SOCIALISM EXPLAINED

The state is, fundamentally, an organisation of force.

It exists because there are unequal social classes. It is used by the capitalist class to suppress workers, through protecting the means of production as the private property of capitalists.

The means of production are factories, plants, facilities, machines, and so on.

The state is used by working people to take ownership of the economy, so that the economy belongs to the people who operate it.

It does not mean persecuting workers who are self-employed.

Social ownership of production means that everyone in society has equal relations to property. This eliminates economic inequality and abolishes social class.

Without social class, there is no group to oppress, and so the state, without a function, does not function at all. The conditions that gave birth to the state would have been ended.

Without a planned economy, there is no way to ensure full employment.

Capitalism consistently operates under capacity. This means empty facilitates, full of productive machinery, while those who could operate it are unemployed.

That’s not an accident.

Competition for jobs drives wages down. If 1000 people are willing and able to fill one post, the employer can choose the cheapest from a large pool of workers, all undercutting the cost of each other’s labour to secure the job.

If there are only a handful of people to do a job, wages cannot be forced down as far.

Near-full employment would leave employers with a very small pool of potential workers, forcing wages to increase or stay the same.

Capitalism is not freedom. Capital is a condition of freedom under capitalism.

What does that mean?

In order to have “freedom” of choice, you must have capital (wealth/property).

For example, those with capital can choose not to work.

Those without capital must find employment in order to buy food, clothes, shelter, etc. or to maintain acceptable living standards, although workers often live in poverty anyway. This means they have to sell their ability to work. The capitalist exploits the worker.

Employment does not provide workers with a wage that would allow them to accumulate enough capital to leave employment. This is a form of coercion, which holds the capitalist economy together.

In other words, the purpose of the wage is to ‘keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer’.

This slogan is sometimes attributed to Marx. In fact he’s not the author, and warns about misusing it.

Pro-capitalist commentators abuse this phrase, claiming a socialist state would seize all property and redistribute it according to perceived need.

In socialism, workers collectively decide what to produce and how. They democratically decide what to do with the products. This leads to more equitable distribution of the wealth they produce.

A “socialist state” does not alienate workers from the fruits of their labour. On the contrary. It exists to stop wealth being taken from those who produce it.

Only in a state of superabundance, where co-operative labour has provided all workers with more than they need or want, might society voluntarily choose to distribute on the basis of need.

The working class, or proletariat, are waged employees. They rely on this wage to survive.

They are hired to make money (surpluses) for their employers. In order to keep a job, workers must create more wealth than they receive in wages.

Employers collect these surpluses. Everything left after wages are paid is profit. Employers therefore receive more wealth than they create.

How profit is created and distributed (simplified).

Under capitalism, the wealth dynamic resembles that of older economic systems - lord and serf, or master and slave.

In each instance, those who work create surpluses, and in turn may receive enough to survive, but not enough to escape reliance on the exploiter.

The use of ‘exploiter’ is not moralistic. Under capitalism, individuals must be one or the other - employer or employee, exploiter or exploited. The relationship is systemic.

Wage competition between workers forces wages down.

When workers cannot live on the wage, the capitalist state subsidises the employer through welfare schemes.

Workers compete for jobs. Employers choose those who will accept the lowest wage.

As poorer nations entered the market, employers moved jobs en masse to those places. Workers do the same work on very low wages.

This created mass unemployment in the countries where capitalism began.

Without an income, individuals cannot buy what capitalists are selling. Workers in poor countries can’t afford the products of their labour - wages are too low.

Welfare programmes, although they were won by workers, create a consumer base in the countries left behind by industrial capitalists (they enable the unemployed to buy).

The market depends on the capitalist state. They appear antagonistic, but the capitalist state continually saves the market from extinction by its own hand (this is a ’bourgeois dictatorship’).

The emancipation of workers allows every section of society to become innovative.

Profit doesn’t drive creativity, it excludes innovations on the basis of profitability.

The capitalist era has indeed seen an explosion of productivity. The goal of socialism is not to halt progress, but to make the fruits of progress available to society.

An example:

Mechanisation in factories results in higher output with less labour. Jobs are lost, while work hours are as long as is legal.

Because socialism is able to provide targets based on social demand, and can plan to include the entire workforce, higher outputs result in much shorter work hours and more leisure time. Innovation may also result in a better product, which in turn benefits everyone who uses that product, including the innovator.

The drive to enrich one’s own life is of course still present, even when those benefits are distributed democratically.

It is also in the interests of the whole of society to provide for those who devote most of their time to technological progress.

The capitalist state standardises education around the requirements of the job market. Most available jobs require little more than basic literacy and numeracy, informing the limits of education for the majority of workers.