Britain Needs Socialism
The essential problems facing the British people stem from the nature of modern capitalist society. Only when this system is replaced by socialism, by the social ownership and democratic control of the means of production, distribution and exchange, together with socialist planning, can Britain's problems really be solved.
Economic Power
In Britain today the capitalist class through its ownership of wealth holds economic power.
Apart from small personal savings and perhaps a house, the vast majority of British people own nothing but their labour power, their ability to work.
But half of personal property in Britain is owned by 2 per cent, (2 in every 100), of the population.
The wealth is produced by those who work by hand and brain, far in excess of the wages they are paid. The surplus goes to the capitalist owners or shareholders as profit. This is capitalist exploitation, the basis of all forms of rent and interest.
A capitalist system is inevitably marked by sharp social contrasts, gross inequality of opportunity.
Modern capitalism makes mockery of the old argument that rent, interest and profit were deservedly earned by the enterprise and the risks taken by capitalists freely competing with one another.
Driven by the urge for higher profit and in fierce competition, capitalism has developed from small scale production in its early years, to present large scale production, in which a few giant firms dominate all branches of industry.
The drive towards further mergers is an economic law of capitalism. It results in greater and greater concentration of economic power in fewer and fewer hands, and the interlocking of industrial and financial capital. Super trusts are created which do not confine their activities to one country, but straddle national frontiers. The process continues with Labour or Tories in office.
Oil, metals, chemicals, electrical engineering, motor vehicles and aircraft - all are now dominated by a handful of privately owned concerns.
While small British firms are swallowed up by larger ones, some of these in turn are swallowed by American Combines with complex international ties. Some major industries cease to be solely in British hands.
As in productive industry so in the retail trade. Small shops are swallowed by chain stores and supermarkets. The working people pay more and more towards the high profits of the finance companies operating hire purchase, insurance and mortgages.
The trend to greater mergers has been enormously speeded tip in the last few years, with the deliberate encouragement of the Labour Government. More and more the question is arising, either overwhelming economic power in private hands, dictating the whole course of the national life, making a farce of democracy, or power in the hands of the people.
Political Power
It is not only economic power that is in the hands of the capitalist class. Political power, state power, is in the hands of the same class. The key state organs which exercise authority in Britain are under the control of the same great monopoly groups who control the wealth of the country and serve their interests.
Governments - Labour and Tory - come and go, but the key officials of state go on. Persisting through every change of government are the heads of the armed forces, the police, the security network, the top civil servants in the main ministries, the judges, the controllers of the nationalised industries.
Those selected for these posts have in the main, because of birth and education, training or career prospects, deep loyalties to capitalism, are conditioned to see their task as making capitalism work, and regard socialism as subversive.
Modern monopoly capitalism attacks all the essential rights and liberties that have been won over many years of struggle by the working people. In the years before the second world war the attack on democracy took the form of open fascism. Today in different conditions it takes different forms. But as the crisis of the political system and of democracy deepens, the drive to dictatorial and authoritarian rule is growing in many countries.
In Britain Parliament is by-passed more and more as the power of the executive grows. The very conception of Parliamentary democracy is under fire as the call is made for coalition government or rule by businessmen. There are increasing encroachments on the powers of local authorities.
Trade union democracy is under attack. The monopolists, with the backing of the Labour Government, are seeking to replace collective bargaining by state control of incomes and salaries, to incorporate trade unions into the machinery of state, to overturn trade union rights won over decades of struggle.
People are divorced from the process of decision making or control in the affairs of the country. The growth of monopoly is now incompatible with democracy. It is becoming ever clearer that for democracy to become real, political power must be taken out of the hands of the capitalist class and put into the hands of the people. Capitalist democracy must become socialist democracy.
Ideological Power
The capitalist class does not only hold political and economic power. The same small groups increasingly control the instruments of education, of the arts, of ideas. By direct takeover, or through the stranglehold of advertisement revenue, or carefully selected appointment, there is growing monopoly control of the mass media, the means of communication, the fields of artistic expression, of everything that influences the minds and attitudes of the people.
A handful of great magnates control the daily press, except for the Morning Star. Large circulation magazines and journals have come into the same hands. So have extensive holdings in television. Publishing firms are being amalgamated. In every sphere artists depend for their livelihood on smaller and smaller numbers of commercial concerns.
Power, economic, political, ideological is concentrated in the hands of a small minority who use it to serve their own interests at the expense of the vast majority.
State Monopoly Capitalism
Stage by stage British capitalism has developed to monopoly capitalism. This had already taken shape at the end of the 19th century and led to a great flow of British capital overseas to exploit other peoples and their resources. Monopoly capitalism, the basis of imperialism, has now developed to state monopoly capitalism where the capitalist state is intertwined with the great banks and monopolies.
The reasons for this development are many. One has been the political advance and economic growth of the socialist world which has constituted a challenge to capitalism. Another has been the determination of the working class at home to retain a high level of employment and a steady advance in living standards. A further reason has been the winning of national independence by former colonies. This has resulted in British imperialism establishing new forms of state activity on be— half of the monopolies, in order to maintain and extend the economic exploitation of these newly independent countries. This is a new form of colonialism - neo-colonialism.
Then again the British economy has been developing more slowly than that of other capitalist states, and competition with industries abroad has become sharper. The great monopolies in industries with heavy capital outlay are forced to maintain a high level of output and profits; and this can only he done with state aid, to rationalise processes on new lines, and in particular, to introduce automation. Time and again private industries have been generously subsidised by the state.
For all these reasons state intervention in the economy has increased rapidly.
It was within the framework of state monopoly capitalism that nationalisation of a limited number of industries — electricity, gas, railways, coalmining and steel - was developed. Reorganised at public expense, their policies were subordinated to the interests of the private sector. They provided high compensation to former owners (many of whom, though opposed to nationalisation, were put on the governing boards), heavy payments for new capital, and cheap services for privately-owned industry.
Britain's Crisis
Yet with all this pouring out of public funds there has been no far-reaching reconstruction of industry or the economy, though British productive power is greater now than at any time in our history, and could be multiplied many times by the planned application of automation and other scientific and technological advances.
Instead the country faces recurring crises which arise from the imperialist basis of the economy. Britain, having lost its direct political control over most of its former colonies, strives to hold on to those that remain, and still more, to exploit the newly independent states which are struggling to overcome the effects of colonialism; poverty, hunger and economic backwardness. The giant monopolies which dominate Britain also dominate the economies of these countries. There are still massive investments in most of them, as well as in other areas where the monopolies have special interests, including the oil regions of the Middle East. Controlling these investments is the financial centre of British imperialism, the City, which continues to exercise its extensive powers.
This policy involves the maintenance of costly overseas military bases, adventures abroad and huge armament programmes which would otherwise provide resources for many vital reforms at home.
The overseas bases and troops are there to influence economic and political developments; and if necessary to intervene - by any means including military - in the internal affairs of the countries involved. The profits from these investments go into private hands; the cost in lives and money is borne by the people.
The British people and those in these overseas territories therefore have a common interest in working together to defeat the domination of these big monopolies.
Since the end of the second world war Britain's involvement in the cold war against the socialist countries, and in wars against the national liberation movements has been in large measure the result of the continued efforts to maintain its imperialist position.
The high rate of overseas investment and the heavy expenditure on overseas bases and troops are formidable obstacles preventing the country securing a favourable balance of payments and building up monetary reserves. These are factors in the ever recurring balance of payments crises, aggravated by speculation on the part of home and foreign holders of sterling. This is why deflationary policies—credit squeeze, high interest rates, wage freeze, unemployment—are declared necessary to safeguard the pound, and devaluation carried through; why the economy is continually thrown into recession, bringing in its turn a fall in investment which holds back development on all sides.
The endeavour to preserve as much as possible of the imperial framework—political, military and financial ——to uphold the interests of the monopolies and financiers has weakened Britain step by step, and led to her dependence on the strongest and most aggressive imperialist state, the United States of America. The US is pursuing a similar policy with far greater resources in South—East Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Europe too. The British Government gives its support to the US and seeks US support in return.
Acceding to the demand of the monopolies and joining the Common Market would undermine British independence still further.
The cost and burden of armaments which flow from the Government's imperialist policy distort the economy and hold up essential modernisation of industry as well as social development. Besides penalising the people it puts our industry in a straitjacket compared with that of other states.
These policies are carried through whatever government is in office, Tory or Labour.
The People and the Crisis
The Government and the ruling class make every effort to put the burden of the crisis on the working people. The rich grow richer while the living standards of the majority are under constant attack.
Through the incomes policy wages and salaries are held back, while the cost of living soars. Taxation of the people is heavily increased; but profits rise and taxation of the rich has relatively declined.
The Government, through its economic policy, has deliberately created unemployment, and this is worsened as mergers and rationalisation go ahead. As a result the working people are more heavily exploited and the gap between the wealthy and the poor grows greater.
Thus throughout recent years, in a period when technical advance has leapt ahead, there has been a steady growth of poverty.
In Britain today millions of people are living at or below the poverty level. They include those in the families of the lowest paid workers, many of the unemployed and their families, many of the chronic sick, millions of old people and children.
The deep contradictions of the present social system are to be seen too within the social services, working within the framework of monopoly capitalism.
Whilst a health service has been introduced, largely financed from contributions and taxes, private firms make enormous profits from selling drugs, goods and services. Local councils are empowered to build houses and schools, but the methods of providing finance compels them to pay hundreds of millions a year in interest charges to the banks. Funds to pay such interest must be found from local sources, including rates. Meanwhile private building firms make big profits on extensive contracts. Property owners can become millionaires overnight from speculative investment in land and houses.
The funds for social services have been grossly inadequate—lower, as a proportion of the Gross National Product than most countries of Western Europe. Private enterprise has been able, as a result, to extend its activities in social insurance with a rapid growth of private pension funds, and in housing.
Public housing provision and planning have been subordinated to profitable commercial development schemes and private enterprise estates. This has been accompanied by a growth in the number of homeless families, a deterioration of slums long overdue for clearance, increasing chaos in towns and cities. There is no more vivid example of private affluence leading to public squalor.
That a small minority can pay out of private income for spacious housing, lavish educational facilities, privileged medical attention is not just in striking contrast to the disabilities of the poor, but a built-in class barrier, a denial of democracy.
Socialism the Solution
Two courses are open. Either the present accelerating trend will continue, will increase monopoly control over all our lives, still further undermine democracy and prevent Vital reforms. Or steps must be taken to secure full command of the nation's resources, wrest power from the few, end the exploitation of the developing countries, and use the wealth produced by the people for the welfare of the people. There is no middle way. The only path of advance is towards socialism.
Socialism is the logical way to meet the present need for public finance and planning, for larger industrial units, for growing social services. Socialism means public control of economic resources and matches public expenditure with public need.
The economic basis of socialism is public ownership of all important means of production, distribution and exchange. Politically it is power in the hands of the working people. And this above all is what Britain needs.
Socialism will enable the community as a whole to profit from all increases in productivity, all advances in science and application of technological discoveries, and this without the present fears of redundancy, unemployment, rising prices and cuts in wages.
It will draw into the organs of government, the planning boards, the administration of the social services, the judiciary, men and women who believe in socialism, and understand the problems of the industries and services concerned and of the people as well. It will bring a new quality of life for individuals, for the nation as a whole. By ending exploitation it allows people to make their own future, and by freeing creative energies ensures that the future will bring economic, social and cultural advances.
That is why socialism has been the aim, the guiding light of the pioneers of the labour movement and of tens of thousands in succeeding years down to today. The aim of establishing the rule of the working people in place of rule by the owners of property, has lit up what has often been a path of bitter struggle for elementary rights.
We today are heirs of that struggle and the democratic rights gained in the course of it. It is for us to consolidate those gains, and make the step for which so many have striven and which is so essential for the welfare of Britain.
Today socialism is a reality for all to see. Countries with a population of hundreds of millions are socialist states. Working class power has transformed backward Russia into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with a most advanced industry, science and technology. Other socialist states are developing fast. Hundreds of millions more have ended the political rule of imperialism and achieved national independence. The working class and progressive movements are growing stronger in the remaining capitalist countries.
This new relation of forces in the world opens up new possibilities for further advance to socialism. There are now in some countries possibilities of winning political power without armed struggle. Such a peaceful, democratic advance to socialism can, in the Communist Party's view, be achieved in Britain if the great majority of the people desire it.
But this road does not lie open. It has to be opened up and kept open by the struggles of the working people. And in these struggles the labour movement has to take the lead.