Letter: Attractive Outsiders (1983)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

I am attracted to the SPGB as an alternative to left wing parties that suggest everyone has the "right to work", that the Soviet Union is potentially less harmful than America, that support the IRA, that want to gain power for ultimately financial reasons, etc. Trendy students wearing lapel badges and make-up (if male) who advocate the slaughter of everyone whose house is larger than their own (while “actively" backing Lord Stansgate for "President") have laughably shallow conviction and false opinions.

I have never dreamed of aligning myself with a political party before now, because I have wanted nothing to do with boosting the egos and wage packets of those who pretend to have a "social conscience”. Because the SPGB works outside the current political arena, I would like to know more. Your principles and object, as stated, have set me thinking, and these arc the questions which spring to mind regarding SPGB policy:

• Is the SPGB an idealist organisation?
• Even in an ideal world, how could the Irish problem be resolved?
• By "entering the field of political action’’ would the SPGB be creating a revolution, fighting an election, or theorising in TV debates?
• In the SPGB’s socialist world, who would live in the biggest houses?
• What would happen if someone rejected the socialist work ethic to the extent of refusing to "work to his own capability”?
• How docs socialism differ from theoretical communism?
• And anarchist libertarianism?
• In a society without currency, how could greed and jealousy be eradicated?

Yours in good spirit.

Derek Hammond 

Birmingham

(This letter has been slightly abridged - Editors)

Reply:

The SPGB is a party made up exclusively of conscious socialists. We have no leaders and any member who does a job for the party (like editing the Socialist Standard) does so as a delegate, under the vigilant control of the membership. So there are no careers to be made in the SPGB - and no careerists.

We are in fact in the political arena but we are hostile to all other parties. We aim at the capture of political power and, when we can afford it in terms of money and member power, we contest elections. The SPGB won’t create a revolution; we are the political instrument which the working class will use. when they understand socialism, to establish the new society. At that point the world's socialist parties will cease to exist, for with the establishment of a classless society political parties will be made redundant. So the SPGB will never "take power".

Socialists are materialists; we reject all religious, idealist theories and instead interpret human affairs by reference to the prevailing mode of wealth production. That is the basis of social ideas and morals, and not the other way around. We don’t regard some ideas as "bad" and others as "good". We don't think capitalism is "immoral", only that it has been an essential phase in historical development, that it has now outlived its usefulness and operates against human interests. It must be abolished, if humanity is to progress.

Socialists don’t set out to solve the "Irish problem" in isolation, nor any other of the conflicts and crises of property society. The roots of the Irish conflict lie, typically, in a ruling class dispute over which group of robbers should have the right to exploit the human labour power and the natural resources of the place. The bigotries which — again typically — were stimulated by each side in this struggle have now virtually taken over to the point at which the original conflict has become obscured. Socialism will have no class division, no class interests, no religious bigotries, no unnatural national barriers; problems like the conflict in Ireland simply won’t happen because they won't be able to.

In socialism all people will have free access to however much wealth they need — or want — to consume. There will be no class or individual ownership of wealth so no one will think in terms of “my" house or "your" car; such words will be meaningless. If someone wants or needs to live in a bigger house there is no reason why this should not happen; people will have all sorts of preferences and socialism will not have artificial barriers of property to prevent them being realised. In such a social system there will also be no concepts like greed and jealousy, which again are based in the restrictions and inequalities of a property society. There will also, of course, be no such concept as generosity, which again springs from a society which denies access to wealth to the majority of people.

Socialism will be an extremely hard working society. Under the incentive of contributing to the common good, all humans will co-operate happily and productively. If there are a few who need or desire to stand outside the general satisfaction at doing useful work they will present socialist society with no problem; the choice will be theirs. They will, simply, be carried by the rest of society and have the same free access to society’s goods as the rest (even capitalism can carry millions of people who do no productive work, like bank clerks, salespeople, soldiers, judges, lawyers . . .)

The socialist movement is a political organisation with the object of capturing power over the state machine to use it to establish another social system. That is very different from the fragmented idea of the anarchist. Socialism and communism are words with the same meaning but we obviously don’t need to tell Derek Hammond that the so-called communist countries are in fact capitalist states and have absolutely nothing to do with socialism.

Editors.