Society and Morals. Part IX. Socialism, Its Economic and Theoretical Basis
From whatever point of view it may be examined, the capitalist mode of production is seen to be involved in economic difficulties, social anomalies, and logical inconsistencies, such as no previous system at any time of its existence has ever presented. And though these are chronic enough to-day, there is every evidence that in the future they will become immeasurably more pronounced. Marx and Engels detected many of these contradictions even in the immature capitalism of their day, and made a forecast of their development which has been fulfilled with remarkable accuracy.
Moreover, they were successful in showing the anomalous phenomena of capitalism to be but the effects of a fundamental, inherent contradiction rooted in the very base of the system, and this discovery became of supreme importance in forming the theoretical basis of Socialism.
Production is to-day a thoroughly social process, involving the co-operation of millions of interdependent workers in every corner of the globe. A modern factory, by reason of the fine division of labour which an up-to-date machine plant necessitates, organises its thousands of “hands” into interdependent association. Industries are now so mutually dependent that the cessation of a single one can cause the stagnation of nearly every branch of production. This interdependence is not confined merely within national boundaries ; it transcends them and is to a growing extent international. A Lancashire factory may work up cotton grown in Egypt or India with machinery of American make. The same applies to distribution, for the products are scattered from their place of production among people of every clime and colour. A modern grocer’s shop, however small, contains products of all the continents.
In strong contrast, however, to the socialised form of the labour process is the method of its control, which is distinctly anti-social. This embracing, world-wide process upon which the very life of organised humanity depends is only allowed to operate conditionally upon its yielding a profit to a small and diminishing section of society, the capitalist owners of the means of production. Thus the socially produced produce of industry is not created primarily for social use and consumption, but for private profit, and in this we have the basic anachronism of existing society, a little analysis showing that therefrom flows the whole flood of complications which we have noted above.
It was the co-operative character of production by machinery, imposed upon a basis of individualist handicraft which completed the separation of the workman from the “tool” he used and gave rise to a class of capitalist owners on the one hand and of propertyless workers on the other. This caused the wage-system to become universal by making it necessary for the worker to sell his labour-power, and the wage-system is the immediate cause both of the poverty, drudgery, and slavery of the workers, and of the riches, idleness, and mastership of the bourgeoisie.
Moreover, where labour products are circulated throughout society and yet the object of production is individual profit, the products become commodities to be exchanged in the market value for value. Now, as we have seen the greatest difficulty which capitalist society experiences to-day is a result of the commodity nature of all its products—the problem of the sale of its gigantic output of profit-bearing merchandise.
We see, then, that the social anomalies of capitalist all spring from the fundamental inconsistency between socialised production and anti-social control and appropriation. They are the symptoms of a social disease. First as the growth of industry at an earlier stage in evolution was fettered by feudalism, so now the forces of production have out-grown the social relations of capitalism ; the existence of capital, of the wages system, of class distinctions no longer assists, but fetters and cramps the process of economic development. When feudal society was moving headlong towards its fall the landed nobles became parasitic, useless incumbrances ; like them the bourgeoisie have lost their once important social function. The day when they personally superintended the process of production has gone for ever. Increase in wealth and the growth of trusts and combines have transferred this function to employed managers and foremen to members of the working class. The capitalists are real social parasites, rendering no social service and yet living in ever-greater luxuriousness upon the riches of society.
Capitalism to-day shows every mark of a system ripe for revolution. The longer this is delayed the more terribly chronic become the vicious effects of its internal contradictions. Marx and Engels not only showed that capitalist society was doomed to dissolution, they essayed the equally important task of working out the form of society which would supercede the existing system. Knowing that society could not be re-constructed according to any abstract ideals of social perfection and moral justice, they realised that the form of the post-revolutionary organisation could only be inferred from the analysis made of existing conditions of production, and that only in outline. This position was one of the most important and pronounced departures from the methods of the Utopians.
According, therefore, to the Marxian conception the transformation of the future can and will only be the re-adaptation of the method of controlling industry and appropriating its products so as to conform to the social nature of the process of production itself, and the only conceivable way of achieving this is by the community taking over the ownership of all the means of production and distribution and using them for the satisfaction of the needs of all its members.
Upon the abolition of capitalist society those contradictions and problems which are its necessary result will disappear also. With the possession of the land, the forces and mechanisms of production vested with the entire community, an idle, proprietary class will no longer exist. The comfort and security of each member of society will then advance in exact ratio to the of the powers of production. A few hours necessary labour daily would provide comfort, security, and leisure for all, thus leaving the opportunity for aesthetic, scientific, and recreational pursuits universally available. The introduction of improved or new machinery which to-day results in intensified toil and poverty for the workers, will then serve either as a means of increasing the wealth and security of the society, or of lessening the expenditure of productive labour. The problem of the overproduction of wealth would be unthinkable with social distribution, not private increment, the aim of the productive process. And with the disappearance of commercial and industrial rivalry will go the cause of modern wars among civilised peoples, and thus with the abolition also of class subjection the necessity for armaments and that coercive organisation we call the State. Man will cease to be the victim of economic forces beyond his control, and will consciously mould and develop his industrial powers and social organisation to ever-increasing advantage.
Socialism and the Classes
Had the founders of modern Socialism done nothing more than show the desirability and pressing need for communal ownership and control in production and distribution they would still have been little in advance of the Utopians whom they so severely criticised. But Marx and Engels accomplished more than this : they linked Socialism with the real succession of events in the actual life of the present by showing the manner by which, if the whole teaching of history, combined with existing tendencies, was to be trusted, the Socialist revolution would inevitably be brought to pass. This was, perhaps, their crowning achievement and that which constituted the most striking severance of Marxism from Utopianism.
Reasoning, not only from the history of past revolutionary periods, but also from the facts of society, Marx and Engels concluded and declared that the Socialist movement could never receive support from the capitalist class. To the bourgeoisie, capitalism is the best of all possible systems. Every one of their institutions, political, literary, intellectual, and religious, has for its primary function the preservation of the existing relations of production, the safe-guarding of capitalist property, and the perpetuation of the wages system. The establishment of communist production and distribution necessarily implies the complete obliteration of class distinctions the abolition of economic privilege and exploitation in every form. The whole history of capitalist society justifies the belief that the bourgeoisie will resist to the uttermost such an assault upon their clann position.
But the capitalist class forms only a small section of the community. On the other hand, far more numerous, impoverished, oppressed, with less security of livelihood than a chattel-slave, stand the propertyless mass of wage-workers. This class, even when impregnated with capitalistic ideas, is compelled to recognise in a half-conscious way, that its interests and those of the employing class are distinctly different, and is compelled to engage in a constant struggle to maintain its standard of living against the profit-increasing encroachments of the capitalists. It is from the proletarians, who have nothing to lose but their chains, that any modern revolutionary movement must draw its strength, and it is to this class that the Socialist movement primarily appeals.
This brings us to one of the basic principles of Socialism. We have seen the important part which class-struggles have played in past revolutions ; recognising this, the Socialist movement founds itself not only upon an adequate appreciation o£ existing class antagonisms and their tactical implications, but it relies upon the struggle of the working class against the capitalist class for the achievement of the social revolution. Socialists believe, as the founders of their movement believed, that the proletariat reaching a consciousness of their class interests will act in accordance therewith, dethrone the capitalist class from political power, and with their own hands erect that industrial democracy which will mean to them emancipation from the enslavement of the wages system.
To-day the workers as a class are not revolutionary. For them to become so implies a great mental change. We have seen how successfully bourgeois vehicles of thought, such as the schools and the Press, have given the workers a capitalistic outlook. Is it possible and likely that they will ever be able to throw off these baneful influences and come to a realisation that their interests lie in social revolution ? The Socialist answers, yes ! The process will doubtless be slow, but there are two powerful agents which further it—economic and social developments and Socialist propaganda. The former is the more important, for the Socialist, unlike those Utopians who worshipped at the shrine of “reason,” knows that masses of men have never been moved to effect social changes through mere argument, however logical they may be, unless reinforced by interest, by the sting of outraged feeling. It is experience of the bitter fruits of capitalism that will have the dual effect of undermining the sophistries of capitalist apologists and of imparting to the proletariat a frame of mind conducive to the acceptance of revolutionary ideas. The real function of Socialist propaganda is to clarify and organise the vague anti-capitalist thoughts already present in the minds of discontented workers, by educating them as to the true nature of capitalism and the means of their emancipation, thus giving to the working-class movement an objective which social development demonstrates with ever-increasing vividness to be both desirable and possible. The Socialist movement is thus the highest expression of the working class movement, based as it is upon the clearest and most thorough-going recognition of proletarian interests, and that is why we have stated that Socialism alone provides a real proletarian system of morality.
R. W. HOUSLEY