The Road To Socialism

 

The road to socialism is not easy, that’s for sure. Two hundred years after the word ‘socialism’ was first used we still seem no closer to realising it. For the most part socialists content themselves with opposing the forces of reaction that rage around us. But, if all we do is stand on the sidelines shouting that things could be better we are little better than those men who used to frequent town centres with their ‘The End Is Nigh’ signs. Still can’t decide whether they were genuinely crazy or amazingly prescient.

 

I am going to propose that the mistake of the left historically is to over-estimate their own role in the process. This is based, in part at least, in my understanding of the Hegelian influenced views of Karl Marx which came to be called dialectical materialism. What this unwieldy sounding phrase means is that things hold within them the seeds of their antithesis. To put that simply, if you think of a daffodil, it was first a bulb. The bulb held within it the daffodil, and in becoming a daffodil the bulb was transformed out of existence.

 

Apply this to society and we can suggest that as capitalism transformed feudalism out of existence, so socialism will (eventually) transform capitalism out of existence. Socialism is not a break from capitalism, but rather it’s completion. For those who think of socialism as a totally different sort of society this might take a little convincing. The fact is without capitalism there could not be socialism. For it is capitalism, big bad nasty capitalism, that has provided socialism with all the tools it needs for the future socialist society. 

 

Think of the tools we have, and try to forget about how the tools are in others hands for a moment. We already have democracy, we have expanded the productive capabilities of the Earth to provide in abundance for everybody (admittedly not without some environmental issues), we have roads, rail, and an infrastructure even the Romans would have envied, we have hospitals, schools, farms, factories, even offices and shops at least some of which might still be useful. Perhaps, most crucially we have technology which allows us to connect beyond our immediate environs. Indeed, almost everything we need to take humanity to a new level already exists. So when people say what will socialism look like, the answer is much like this only better and arranged to the benefit of all not a few.

 

This all being true there are a couple of minor hitches. Namely, the avaricious rich and the comfortable, smug, middle classes who do all they can to support the rich. Unfortunately, between them these groups control parliaments, war machines, propaganda industries and indeed just about everything else. So, how do we prise their control from them?

 

One possibility, the one dreamed of by generations of socialists, includes the equivalent of storming the Bastille. Or, an armed insurrection a la Fidel Castro. I’m not saying these would not be effective or desirable but they would also involve many people giving their lives in what might well be a futile gesture. There is nothing romantic about being dead incidentally. But I see this happening another way. Change will most likely come at a time of shortages and hardship, as people take to the streets against their rulers, and as their rulers lose their legitimacy by failing to provide the basics. The middle classes, so important in maintaining the status quo, will lose faith in the ruling class and quite likely defect to the class that seems best equipped to provide it with something resembling the lifestyle to which they feel they are entitled (entitlement figures large in middle class life, as I’m sure you know).

 

Harvard academic Erica Chenowith has calculated that it takes just 3.5% of the population to affect radical change. But the crucial factor in successful movements are general strikes which, she says “are probably one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, single method of nonviolent resistance.” A successful “revolution” can not occur by disgruntled middle class lackeys turning on their erstwhile providers. They do not have anything like the power they like to think. 

 

I hesitate here to use the word revolution because it has become a cliché. And, whilst revolutions do occur they are usually the end of an evolutionary process. But, the transformation to socialism is likely to be brought about by general strikes of manufacturing workers who still comprise a sizeable portion of the workforce. In the USA almost 12 million workers are employed in manufacturing. In the U.K. in 2018, according to government statistics, manufacturing accounts for 10% of GDP, but 42% of exports. It employs almost 3 million people.

 

What Marx called the industrial proletariat has not disappeared as many sociologists would have you believe, but has simply relocated. Of course, general strikes will involve more than just industrial workers: teachers, nurses, firefighters, office workers, bar workers will all play a role. I used to think that workers were most likely to take action when times were good, because they had more confidence. That may be true, but it is also true that when times are good and profit margins high employers can make concessions which can always be taken back at a later date.

 

Transformative change will not occur when the capitalist class and its lackey class are themselves confident. This is why the gradual, reformist road to socialism proposed by generations of Labour Party activists is so wide of the mark. In good times those reforms are used to buy off radicalism. In bad times they are snatched back from a movement weakened from within. 

 

There is a balance between demands for change and the capacity of the system to allow that change. The reason those of us in the so-called developed nations have decent homes, jobs, holidays, access to education, even the vote was not because capitalists are a benign group of humanitarians, but rather because generations of ordinary people have fought for better conditions. By constantly moving capital, and importantly production, around the globe the ruling class have been able to buy off dissent at home whilst maintaining profit margins. Our better standards of living have been bought at the expense of exploited workers elsewhere. But rather than feeling guilty about that it is the job of socialists to stand with those workers as they pressure capital for the conditions we take for granted.

 

Capitalism has always relied on pitting workers against each other. There is no particularly good reason to discriminate against people on grounds of gender or ethnicity. From a capitalist perspective one worker is pretty much the same as another. However, individual capitals do benefit from playing off workers against one another. If male workers think they are worth more than female ones it helps keep the wages of both lower than they would likely be if they were united. So the transformation to socialism will have to sweep away centuries of prejudice and discrimination. And, it is here that socialists (together with other radical thinkers who don’t necessarily identify as socialists) come in to the equation.

There are some on the left who believe that they can foment socialist revolution. But, revolutions do not occur because of revolutionary parties. Revolutions occur when there is a class who can no longer rule and a class that can rule ready to replace them. Socialists however are not engaged in fruitless activity. Well, not necessarily and not by design. It is important that as we get closer to a period of upheaval that the new dominant ideas are not just a variant of the old ones. If humanity is to progress it is not just the material basis of socialism that is important, but the ideas that accompany it.

 

For some people on the left, the socialist revolution will sweep away all the old ideas and we will all live happily ever after. Of course, this is a fairytale. At the point of transformation millions of people will be cut adrift with all their beliefs challenged by circumstance. We can imagine who they will blame for the loss of their certainty. And, it won’t be capitalism. How strong socialism is at this intersection of decaying capitalism and emergent socialism may well be crucial in whether we do, as Rosa Luxemburg said, descend into barbarism or rise into a socialist future. Arguments had in the here and now, ideas spread through social media, discussions among fellow socialists will help to shape the future.

 

What is important is to realise that there is an end goal. Not a Labour (UK) or Democrat (USA) victory at an election, but the goal of influencing the transformation of society when it inevitably occurs. The more discussed socialist ideas are, the more we counteract the vile racist, sexist, nationalism of the mainstream, the more likely the end of capitalism will result in a freer, more democratic, more equal society rather than the authoritarianism which lurks on our horizon permanently.

 

The road to socialism is in sight. As capitalism is unable to survive its own contradictions, it will result in shortages, strikes, mass demonstrations. Has this process begun? Possibly, I don’t know. How will we know? Can’t help there either. Which demos, which strikes, which shortages will be fatal to the capitalist epoch it is not possible to say. As socialists we must prepare ourselves for the possibility it won’t happen in our lifetime, but at the same time keep the flame burning so that if it does we are not a tiny minority. We can’t make socialism happen, what we can do is ensure that the idea of socialism grows to that of a counter dominant idea.