we could argue from a basis where we have set out how existing world wide organisation already exists for dealing with the problem of world hunger. This more engaged approach would be to describe how the principles of common ownership, democratic control and production solely for use could be applied in practical ways. This would convert the higher abstractions of economic analysis into proposed lines of practical activity. This would in turn project what people in Oxfam are trying to do into a different social context in which their work could be more successful in solving the problem. This would draw their attention more directly to the need to alter the present economic and political framework which is so destructive of their efforts. This more engaged approach would be to acknowledge that they are doing what they can to lessen world hunger but the problem is getting worse, and then say, "The action to solve this problem must include action to bring about a society where you will have the freedom to act more effectively and this is how it could actually work. The work of solving the problem and the work of creating the conditions in which it can be solved go together." And of course the same approach could be directed at other organisations, for example, the many environmentalists.

Socialists should build on our economic and political analysis and apply its logic to the development of all the socially useful factors of modern world society in setting out how socialism could operate. Then armed with this set of practical proposals we make every attempt to be more positively engaged with the many non socialists with whom we share common ground of concern and indignation and the need to establish a world of equality, democracy and co-operation.

reforms change little

Eugene Debs once said, “Its better to ask for what you want and not get it, than ask for what you don’t want and get it.” If you really want socialism, join the World Socialist Movement. Ask for what you do want.

After over a century of reform activity, and the sincere efforts of a multitude of reformers, the world is in a greater mess than ever it was. We socialists are often accused of being opposed to reforms, social legislation designed to ameliorate some intolerable situation. Not so. We of the World Socialist Movement are not opposed to reforms per se, any more than we advocate them. The really vital reforms of capitalism were won a long time ago, for instance, the vote that gave the working class the opportunity to take its fate into its own hands.The position of a revolutionary is to reject reformism - the advocacy of reforms - which is not the same thing as opposing reforms themselves. Reformism is the promotion of reforms and it is this that we revolutionaries should not be engaged in. Trying to mend capitalism is incompatible with trying to end capitalism. For ourselves, radicalisation entails the conscious propagandisation of the communist alternative under each and every circumstance thrown up by capitalism. It an interactive process between thought and practice driven by a clear and unambigous conception of what we are to replace capitalism with. Nothing less will do. Unless we know what to replace capitalism with, capitalism will not be replaced. We will be stuck with it. It is literally a case of one or the other

We make a very clear distinction between reformist struggle and other forms of struggle. We are 100 % behind militant industrial struggle. fully support militant struggle by workers as a class and as individuals in the economic domain to resist the downward pressures of capital. In fact, in our view, the trade union movement has largely compromised and weakened itself by blurring this distinction as for example in the UK where many unions are affiliated to the capitalist Labour Party. Trade unions should stick to the economic domain where they work much better as militant organisations of the working class. Reformist struggles are qualitatively different in kind to industrial struggle since they are of a political nature and seek to impact on the way capitalism is administered in terms of policies. What those who are essentially advocating is reformism in the belief that it entails some kind of progressive dynamic which will lead us somewhere closer to achieving a socialist society. In fact all the historical evdience shows that your progressive changes lead to the abandonment of revolutionary socialism and the co-option of erstwhile revolutionary socialists into capitalism In any case it is nonsense to suggest that revolutionary socialism means "standing outside of the political process". This a terribly mechanical not to say narrow minded, concept of what the political process actually is.

Nor can we automatically assume that crises help to radicalise workers. In fact, there is strong empirical evidence to the contrary some, recent studies show that a crisis tends to make some workers more fearful of the future, more conservative and more conformist even though it might well radicalise others. One must never forget the lessons of pre-war Germany and the depression which helped to fuel the growth of the Nazi movement. Revolutions are not simply the result of social crises and class struggle, they are mediated by consciousness. The ideas themselves don't stand alone but are drawn from the class struggle and in turn recipriocally influence the struggle. Its a two way interactive process not a one way street. As far as a communist revolution is concerned while we may not know what shape the working class is in when it happens we do know that a significant majority must understand and want communism in order for a communist revolution to happen. Communism absolutely neccessitates conscious majority support and therefore a revolutiuon which does not have this conscious majority support will not be a communist revolution becuase the outcome will not be communism. The revolution is effected by the communist minded working class seizing power and declaring capitalism null and void. This is fully consistent, with the point about the seizure of political power by the proletariat being the precondition for the "historical process of revolutionary change". But in order for the proletariat to seize power and effect a revolutionary change it has to be substantially communist-minded in the first place. This is absolutely essential and is integral to the Marxian perspective. Engels points this out in the introduction to Marx's Class struggles in France "Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for [with body and soul]."

Of course, socialist consciousness comes through struggle not just propagandising. This is not an either/or situation. It is actually mutually reinforcing. The struggle gives rise to the ideas and the ideas in turn help to clarify and strengthen the stuggle. Part of my argument against reformism is that it actually weakens the position of workers. It doesnt radicalise them at all. It ties them politically to capitalism via capitalist political parties that aim to garner support through the advocacy of reforms. This is what workers need to reject. They will actually become much more militant in my view if they completely rejected the refromist illusion that capitalism can be moulded to accommodate their interests and if they came to regonise that the interests of workers are diametrically opposed to the capitalists. This is what revolutionaries should be doing - saying how it actually is not trying to dishonestly socially engineer workers into coming over to them by dangling reforms in front of them which they know full well are not going to modify the position of the exploited class. In the end if you do not break with the logic of capital completely and in ideological terms, if you do not explicitly advocate a genuine alternative to capitalism, there is no way on earth that you will ever create an alternative to capitalism. You will remain forever stuck in the reformist treadmill going nowhere. Although the ultimate aim of the radical fighting for a reform may be the self emancipation of the working class, it will never ever come to self emancipation of the working class precisely because fighting for reforms is a trap fromn which you will never ever escape unless you stop fighting for reforms and raise your sights higher. Capitalism cannot be reformed in the interests of workjers so fighting for reforms in the interests of the workers is fordoomed. It is simply a treadmill which will never lead on to anything else. "Radicalisation" is the result of an interaction between material struggles - workers organising on the industrial and social terrain - and communist ideas. Above all it involves the explicit and conscious embrace of the communist goal - a non market non statist alternative to capitalism. This is what truly constitutes radical in the sense of a root change.

There is no real evidence that it does lead to a communist outlook. Many radicals ultimately end up in in the ghetto of worthy liberal causes which only serve to fragment working class solidarity in plethora of separate struggles each demanding attention at the expense of others . Or they become disillusoned old cynics in later life and join the establishment. We dont say socialists need to stand on the sidelines and tell workers to drop their illusions and follow us. Firstly we reject the whole principle of vanguardism and leadership. Secondly we dont say we should stand on the sidelines. No revolutionary ever is on the sidelines anyway. This is a meaningless way of looking at this anyway. We are all involved in the class struggle whether we like or not or whether we are aware oif it or not. As workers we will join with our fellow workers in a union to fight the bosses in the indistrial field. We are simply members of the working class who has come to communist conclusions. We dont exist in some sense outside of the working class telling the working class what to do. This is an elitist leninist perspective which we abjure. As communist workers we will therefore put across communist ideas - about communism, about rejecting nationalism, racism and sexisim and so on and so forth. Speading ideas is essential. Everybody without exception believes their ideas are the right ones - otherwise they would not hold or expression them. Its got nothing to do with "leadership". Its what human beings do - talk, discuss , argue. If it is elitist in and of itself to express an idea then what you are trying to say is that we really should not express ideas at all . We should keep mum about our political vierws. That is quite absurd. If everyone followed that adviice there would be discussion about anything. People do develops their ideas as a result of hearing other ideas. This is not "idealist". Materialism does not deny the role of ideas, what it denies is the "independent" role of ideas, that social developments are completely explicable in terms of the impact of ideas alone. This is false but nevertheless it is quite true that all social developments involve an exchange of ideas between historical actors and could not happen without that.

Radicals talk of the need to have the ear and confidence of the working class. They want to say to workers "yeah, great carry on with your reformist struggles. We're with you all the all way" even though in their heart of hearts they know that this is a recipe for failure. This is not honest and dishonesty does not pay in the end. It is far better to say what you really think and feel to be the case however unpopular or out of touch it might might make you seem at the time. Workers wilkl not thank you for trying to lead them up the garden path and you will certainly not gain their confidence as a result. You stand to lose their confidence completely and this is in fact the story of the Left in general. It has marginalised itself precisely becuase of its opportunistic relationship with the working class.

Some on the Left have a kind of festishised view of "action" that there is something latent or inherent in the acts one carries out that somehow drives one forward into becoming a communist. This is wrong. Strikes, protests demonstartions and all these sorts of activities dont carry any necessary communist implications whatsoever. It is the interaction of ideas and actions which is what is needed. This is the point Im trying to make about radicalisation. If you ignore the importance of ideas and the necessity for a clear and explicit alternative to capitalism you will never ever pose a serious threat to capitalism. Never. Reformist struggle does not necessarily imply a passive working class. This is the point. Workers can be actively engaged in reformist struggles to get governements to introduce measures that they perceive to be in their economic interests. But in the end they actually help to weaken not strenthgthen the working class by tying it ideologically to capitalism, fostering the illusion that capitalism can be run in the interests of workers and entrenching their dependence on capitalist governments to do it for them.

Reformism

Our opposition to reforms and reformism are just because their objectives are palliative in nature and are fought for in order to make the system function more smoothly. Though we do not advocate reforms nor fight for reforms, that does not mean that we refuse to accept reforms, as though we could if we wanted to. Historically, reform activities have dissipated the earnest energies of socalled socialists from doing any socialist work, whatsoever. The need for reforms is an all-time job.

Let us define what we mean by reforms. They are efforts to introduce measures into the legal machinery of the state for smoothing out the operation of capitalism. The difficulties that arise from the irreconcilable contradictions of the system require “remedial” measures. Thus the advocacy and fight for reforms, such as nationalisation, social welfare, tax relief, and the host of proposals as can be found in the programs of all the “socialist” and “communist” parties that are geared to the amelioration of the conditions of life with a view to a better administration of capitalism.

Activities such as resistance to the encroachments of capital and the fight for civil liberties are equated with reforms, as though they were synonymous terms. Just two illustrations will suffice:-
1. Workers going out on strike over wages, hours, work-shop conditions, Their objective is to resist increased exploitation. This is not a reform activity. The economic phase of the class struggle, unionism, is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a reform. It is undeniable that many unions do engage in reform activities. But unions and unionism are not synonymous terms. Workers are compelled to organize into unions by the very conditions of capitalism, i.e., the division of the new value produced by the workers into its two component parts: variable capital (the workers’ share) and surplus value (the capitalists’ share). Through the mechanism of unionism, the workers, over the long run, sell their commodity, labor power, at its value. Value, Price and Profit is invaluable on this question. One quote will suffice:
“They [the workers] ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects and not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement but not changing its direction…”
2. Socialists fighting for civil liberties, the right to free speech , to publish and distribute literature, access time to TV, etc. Such measures as free speech, removing restrictions from the franchise and similar activities strengthen the workers movement to get rid of capitalism — and have nothing to do with reforming the damn system. The strength of the socialist movement is that it is the task of the vast majority. Democratic procedures are the essential conditions for the social change we are working for; they themselves are the special products of the material conditions of the 20th century. Civil liberties are revolutionary weapons in the hands of socialists and the socialist majority. This is not a reform activity. The fight by workers for their economic interests within the framework of capitalism is the economic phase of the class struggle. The fight for civil liberties within the framework of capitalism is a manifestation of the highest expression of the class struggle, its political phase.
The acid test: neither of these two illustrations have as their objective legislative enactments to administer capitalism. Reforms have no significant meaning in any other context. There are too many ways of classifying human beings to list them. But, when it comes to separating people into classes, the only reference that makes sense is to social-economic classes. “Class” in this sense is determined by how individual human beings stand in relation to the produced wealth of the world. Social-economic classes are not separated by color, sex, religion, etc. All propertied societies, from the warrior chiefdoms of the early nomadic tribes to chattel slavery, right down to modern times, have consisted of various social-economic classes.

Today, in modern capitalism, there are but two classes remaining: the working class and the capitalist class. The working class, regardless of colour, sex, religion, etc., do not have access to the wealth produced by society as a whole. They are property-less, in the real sense of the word. They obtain their main source of income from selling their labor power (muscles and brains) for wages. They are the vast bulk of humanity, even in the now-emerging new African and Asian countries. On the other hand, the capitalist class derive their income by virtue of their ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth. They, therefore, are the ruling class. I’m not speaking here as a “radical” or as an “intellectual.” Both appear to me to be bankrupt of understanding today’s world. I’m speaking as a revolutionary socialist who recognises the class nature of capitalist society; its dog-eat-dog jungle with its vicious conflicts that permeate its every fibre. It keeps workers divided into warring camps with “patriotism” and “national loyalties.”

The concept that the black worker is exploited by the white worker is but another form of that nationalism that contaminates modern society. The socialist analysis should recognise and emphasise the serious limitations of racial and nationalist views, even while sympathising with black people’s reactions against second-class citizenship. The success of the demonstrations will merely find the black worker “enjoying” the privileges of his white wage-slave brother. The economic beneficiary will be the black bourgeoisie. Civil rights are important socialist tools and weapons to carry on socialist education and propaganda and for the fight for them, we will march side by side with others but never under the banner of others. We will not be identified with non-socialists. Socialists are colour blind! Our sympathies are with the exploited of all colours. The great need of our times is working-class solidarity to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism. The inspiration of the Red Flag of socialism is a symbol of the red blood that courses through the veins of all human beings. We are all members of one species, Homo sapiens.

For years we have witnessed the “success” of a procession of practical efforts to rally workers to socialism by clever policies. We have seen the transformation of these advocates of socialist goals into supporters of the status quo — rebels who have been converted into supporters of the system. Their trademark has become reforming, improving and administering capitalism. Rebels become transformed into administrators of capitalist states, recruiters for capitalist wars. From Social Democrats to Bolsheviks, from Cuba and the Bolivarian countries to the new Afro-Asian nations?
In the name of building up a socialist movement among the masses, they have emasculated and compromised socialist principles. When elected, they have actually administered capitalism in the only way it can be administered, in the interest of the capitalist class, even to the extent of supporting capitalist wars and crushing workers on strike. They have complained that capitalist parties have stolen their planks (as though any capitalist party could steal a socialist program).
Question: Where are the convinced socialists they were going to make? Where are the socialist masses? Their practical, realistic policies have proven worse than illusory. They have failed to make socialists! Yet they continue to heap scorn and sneer at the World Socialist Movement for our small numbers. With smug omniscience, they dismiss the WSM as “ivory tower utopians,” “dogmatic sectarians,” “impossiblists,” etc. The real question is: — Who have ignored the lessons of experience?

We have been confronted and challenged by those who fight for something “in the meantime” and who are actively participating in the “workers’ struggles.” The lure and fascinationsof protest demonstrations and making demands is very attractive. (In a sense, it indicates how deep-rooted discontent with capitalism really is, and it demonstrates the latent strength of socialism once the masses wake up to the need for changing the system instead of adjusting to it.) But — and this is the vital point — these activities are not in harmony with the immediate needs of our time: the making of socialists. The lack of socialists is all that stands in the way of socialism, now.
In turn, we now put these guys on the spot by asking: Where are the socialists you have obtained by your efforts? Their vaunted “fresh approaches” prove to be very stale indeed. For years their antecedents — the Fabian socialists with their gradualism, the Labour Party with their enthusiasm for policy promises, the Bolsheviks with their “revolutionary” programmes and plans — actually gained victories on such policies and programmes. But on their hands is the recruiting of workers for capitalist wars and the crushing of workers on strike. All those “socialist governments” merely wound up administering capitalism for the capitalist class. WSM say : “If it is movement you want, take a laxative!”

“Socialist Activists” have had impressive “successes” and “victories” in very field except one. The lessons of experience and history have proven beyond any shadow of doubt that they have not remotely convinced the workers of the need for socialism. From the activities carried on in the name of socialism, the one thing conspicuous by its absence has been any mention of the socialist case. In common, the efforts of “socialist activists” — ranging from the CND anti-bomb demonstrators, through fighters for equal rights, to the administrators of both the social-democrat and “communist” varieties — have been geared to an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable contradictions of capitalism. With contempt, they sneer at the dumb workers and their backwardness. Such groups have been guilty of disillusioning the workers about real socialism. The great indictment of these activists is that they divert the workers from the genuine socialist movement, and have hampered the growth of socialism by many years. Were all that tremendous energy and enthusiasm harnessed in the genuine socialist work of making socialists, how much more the movement would have been advanced! The “practical realist” has proven to be an impractical utopian; the “activist” has proven to be the occupant of an ivory tower.

If anything has been amply demonstrated over the years, it is that “reforms” by “socialist” parties have not been able to change the real conditions of the working class. These “practical realists” with their “in-the-meantime” activities have sidetracked the movement from what is truly meaningful. All those dedicated energies have diverted overwhelming numbers of workers from genuine socialism. Had all these efforts and all that enthusiasm been devoted to socialist education, just imagine how much further advanced and inspiring the movement would be today. What is encouraging is that, in spite of them, we see some signs of the times that workers are waking up!

Once more based on the writings of Rab

Lennon was a rebel - Bono is a wonker

From the Washington Post

There is a fundamental difference between Lennon's activism and Bono's, and it underscores the sad evolution of celebrity activism in recent years.

Lennon was a rebel. Bono is not.

Lennon's protests against the war in Vietnam so threatened the U.S. government that he was hounded by the FBI, police and immigration authorities. He was a moral crusader who challenged leaders whom he thought were doing wrong. Bono, by contrast, has become a sort of celebrity policy expert, supporting specific technical solutions to global poverty. He does not challenge power but rather embraces it; he is more likely to appear in photo ops with international political leaders - or to travel through Africa with a Treasury secretary - than he is to call them out in a meaningful way.

Lennon merged his activism and his music: In 1969, "Give Peace a Chance" became the anthem of the movement after half a million people sung along at a huge demonstration at the Washington Monument. "Imagine" and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" expanded his antiwar repertoire.

Lennon paid a price for his activities. We now know from subsequent Freedom of Information Act releases that the FBI monitored and harassed him. In 1971, President Richard Nixon set in motion a four-year effort to deport him.

Bono had regular photo-ops and lunches with President George W. Bush, giving Bush much-needed publicity . For example, the singer appeared onstage with Bush at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington in 2002 . Bono even toured Africa with Bush's first Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, fully aware that the administration was capitalizing on his celebrity.
"My job is to be used. I am here to be used," Bono told The Washington Post. "It's just, at what price?"

On Bono's signature issue of poverty, for instance, why not call out a few of the oppressive regimes that keep their people impoverished - as well as the leaders, in the United States and elsewhere, who have supported them with economic and military aid? (Bono has acknowledged that "tinpot dictators" were a problem for aid efforts in the past but has not confronted today's despots and their enablers in rich nations.)

Bono calls global poverty a moral wrong but he does not identify the wrongdoers. He buys into technocratic illusions about the issue without paying attention to who has power and who lacks it, who oppresses and who is oppressed. He runs with the crowd that believes ending poverty is a matter of technical expertise. The technocratic approach puts him in the position of a wonk, not a dissident; an expert, not a crusader.Bono is not the only well-intentioned celebrity wonk of our age - the impulse is ubiquitous. Angelina Jolie, for instance, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (seriously) in addition to serving as a U.N. goodwill ambassador. Ben Affleck has become an expert on the war in Congo. George Clooney has Sudan covered, while Leonardo DiCaprio hobnobs with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders at a summit to protect tigers. The celebrity desire to gain political power and social approval breeds intellectual conformity, precisely the opposite of what we need to achieve real changes.

True dissidents - celebrity or not - play a vital role in democracy. Politicians, intellectuals and the public can fall prey to group-think need dissidents to shake them out of it. True dissidents claim no expertise; they offer no 10-point plans to fix a problem. They are most effective when they simply assert that the status quo is morally wrong. Of course, they need to be noticed to have an impact, hence the historical role of dissidents such as Lennon who can use their celebrity to be heard. We need more high-profile dissidents to challenge mainstream power. This makes it all the sadder that Bono and many other celebrities only reinforce this power in their capacity as faux experts. Where have all the celebrity dissidents gone?

William Easterly, professor of economics at New York University and co-director of NYU's Development Research Institute. Author of "The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good."

reforms to humanise capitalism

I find myself taking issue with the statement that “Chossudovsky demonstrates, that “world agriculture has for the first time in history the capacity to satisfy the food requirements of the entire planet, yet the very nature of the global market system prevents this from occurring…Famines in the age of globalization are the result of policy” [ http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/10/our-holocaustic-global-empire-wars-famines-slavery/ ]

The fact is that for several decades the world’s capacity to produce food has far exceeded the entire human population’s need for nourishment has been well known and documented . The problem has been much more fundamental than Chossuduvsky tries to present it. It is to do with the whole basis of capitalism. If you’ve got no money, or not enough money, you’re not part of the market. Food and farming policy has very little to do with meeting human needs, guaranteeing food security, providing high and consistent levels of nutrition and food safety. It’s all about profit: squeezing the maximum financial yield out of every link in the food chain to benefit a tiny number.This is no defence of the financial speculators but reminding ourselves that it is the system of buying and selling that results in food shortages. The poor simply do not constitute a market — there is no profit to be made out of selling food to the destitute, or from growing food for them. If the one dollar a day will not stretch to buying food, then too bad. Countries supposedly in the grip of famine hardly ever have an absolute food shortage, it’s just that the food available is sold to those who can afford to buy it or exported for consumption elsewhere.

The answer to the problems that global capitalism has engendered is not another policy that would still leave intact the basic structures and mechanisms of capitalism. Capitalism operates according to the rules of “no profit, no production” and “can’t pay, can’t have” and, as the world market system, is what is responsible for the desperate plight of most of the world’s population. Before anything lasting and constructive can be done about this, capitalism has to go. It is something much more far-reaching that is required , a rapid and radical change in the basis of world society that will make the Earth’s resources the common heritage of all humanity.

Too many try to control capitalism for the benefit of humanity, to humanise it. Like all reformers, they limit themselves to attacking features which they do not like and fail to realise that those features are integral to capitalism. What they are for is a more regulated capitalism. They merely want governments to intervene to try to control capitalism, to suppress its worst excesses.

not equal

Forty years after the Equal Pay Act was passed a study shows that male and female managers will not be paid the same until 2067. Women face a 57-year wait before their take-home pay is equal to that of their male colleagues

"Girls born this year will face the probability of working for around 40 years in the shadow of unequal pay," said Chartered Management Institute's head of policy, Petra Wilton.

Another in the eye for the reformists.

The SPGB - World Socialists

The Socialist Party of Great Britain are not the socialist "party" that Marx (or even our Declaration of Principles) envisages, ie the working class as a whole organised politically for socialism. That will come later. At the moment, the SPGB can be described as only a socialist propaganda or socialist education organisation and can't be anything else (and nor would it try to be , at the moment ). Possibly , we might be the embryo of the future mass "socialist party" but there's no guarantee that we will be ( more likely jusdt a contributing element). But who cares? As long as such a party does eventually emerges .At some stage, for whatever reason, socialist consciousness will reach a "critical mass" , at which point it will just snowball and carry people along with it. It may even come about without people actually giving it the label of socialism.

In 1904 the SPGB raised the banner for such a single, mass socialist party and proclaimed itself as the basis of such a party . Not only did the working class in general not "muster under its banner" but neither did all socialists. So although with a long history as a political party based on agreed goals, methods and organisational principles we were left as a small propagandist group, but still committed to the tenets set out in our Declaration of Principles. But we have never been so arrogant as to claim that we're the only socialists and that anybody not in the SPGB is not a socialist. There are socialists outside the SPGB, and some of them are organised in different groups. That doesn't mean that we are not opposed to the organisations they have formed, but we are not opposed to them because we think they represent some section of the capitalist class. We are opposed to them because we disagree with what they are proposing the working class should do to get socialism -- and of course the opposite is the case too : they're opposed to what we propose. Nearly all the others who stand for a classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless society are anti-parliamentary ( the old Socialist Labour Party being an exception). For the SPGB , using the existing historically-evolved mechanism of political democracy (the ballot box and parliament) is the best and safest way for a socialist-minded working class majority to get to socialism. For them, it's anathema. For the SPGB , some of the alternatives they suggest (armed insurrection or a general strike) are anathema. We all present our respective proposals for working-class action to get socialism and, while criticising each other's proposals, not challenging each other's socialist credentials .

The SPGB is the oldest existing socialist party in the UK and has been propagating the alternative to capitalism since 1904. A Marxist-based ( but perhaps a William Morris - Peter Kropotkin amalgam , some may say might be a better description ) organisation . It is a non-Social Democrat 2nd Internationalist , non-Leninist 3rd Internationalist , non-Trotskyist 4th Internationalist political organisation that is a formally structured yet leader-less political party ( under UK electoral law , a registered political party , which we are, has to name its leader and to comply the SPGB simply drew a name out of a hat and it is doubtful if any member recollects who it was ). We were in pre-1914 accusing the 2nd International of being non-socialist , and while we were throwing cold water on the 2nd International , the Lenins of the world were still adhering to the mistaken strategies and tactics .The SPGB never had to leave the Second International because we were never in.
The failures of post -1917 has only confirmed the SPGB case that understanding is a necessary condition for socialism , not desperation and despair . There is no easier road to socialism than the education of the workers in socialism and their organisation to establish it by democratic methods. Shortcuts have proved to be cul de sacs.

We share in common with the Industrial Workers of the World the view that unions should not be used as a vehicle for political parties . The SPGB have always insisted that there will be a separation and that no political party should , or can successfully use , unions as an economic wing , until a time very much closer to the revolution when there are substantial and sufficient numbers of socialist conscious workers . And thats not in the foreseeable future . It is NOT the SPGB's task to lead the workers in struggle or to instruct its members on what to do in trade unions, tenants' associations or whatever , because we believe that class conscious workers and socialists are quite capable of making decisions for themselves. For the Lenininist , all activity should be mediated by the Party (union activity, neighbourhood community struggles or whatever .) , whereas for us, the Party is just one mode of activity available to the working class to use in their struggles.
Even when the worker acquires revolutionary consciousness, the Socialist Party acknowledges that it is still necessary to engage in the non-revolutionary struggle of every-day life . But it is advocating the idea that THROUGH a policy or programme of reforms that the workers' situation can somehow be intrinsically improved or that it can progress towards the establishment of a socialist society that the SPGB adamantly refuses to recognise.The existence of the wage-workers depends upon their wages and it is not determined by legal law, but by the economic law of supply and demand. The condition of existence of the wage-workers is determined by the progress of the development of machinery, the concentration of capital, the proportion of the unemployed industrial reserve army. Social realities that are outside parliaments. Although the bettering of the conditions of existence by way of political reform is impossible, it is not the same as regards the conditions of fighting. To distinguish between the conditions of fighting and the conditions of existence is not to split hairs. There is a real difference. Some reforms would render the struggle of the proletariat more powerful, weakening capitalism - the right to strike and the right to picket, for instance.
The SPGB reject ALL forms of minority action to attempt to establish socialism, which can only be established by the working class when the immense majority have come to want and understand it. This is why we advocate using parliament. Not to try to reform capitalism but for the single revolutionary purpose of abolishing capitalism.What our capitalist opponents consequently do when the majority prevail will determine our subsequent actions. If they accept defeat, well and good. If they choose not to accept the verdict of the majority which is given through the their own institutions and contest that verdict by physical force, then the workers will respond in kind , with the legitimacy and the authority of a democratic mandate.

Clause 7 of our principles does commit the SPGB to "there can only be one socialist party" in any country in the sense of only one party aiming at the winning of control of political power by the working class to establish socialism. How could there be more than one socialist party in any country trying to win political power for socialism? It just doesn't make sense. If this situation were to arise then unity and fusion would be the order of the day.

Mandating delegates, voting on resolutions and membership referendums are democratic practices for ensuring that the members of an organisation control that organisation – and as such key procedures in any organisation genuinely seeking socialism. Socialism can only be a fully democratic society in which everybody will have an equal say in the ways things are run. This means that it can only come about democratically, both in the sense of being the expressed will of the working class and in the sense of the working class being organised democratically – without leaders, but with mandated delegates – to achieve it. In rejecting these procedures what is being declared is that the working class should not organise itself democratically.

Those who know of the SPGB have noticed that we don't go out of our way to recruit members. Some would in fact say we do just the opposite. At first sight, we seem to have an odd approach to recruitment of any political party in existence - we actually have a test for membership.The SPGB will not allow a person to join it until the applicant has convinced the branch applied to that she or he is a conscious socialist. Surely it must put some people off? Well, that may be, but it can't be helped. There would be no point in a socialist organisation giving full democratic rights to those who, in any significant way, disagreed with the socialist case. The outcome of that would be entirely predictable.
This does not mean that the SPGB has set itself up as an intellectual elite into which only those well versed in Marxist scholarship may enter. The SPGB has good reason to ensure that only conscious socialists enter its ranks, for, once admitted, all members are equal and it would clearly not be in the interest of the Party to offer equality of power to those who are not able to demonstrate equality of basic socialist understanding. Once a member, s/he have the same rights as the oldest member to sit on any committee, vote, speak, and have access to all information. Thanks to the test all members are conscious socialists and there is genuine internal democracy, and of that we are fiercely proud.
Consider for a moment what happens when people join other groups which don't have this test.The new applicant has to be approved as being "all right". The individual is therefore judged by the group according to a range of what might be called "credential indicators". Hard work (often, paper selling) and obedience by new members is the main criterion of trustworthiness in the organisation. In these hierarchical, "top-down" groups the leaders strive at all costs to remain as the leadership , and reward only those with proven commitment to the "party line" with preferential treatment, more responsibility and more say. New members who present the wrong indicators remain peripheral to the party structure, and finding themselves unable to influence decision-making at any level, eventually give up and leave, often embittered by the hard work they put in and the hollowness of the party's claims of equality and democracy.

The SPGB hostility clause ,"to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist" is certainly unique and even within the SPGB it has always been subject to regular debate. Concerning the hostility clause, it is one issue that can justifiably put down to the 19th century social democrat roots of the SPGB since it stems from the early members experience of the SDF and the Socialist League. William Morris together with Aveling, Eleanor Marx, Belfort Bax and other members of the SDF, resigned and issued a statement giving their reasons, for "a body independent of the Social Democratic Federation". Yet they added : "We have therefore set on foot an independent organisation, the Socialist League, with no intention of acting in hostility to the Social Democratic Federation” . The main weakness, as some saw it, of the Socialist League was that it "had no intention of acting in hostility" to the SDF. When the Socialist Party was formed, its members made certain that their Declaration of Principles would include a hostility clause against all other parties (such as the SDF) who advocated palliatives, not socialism. Given the context when it was drawn up that the early members of the SPGB envisaged the party developing fairly rapidly into a mass party, not remaining the small educational group that it has done up to the present ), what it says is that when the working class form a socialist party this party is not going to do any election or parliamentary deals with any other political party, either to get elected or to get reforms. Basically, the hostility clause applies to political parties, organisations aiming at winning control of political power. In fact, in the eyes of those who drew it up, it was about the attitude that a mass socialist party (such as along the lines of the German Social Democratic Party was then seen to be albeit with its warts and all ) should take towards other political parties.
Importantly , the hostility clause doesn't mean that we are hostile to everything . There are a whole range of non-socialist organisations out there, ranging from trade unions to claimants unions to community and tenants associations to which we are not opposed. Clause 7 does not mean that "if you are not with the SPGB, somehow you are automatically anti-socialist". Of course, there are, and always, have been socialists outside the party in the sense of people who want to see established, like us, a classless, stateless, wageless, moneyless society based on common ownership and democratic control with production solely for use not profit. The party has in fact always recognised this, right from the start, seeing some other groups as socialists with a mistaken view of how to get there. Clearly, such people and such groups are not in the same category as openly pro-capitalist groups . What about some of the anarchists, the original SLP? Of course there are socialists outside the SPGB, and some of them are organised in different groups, some (like us) even calling themselves a "party". That doesn't mean that we are not opposed to the organisations they have formed, but we are not opposed to them because we think they represent some section of the capitalist class. We are opposed to them because we disagree with their proposed method of getting rid of capitalism rather than because of the hostility clause. That opposition doesn't have to go as far as hostility. Our attitude to them is to try to convince them that the tactic they propose to get socialism is mistaken and to join with us in building up a strong socialist party. Of course, if we think that the tactic they advocate (such as minority action or armed uprising or a general strike by non-socialists) is dangerous to the working-class interest then we say so and oppose them. We are opposed to them because we disagree with what they are proposing the working class should do to get socialism -- and , of course , the opposite is the case too , they are opposed to what we propose. We agree to disagree . Comradely disagreements. We cannot see any alternative to the present situation of each of us going our own way, putting forward our respective proposals for working-class action to get socialism and, while criticising each other's proposals, not challenging each other's socialist credentials. In the end, anyway, it's the working class itself who will decide what to do. For the moment, "our sector" , the thin red line, is condemned to remain an amorphous current. At a later stage, when more and more people are coming to want socialism, a mass socialist movement will emerge to dwarf all the small groups and grouplets that exist today. If this situation were to arise then unity and fusion would be the order of the day.

In the meantime, the best thing we in the SPGB can do, is to carry on campaigning for a world community based on the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth's natural and industrial resources in the interests of all humanity. We in the SPGB will continue to propose that this be established by democratic, majority political action. Other groups will no doubt continue to propose your own way to get there. And , in the end, we'll see which proposal the majority working class takes up. When the socialist idea catches on we'll then have our united movement .
The SPGB does not claim that socialist consciousness will come to dominate the working-class outlook simply as a result of the activity of socialists. The movement for socialism must be a working class movement. It must depend upon the working class vitality and intelligence and strength. Until the knowledge and experience of the working class are equal to the task of revolution there can be no emancipation. The SPGB's job is to shorten the time, to speed up the process - to act as a catalyst. This contrasts with those who seek to substitute the party for the class or who see the party as a vanguard which must undertake alone the sectarian task of leading the witless masses forward.

As a matter of political principle the SPGB holds no secret meetings, all its meetings including those of its executive committee being open to the public. This means that all its internal records (except, understandably , for the current membership names and addresses which remains confidential ) are open to public consultation. In keeping with the tenet that working class emancipation necessarily excludes the role of political leadership , the SPGB is a leader-less political party where its executive committee is solely for housekeeping admin duties and cannot determine policy or even submit resolutions to conference (and all the EC minutes are available for public scrutiny with access on the web as proof of our commitment to openness and democracy ). All conference decisions have to be ratified by a referendum of the whole membership. The General Secretary has no position of power or authority over any other member being a dogsbody. Despite some very charismatic writers and speakers in the past , no personality has held undue influence over the the SPGB.

We need to organise politically, into a political party, a socialist party. We don't suffer from delusions of grandeur so we don't necessary claim that we are that party. What we are talking about is not a small educational and propagandist group such as ourselves, but a mass party that has yet to emerge. It is all about understanding limitations and they will be subject to change when conditions change. The main purpose of the SPGB at the moment is to (a) argue for socialism, and (b) put up candidates to measure how many socialist voters there are. The SPGB doesn't go around creating myths of false hopes and false dawns at every walk-out or laying down of tools but will remind workers of the reality of the class struggle and its constraints within capitalism and as a party unfortunately suffers the negative consequence of this political honesty.

Anton Pannekoek, the Dutch writer on Marxism, writing in an American magazine, Modern Socialism, said: "The belief in parties is the main reason for the impotence of the working-class . . . Because a party is an organisation that aims to lead and control the workers". He qualified this statement. "If . . . persons with the same fundamental conceptions (regarding Socialism) unite for the discussion of practical steps and seek clarification through discussion and propagandise their conclusions, such groups might be called parties, but they would be parties in an entirely different sense from those of to-day"
The SPGB position is that it was not parties as such that had failed, but the form all parties ( except the SPGB) had taken as groups of persons seeking power above the worker. Because the establishment of socialism depends upon an understanding of the necessary social changes by a majority of the population, these changes cannot be left to parties acting apart from or above the workers. The workers cannot vote for socialism as they do for reformist parties and then go home or go to work and carry on as usual. To put the matter in this way is to show its absurdity. The Socialist Party of Great Britain and its fellow parties therefore reject all comparison with other political parties. We do not ask for power; we help to educate the working-class itself into taking it.
Pannekoek wished workers' political parties to be “organs of the self-enlightenment of the working class by means of which the workers find their way to freedom” and “means of propaganda and enlightenment”.

Which is almost exactly the role and purpose hoped for by the Socialist Party of Great Britain's present members .

The working-class movement has vacillated between four different roads:
1 ) The armed conquest of power by a small determined group which would hold on to power until the majority were converted – Blanquism
2 ) The seizure of the means of production and distribution by some form of industrial action – Syndicalism
3 ) The accomplishment of ever more sweeping reforms until capitalism had been reformed out of existence and society had “glided” into socialism – Reformism
4 ) The conquest of power by a majority of class-conscious workers antagonistic to reform policies, spurning leadership, using democratic methods, and imbued with the single aim of abolishing the capitalist ownership of the means of production and distribution in order to replace it by common ownership – Socialism.

In the history of the working class movement a variety of different parties have been formed; some following one or other of the above roads
Trying to change capitalism, or "reformism" is the one that has been taken by most people who have wanted to improve society. We do not deny that certain reforms won by the working class have helped to improve our general living and working conditions. Indeed, we see little wrong with people campaigning for reforms that bring essential improvements and enhance the quality of their lives, and some reforms do indeed make a difference to the lives of millions and can be viewed as "successful". There are examples of this in such fields as education, housing, child employment, work conditions and social security. Socialists have to acknowledge that the "welfare" state, the NHS and so on, made living standards for some sections of the working class better than they had been under rampant capitalism and its early ideology of laissez faire, although these ends should never be confused with socialism.

However, in this regard we also recognise that such "successes" have in reality done little more than to keep workers and their families in efficient working order and, while it has taken the edge of the problem, it has rarely managed to remove the problem completely. Socialists do not oppose reformism because it is against improvements in workers' lives lest they dampen their revolutionary ardour; nor, because it thinks that decadent capitalism simply cannot deliver on any reforms; but because our continued existence as propertyless wage slaves undermines whatever attempts we make to control and better our lives through reforms. Our objection to reformism is that by ignoring the essence of class, it throws blood, sweat and tears into battles that will be undermined by the workings of the wages system. All that effort, skill, energy, all those tools could be turned against class society, to create a society of common interest where we can make changes for our common mutual benefit. So long as class exists, any gains will be partial and fleeting, subject to the ongoing struggle.What we are opposed to is the whole culture of reformism, the idea that capitalism can be tamed and made palatable with the right reforms.

We oppose those organisations that promise to deliver a programme of reforms on behalf of the working class, often in order to gain a position of power. Such groups on the Left , often have real aims quite different to the reform programme they peddle. Many of the Left are going to put before the working class only what they think will be understood by the workers - proposals to improve and reform the present capitalist system- and , of course they are going to try to assume the leadership of such struggles as a way of achieving support for their vanguard party. These Left parties may try to initiate such struggles themselves and they will try to muscle in on any struggles of this sort that groups of workers have started off themselves.But it's all very cynical because they know that reformism ultimately leads nowhere (as they readily admit in their theoretical journals meant for circulation amongst their members, though not in the populist, agitational journals). The purpose in telling workers to engage in such struggles is to teach them a lesson, the hard way which is the only way some on the Left think they can learn i.e. by experiencing failure. The expectation is that when, these reformist struggles fail the workers will then turn against capitalism, under the Party Leadership.It is the old argument, advanced by Trotsky in his founding manifesto for the "Fourth International" in 1938 , that socialist consciousness will develop out of the struggle for reforms within capitalism: when workers realise that they can’t get the reforms they have been campaigning for they will, Trotsky pontificated, turn to the "cadres" of the Fourth International for leadership.In fact the working class never never happens so all that's achieved is to encourage reformist illusions amongst workers .The ultimate result of this is disillusionment with the possibility of radical change.

It can be summed up in the following:
1 ) The working class has a reformist consciousness.
2 ) It is the duty of the Revolutionary Party to be where the masses are.
3 ) Therefore, to be with the mass of the working class, we must advocate reforms.
Further:
4 ) The working class is only reformist minded.
5 ) Winning reformist battles will give the working class confidence.
6 ) So that, therefore, they will go on to have a socialist revolution.
Thus:
7 ) The working class will learn from its struggles, and will eventually come to realise that assuming power is the only way to meet its ends.
8 ) That the working class will realise, through the failure of reforms to meet its needs, the futility of reformism and capitalism, and will overthrow it.
9 ) That the working class will come to trust the Party that leads them to victory, and come a social crisis they will follow it to revolution.

It all relies upon a notion of the inherently revolutionary nature of the working class and that through the class struggle this inherently revolutionary character will show itself. Although , it hasn't.
Its also flawed because it shows no reason why, due to the failure of reform, the workers should turn to socialism. Why, since it was people calling themselves socialists who advocated that reform, don't they turn against it, or even to fascism? Under the model of revolution presented by the Trotskyists the only way the working class could come to socialist consciousness is through a revolution is made by the minority with themselves as its leaders.This, then, explains their dubious point about needing to "be" where the mass of the working class is. It is the reason why a supposedly revolutionary party should change its mind to be with the masses, rather than trying to get the masses to change their minds and be with it. They do not want workers to change their minds, merely to become followers. Their efforts are not geared towards changing minds, or raising revolutionary class consciousness.

What of the Labour Party ? They did seek to reform capitalism in the hope that perhaps a sudden change will take place and capitalism will prove to be a fair and fulfilling society for all its members. Now , as the natural conclusion to reformism has completely overrun them, they are a simple party of capitalist maintenance, with objectives of some form of new society being not just shunted into the background but completely out of existence. They are now more dedicated than ever to running with optimal efficiency the very system that creates poverty, misery, homelessness and war. Keeping the system and trying to make it work against its logic is not a viable option. Such reformism has been tried over the years and has failed. Those who set out to change society through winning political power and reforms have had to accept what was always inevitable, that reformism is a graveyard for such hopes. For anyone wishing to bring about a new and better world, reformism requires a pact with the devil. Where the forming of a government means being sucked into running the system. This is what has happened to the Labour Party.

Over decades, millions of workers have invested their hopes in so-called ‘practical’, ‘possibilist’ organisations like the Labour Party, hoping against hope that they would be able to neuter the market economy when, in reality, the market economy has successfully neutered them. they turned out to be the real ‘impossibilists’ – demanding an unattainable humanised capitalism – is one of the greatest tragedies of the last century, made all the greater because it was so predictable.They held idea that capitalism could be reformed into something kindly and user-friendly. It couldn't and it can't.

Socialists understand well the urge to do something now, to make a change. That makes us all the more determined, however, to get the message across, to clear away the barrier of the wages system, so that we can begin to build a truly human society. Why waste time fighting for half measures? We would better spend our time, energies, and resources educating people to establish socialism rather than waste time in the false belief that our present system can be made to work in everyone's interest.We do not claim “capitalist reforms” stand in the way of achieving socialism. If we did we'd logically have to oppose them; which we don't. We encourage workers to fight back against employers and, although we don't propose or advocate reforms, we don't oppose them if they genuinely do improve workers' lives under capitalism. What we say is not that they are obstacles to socialism but merely that they are irrelevant to socialism and that a socialist party should not advocate reforms.

If you are convinced, however, that groups or parties promising reforms deserve your support, we would urge you to consider the following points.The campaign, whether directed at right-wing or left-wing governments, will often only succeed if it can be reconciled with the profit-making needs of the system. In other words, the reform will often be turned to the benefit of the capitalist class at the expense of any working class gain. Any reform can be reversed and eroded later if a government finds it necessary. Reforms rarely, if ever, actually solve the problem they were intended to solve.Socialists make a choice. We choose to use our time and limited funds to work to eliminate the cause of the problems. One can pick any single problem and find that improvements have taken place, usually only after a very long period of agitation. But rarely, if ever, has the problem actually disappeared, and usually other related problems have arisen to fill the vacuum of left by the "solution".

If the view remains that the struggle for reforms is worthwhile then imagine just how many palliatives and ameliorations will be offered and conceded by a besieged capitalist class in a desperate attempt to retain ownership rights if the working class were demanding the maximum programme of full and complete appropriation and nothing less . To stem the socialist tide the capitalist parties will sink their differences and draw closer together, much as religions do today in the face of the world avalanche of atheism. Reforms now derided as Utopian will be two a penny - in an attempt to fob
off the workers. Perhaps, for example, capitalism will provide a batch of free services, on the understanding that this is "the beginning" of a free society, but socialists will not be taken in.

If a pipe bursts and the water is flooding the house , one can start bailing the water out while it continues to flow in , or one can turn the water off, and then start bailing it out . It may take a while to find the tap, but unless the water is turned off, the water will continue to rise and bailing is rather pointless. Socialists are not immune to the human tragedies which occur daily, by the millions, and which generate thousands of social activist groups trying to stem the tide. Socialists suffer those tragedies as severely as anyone else, but work to encourage people to find the tap and turn it off.