Editorial: Progress is socialism (1982)

Editorial from the October 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The Socialist Standard in June devoted a page to a sort of dictionary, a brief guide to an understanding of the way capitalism distorts and abuses the language we speak. A society in which the useful majority are deprived of the full fruits of their labour, as part of their relationship with a parasitic minority, has a political urgency to do this; it is part of a justification of the legalised robbery, repression and murder of millions of useful human beings.

Thus what is called peace is in fact a state of continuing but undeclared warfare and of industriously building up a more fearsome means of destruction. What is called prosperity is a condition in which tens of millions suffer varying degrees of deprivation, from simple poverty to outright destitution, homelessness and starvation. What is presented as truth is really a mixture of differing depths of deceit, from casuistry to outright lies. The list could be extended almost indefinitely.

One particularly striking example of this is the word progress, which is abused and misused with such persistence that any sensitive person would do well to take guard whenever they hear it uttered. Not so long ago, in the mouth of Tony Benn (then Minister of Technology), progress was represented by supersonic airliners which would boom their shattering way over our aching heads. It is motorways which carve their concreted, frantic route through countryside which once offered a green respite in the workaday life. It is nuclear power stations, which threaten to seep their radioactivity into the atmosphere for us to inhale and absorb. Or it is a human made potential volcano like Canvey Island. Progress is concentrated industry, urban stress, pollution, speed, a more pressured exploitation in employment.

Occasionally, some worried voice — or some ambitious investigative journalist — will compose a questioning piece on the effects of “progress”. Is asbestos production progress, remembering its devastating effects on the human lung? Is lead dosed petrol an unmixed benefit, considering what it does to our brains and other vital organs? Under pressure, industry might be compelled to admit that what they call progress is not wholly good for us. But the argument will not be allowed to rest there; progress, it will be claimed, is innately beneficial and has some rewards in store for us and must therefore be endured, much as clerical hacks preach to us on the benefits of enduring earthly burdens to prepare us for the mythical joys of heaven.

It would also be claimed that "progress'’ must not be obstructed because it enhances profitability. Concorde threatened to torture us because it was hoped to be a money spinner for the British and French aircraft industries. Motorways are supposed to provide faster and cheaper transport of commodities; nuclear power stations, we are assured, can turn out low cost energy to industrial users. And so on.

This justification is specious if for no other reason than that profitability will also put the brakes on progress. Capitalism has a history of more efficient, safer, happier methods of production which have been left to moulder simply because they did not fit in with the current scheme of profitable operation. It also has a history of the destruction of wealth already turned out — notably of food while millions of people are starving — and of means of production and distribution left idle when it is not profitable to put them to use. In the present recession, for example, factories, steel mills, coal mines are being shut down and ships and aircraft are being laid up because it does not pay to keep them going.

Thus this profit-motivated social system acts as a restraint on production. Capitalism does not encourage material progress; it hampers it. It is an obstructive, reactionary society and those who are concerned for human progress should pay first attention to this massive fundamental reality.

Capitalism does not operate in this way through an accidental obscurantism, which could easily be adjusted or eliminated. It is basic to a system of class ownership of the means of production and distribution, and to the production of wealth as commodities, that progress will be obstructed when it does not meet the system's profit priorities. If there is to be real, permanent progress, there must be a real, permanent change in society. Such a change can come about only through a basic social  realignment.

By this we mean a social revolution. The only effective way of dealing with capitalism's problems is to abolish it. This can be achieved in only one way — by the replacement of private ownership of the means of living with common ownership of them. This revolution will establish a new society in which wealth will be freely available to all human beings, to satisfy their every need and desire. Socialism will have no differing qualities of wealth; there will be no reason for anyone conceiving, designing, or producing anything which is less than the very height of their abilities. In socialist society, everything we make will be the best we are capable of.

Socialism will thus liberate all human talents and skills. There will be such an explosion of abundance, beauty and satisfaction as to be inconceivable to us now, in this cramped and crippled life under the social relationships of capitalism. Socialism will be a massive advance in human society and will lay down the path to further achievement. It will be progress — historical, social, material and moral. In that understanding, it is clear that progress is something we have yet to experience.

And we should not overlook another, heavily significant advance for which socialism will be responsible. Humans will no longer speak in language distorted by the political need to justify an unjustifiable social system. Socialism will liberate and purify the means in which we communicate with each other. As part of the human intercourse in a society of freedom and abundance, words will take on a new richness. Socialism will be progress.