Introduction to Practical Socialism: Its Principles and Methods

The following is Pieter Lawrence's introduction to his book, 'Practical Socialism: Its Principles and Methods' . The book was originally published online in 2006.

Introduction

In its ideal self image, politics sees itself as building a better world for all. But even granted the sincerity of any such intention, in practise, it is mostly about the pursuit of conflicting interests. The political process is about the winning of power to secure those interests. With this achieved politics is then about the exercise and retention of power. 

Inevitably, this carries with it an inherent tendency to corrupt.  This may not mean corruption in its crudest form where public office is used for personal gain. This certainly happens but together with this, there is the corruption of ideas in which principles are abandoned and movements are betrayed.  This spreads to the corruption of language which allows the actions of career politicians to be masked by fine rhetoric and a contrived public image. This is the corruption of truth in an age of ‘spin’ that conceals reality behind false appearance. Of all corruption, this is the most insidious and dangerous. We suffer it in plague proportions.

Politicians are said to be ‘all the same,’ and what is ‘all the same’ is held in low esteem. Promises are made and broken whilst hopes remain unfulfilled. Optimism gives way to failure and disillusion. At the beginning of the 21st Century with fewer people voting there has been a withdrawal from the political process. This may be a passing phase but what seems continuous is a mood of creeping cynicism which has spread from politics to a culture of pessimism in which books, drama and film depict moral decline, violence, social breakdown and the rule of brutal  regimes.

This outlook is in great contrast with the optimism that marked the beginning of the 20th Century.  Then, there was strong belief in progress. Science and technology seemed to promise abundant wealth and an end to poverty. As knowledge of the world expanded, education promised to end ignorance. In its place enlightenment and tolerance would replace the divisions of racism, religion and nationalism. People in the developed countries looked forward to a world of co-operation, democracy, peace and prosperity.

This belief in progress was reinforced by the new powers of political action that came with the extension of the vote. For the first time the majority of people were able to form political parties and elect representatives to the centres of power. Throughout the 19th Century, trade unionists, agitators and radical theorists had refined their ideas on how to build a new way of life. Common to these ideas was the principle that to provide for human needs should be the main object of society. These ideas elevated the values of democracy, co-operation and care for all people in place of class divisions, privilege, greed and exploitation. This combination of ideas, organisation and legal rights grew in strength and together with other progressive movements fuelled the optimism with which many people looked forward to a new world order.

But a century later we have to accept that none of these hopes have been realised. The past 100 years heaped tragedy on tragedy. Poverty was not abolished.  Instead, technology refined the world’s death machines and this enabled the killing of more people than in any previous century. Countless millions died from hunger and disease.  The new millennium arrived with more than 800 million people seriously undernourished. 40,000 children suffer preventable death every day. The ravages of war, poverty, and economic breakdown have continued unabated. In their turn these problems have continued to feed conflict and the worst excesses of religious, racist and nationalist intolerance.

As part of its most hopeful outlook the 19th Century had developed the ideas of socialism. A long debate eventually set out the object and principles through which communities in a socialist world could share a life of equality and common interests. It was a life enhancing vision that saw co-operation as the way to serve the mutual needs of all people. Socialism arose partly from the great movement of ideas that we now think of as scientific humanism. The same century that saw all life as the product of evolution also came to recognise that human relationships were not fixed in time but were a product of history. It was recognised that through an understanding of relationships and the causes of problems it was possible to change the way we live and to bring our social arrangements into line with our needs.  Socialism set out a great future for mankind but it was more than a vision, it was based on a refined system of criticism that embraced politics, economics and history and which led to principles of sound action. 

But during the 20th Century the idea of socialism also became a victim of the corrupting powers and the relentless world wide spread of the capitalist system.  All that is best in humanity, our energy, skills and talents, our science and technology and our progressive ideas were made subject to the aims of a ubiquitous profit system. Developed in its proper meaning as an alternative society, the name of socialism was given to the running of parts of capitalism by the State. Eventually, the meaning of socialism was turned into its opposite. In its worst image socialism came to be associated with the power of state bureaucracies to oppress. Beyond reason it came to be identified with tyrants like Stalin and his absolute rule over the so called Socialist Republics. Even Nazis sought credibility by calling their movement National Socialist!

Despite such distortions which began with the good intentions of Labour Parties and social democrats and ended with the cynical use of socialism by every brand of modern tyrant, socialism does have a clear meaning which distinguishes it from capitalism.  Socialist theory has set out the economic limitations of political action under the capitalist system and predicted its failures. It has clarified the fallacies on which many of the century’s false expectations were based. This comes as close as any body of political ideas can to being scientific and its lessons have been ignored at great human cost.

Though socialism may be argued from a comprehensive body of political and economic theory it can also be argued simply as a practical way to liberate all the creative forces of life from their present economic constraints. Socialism would be organised solely for the interests of all people  and would operate with a combination of vital freedoms; the freedom to apply all useful resources to providing for needs; the freedom to make democratic decisions about the priorities of community action and the freedom to carry out those decisions in the most efficient way.

The first task of socialism will be to solve the great social problems of capitalist society. This will be co-operation to produce more food, to provide housing, sanitation and clean water for the hundreds of millions who endure sub-standard conditions or who live in squalor; to provide health services; to construct a safe world energy system, to stop the despoliation of the planet and the pollution of its atmosphere, seas, forests and lands; to provide for education, enjoyment and world contact. These are the great projects for which world socialism would release the immense resources of useful labour that are now exploited, misused or wasted by the insanities of the profit system.

Socialism will operate with one simple and ordinary human ability which is universal; the ability of every individual to co-operate with others in a world wide community of interests. For this, co-operative labour must have free access to all the means of production, distribution and the earth’s resources which are our common inheritance. As well as its abundant natural wealth everything in this inheritance has only one source which is useful work in all its variety. This has been the work of arts and crafts; science and technology; mining and industry; tool making and manufacturing; building, farming, transport; services such as health and education. All these skills represent the accumulated power of useful labour. Wherever we look throughout the world we see the best things it can do once it can flourish in freedom for the needs of all people.

Useful labour is a power that is shared in common between all humanity, rising above the differences of race, culture and language and the various routes through which communities have emerged from history. From this diversity and in co-operation, useful labour can enrich all human experience. In every world problem, in every common hope that remains unrealised, and in every common experience of failure and disillusion, is the voice of useful labour demanding its free expression. Properly defined and set out as a clear objective world socialism provides its political direction.

Beyond the madness of the capitalist system there lies a great prospect. In place of a world driven by competition and conflict there is the prospect of a united humanity.  Instead of being driven by the economic laws of an exploitative system there lies the prospect of a society that would work democratically in the interests of all people. This is the prospect of a new society based on common ownership, democratic control and production solely for needs.

Whilst there may be very little to cheer in modern world development the story need not be one of unmitigated doom and gloom. It is one of the ironies of history that often the motives that drive our short term actions can in the longer term produce more hopeful possibilities that were never intended. Even though, at the present time,  the prospects for humanity may seem bleak the means of solving our great problems have never been so close to hand. It is accepted that the spread of the capitalist system has resulted in the powers of production, the useful institutions, the communications and a framework for potentially democratic organisation that given the political will, could be swiftly adapted for our needs in a world wide community of interests.    

It is the aim of this book to set out, in an up to date context, the principles and methods of practical socialism. I also intend to liberate the idea of socialism from the immense accumulation of ideological baggage that has become its burden. By stripping this away we could reveal the core simplicity and practicality of socialism. I make the argument that by applying these principles and methods the world community could solve its deep and seemingly intractable problems. I believe that given the human centred relationships of socialism with all their immense potential for creative work, the task will be great but not impossible. Once the genius of our species is allowed to flower for the benefit of all people, the work of solving our problems will be not just materially rewarding but will also provide the utmost enjoyment. In carrying out this great project it is certain that the present era will in time be regarded with scarce comprehension of how misguided and self destructive our species can be whilst a better world might so easily have been created.  It is the earnest hope of this book that we shall come to this realisation very soon.

Pieter Lawrence

Link to Chapter 1