Sceptical about Socialism (1984)

Letters to the Editors from the April 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader—Mr. R. Alderson of Manchester, who describes himself as a "socialist sceptic"—has sent us a number of discussion points for our reply. 

Question: 

Is either Historical Materialism or Dialectics relevant to the socialist cause, or do they add unnecessary complications?

REPLY: 

Historical materialism—the interpretation of human history by reference to the prevailing mode of wealth production—is essential to the socialist case because it provides the only valid understanding of history and of why and how capitalism must be replaced by socialism. The dialectical method, within this interpretation, is useful in its understanding of the motive forces in social evolution.

Question: 

Throughout the history of human society the relations of its members to the means of production, which Marxists take as the determining characteristic of various distinguishable stages or types of society, have always grown from imperceptible beginnings. Socialist relations of production—common ownership and control—by definition cannot grow, but have to be established ready made, world wide. You can't have “creeping common ownership". Isn’t this a disabling condition?

REPLY: 

In previous social revolutions the conflict between social relationships and the mode of production has been expressed in the rise and growing power of a minority to challenge the ruling class, also a minority. Such revolutions have been the exchange of one set of oppressors for another. The socialist revolution will be basically different: it will be a change carried through in the interests of the working class, the majority. In that sense it cannot validly be compared with former revolutions. One function of capitalism has been to develop the means of production to the point at which socialism is materially possible; now it needs the working class to understand socialism and to opt for it. to take over society and run it in their interests.

Question: 

The general political consciousness has always lagged behind changes in production relations in social history. The latter grow independently until they conflict seriously with the old order. The conflict is more or less prolonged, more or less violent. When the new production relations gain the ascendancy, the general political consciousness becomes geared to the fait accompli. The socialist revolution would need to achieve the exact opposite: a growing socialist political consciousness preceding any material change in production relations. Is this possible? 

REPLY: 

There has yet to be a social revolution based on majority political consciousness, in the interests of the majority. To that extent, this question is not valid but it must be said that capitalism has itself made possible the birth and the spread of socialist ideas, by refining the class structure down to only two opposing classes, by improving communication so as to emphasise the international nature of class interests, and so on. 

Question: 

Since virtually every means of influencing people—press, television, radio, film, theatre, literature etc.—is controlled by capital, how can the socialist cause assert itself?

REPLY: 

Socialism could do with a lot more publicity. but if political consciousness depended on the capitalist media a socialist movement could never have been established, let alone survived. Nor would workers ever come out on strike, nor would they protest against the effects of capitalism. Ideas spring from material conditions. and reflect those conditions; people who want a socialist revolution are not to be impressed by propaganda in favour of keeping capitalism.

Question: 

It is said that the contradictions and crises of capitalism educate the working class in the need to replace capitalism with socialism. What evidence is there to sustain this claim? 

REPLY: 

The most immediate piece of evidence is that all the protests about the effects of capitalism, as well as the more vital, radical socialist movement, arise from the contradictions of capitalism. Socialists oppose these protests as reformist but we recognise that they are aimed at capitalism's contradictions and crises. Socialists have taken the matter further, are alive to the futility of reformism and protest and have concluded that the contradictions can be removed only by the abolition of capitalism.

Question: 

There can be no socialist revolution without first having a majority of socialists. That’s the first principle of the SPGB. A socialist society would be a rational and planned affair: no place for irrational prejudices like racism, chauvinism, corrective institutions, greed for power and so on. The irrational and the myth have been part and parcel of the human character down the ages. It’s conceivable that in a socialist society they could no longer endure. But how do you eradicate them first in order to establish socialist society? Isn’t this a dilemma? Is the working class itself the fatal obstacle to socialism?

REPLY: 

Socialists may become impatient with the lack of political consciousness among the working class which is indeed, at present, an obstacle to our propaganda. But the human race has not been so wedded to irrationality and myth that it has failed, at crucial points in its history, to take decisions which fitted in with its needs. This is not necessarily “rational" behaviour, only a response to the demands of material conditions. Socialist awareness is not a matter of people becoming more "rational", but of them understanding that the problems of capitalism can be solved only by a fundamental social change. Socialism will not be the ultimate, perfect, rational system; it will simply be one in which the contradictions of capitalism, including such as racism, chauvinism and the rest, will have been eradicated.

Question: 

The working class is overwhelmingly apathetic or even hostile to serious political philosophy. Its ignorance of capitalism and socialism is due to sheer lack of interest. Would there have to be an unprecedented breakdown of the social order before it questions capitalist society? If there were such a crisis isn’t it certain that: parliamentary democracy be suspended, revolutionary parties be outlawed, emergency rule be enforced? Another world war?

REPLY: 

Socialists have come to their consciousness. and have built a movement—and Mr. Alderson himself has come to some political awareness—without a breakdown of the social order. Such a breakdown is more likely to result in a socialist party finding it very difficult, if not impossible. to survive, than in an upsurge in working class awareness of socialism. Capitalism will not collapse into socialism; however depressingly low the level of workers’ understanding there is no alternative to working to raise it to the point of revolutionary action.

Question: 

There is a heartbreaking need for socialism as the only solution to man’s problems. And all (!) that is missing is the subjective dimension—socialist consciousness. But then, this has always been the case. Socialism was needed 500 years ago, 1,000 years ago. x years ago. The idea of socialism or communism had always been around, it wasn’t discovered by Marx; it didn’t originate in the epoch of capitalism. True, only today can we create an abundance of social wealth. But had the subjective dimension been present in the past, a co-operative commonweal would have been built which would have obviated most of the ills that bedevilled subsequent history, and a world of free access would already be ours. There was never any such need for feudal or capitalist societies; they were simply able to evolve from small beginnings independently of any mass consciousness. Socialism can’t do this! It has always been the absence of the subjective dimension! Ease of communication notwithstanding, is it any nearer today than it was 1,000 years ago?

REPLY: 

The important question is of course why the "subjective dimension” was absent. The people of feudal society, with their ideas fashioned by the material conditions of their time, could not have conceived of socialist society let alone operated it. Of course a very small minority held theories out of their time, so that ideas about human equality, about a society organised on the lines of human priorities and so on have been around for a long time. But they were little more than idealism, before the material and social developments needed for them to become reality had taken place. It is misleading to talk in terms of past social systems not being necessary; history moves along broad guidelines, there is a pattern to it within which there is room for accidental. even inexplicable, developments. What is important in understanding history, and using that knowledge, is that there is the force of expansion in the means of wealth production and that this must result in a drive to change social relationships. Those relationships exist within a pattern, or a system, which must change in line with changing material conditions. Socialism will come about through one such change.

EDITORS.