We wish to lay out here in broad terms our political line and purpose. These lines are a few months late, but the struggle against police brutality over the summer required our immediate attention and an explanation of our politics and goals was left unaddressed.
In the early days of the pandemic, rapidly changing social conditions caused many people to question a society that threw millions out of work, threatened to evict them from their homes in the midst of the pandemic, and struggled to provide any serious relief while the very wealthy saw their net worth increase. Despite this, as increasingly desperate people looked for understanding and solutions, the broad left was able only to muster statements and slogans which, fair to say, did not find an audience among the working class or offer an explanation for the current state of the world.
We began our project from the perspective that, owing to the intensely fragmented nature of the left, there is no socialist movement of any significance. The severely weakened labor movement, its capture by the Democratic party, and the increasingly atomized nature of the working class led us further to the conclusion that there is no independent working class movement. As Lenin argued in “The Urgent Tasks of Our Movement”, the socialist movement without a working class movement leads to the isolation and neutralization of intellectuals and activists, leaving the workers engaged in solely economic (i.e., trade union) struggle. On the other hand, the labor movement separated from socialism leads the workers away from the ultimate aims and necessary tasks of the labor movement. In the absence of both elements, workers and socialist activists can only appeal to the State for partial concessions. In our view, the most pressing need is to raise the political and class consciousness of the workers and clarify the political and economic tasks that lay ahead for the newly developing workers movement.
As part of this program we must acknowledge the existence of numerous socialist and communist micro-sects. In our view, the isolation of these micro-sects, not only from the working class but from each other, has led to a sterile and ineffective intellectual and theoretical environment. Largely absent are polemical articles and debates about the questions facing the working class and socialist movements. Instead, these questions are decided internally and presented to the working class to accept or deny. Discussions are held largely behind closed doors rather than fought out openly and often lead to splits.
Here again we take our cues from Lenin. In his “Draft Declaration of the Editorial Board of Iskra and Zarya”, while discussing the tasks necessary for Russian Marxists to found the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party on a firm basis, he said, “In the first place, it is necessary to develop a common Party literature…it must discuss the questions of the movement as a whole…it must express all shades of opinion and views prevailing among Russian Social-Democrats, not as isolated workers but as comrades united in the ranks of a single organization by a common program and a common struggle…”
We recognize that important political differences exist between Russia in 1900 and the US in 2020. Russian Marxists at the time were organizing into a single organization with a common program, while today the socialist movement in the US comprises multiple micro-organizations with individual political programs and little motive to work together. We must also state that in the same document Lenin warned against the limitation of specifically local Party literature, a limitation that we are aware of in our own work.
Despite the differences, however, there are similarities. The Russian movement was divided into local reading or propaganda circles. Lenin and his collaborators were attempting to unite these local organizations into a single unified party. Today, there is a need in the US for the emergence of a Socialist movement that unites the various micro-sects into a unified party.
While we are certainly not Lenin, we share his view that various opinions must be represented in order build a unified movement. And though we, as the Editorial Board, maintain a distinct political line, we also believe that the growth of the left in theory, practice, and influence among the working class is through serious, but cordial, public polemics between the various tendencies within the Socialist movement and the broader left.
The growth of the left in Lancaster over the summer is a positive step, but as a movement we still face urgent questions. In our view these questions can only be answered through spirited discussion among the various groups in the movement. These conversations also serve to build connections among the groups and even contribute some level of tactical unity for the movement. Our primary goal, however, is to clarify in concert with comrades and potential comrades the political aims and tasks of the left. This project cannot be an end in itself, but rather a step toward the development of an all-US Socialist project. This is the task we must set for ourselves.
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The Future of the Left
By J. Steelman
As the street protests cool off for the moment, the question is posed to the new abolitionist movement–that is, prison abolition and police abolition: where does the movement go from here? Over the past 5 years of BLM activity there has been a consistent analysis that the oppression faced by people of color is systemic in nature rather than a reflection of the personal failings of white people. This analysis was affirmed during the summer protests by the demand to Defund the Police as well as the demands that emanated from CHOP/CHAZ. This analysis, prevalent as it is, fails to explain adequately the underlying nature of current society and by what means is this society will be transformed into a society without police or prisons.
In broad terms most activists would agree that a new society would provide living wages for all, universal healthcare, guaranteed access to jobs, housing, food, a green economy, open borders, greater democracy both at the national and local level, equality between the races and genders, including the LBGT community, greater economic equality and a robust social safety net. This was largely the vision promoted by Sanders in the 2016 and 2020 Presidential campaigns, taken up by a number of abolitionist groups, whether in part or in full. This is evidenced by the Defund the Police camp wanting to redirect the police budget to fund social programs, something the Abolish the Police camp views as a necessary step toward full abolition. It is clear to nearly everyone in the movement that our society falls well short of the conditions needed to abolish police and prisons.
Many parts of the Left, regardless of political tendency, identify the main source of society’s ills in capitalism, with an emphasis on the greed and avarice of the CEOs of the biggest corporations, generally personified in Jeff Bezos. Of course greed plays a role but it is the laws of capitalist competition that reduce the living standards of the workers to the bare minimum. In either case, the left correctly identifies capitalism as the cause of the misery and poverty of the working class. It is these conditions, which lead to the need for police and prisons, and that must be abolished in order to abolish the police and prisons. Irrespective of tendency, the methods for alleviating these conditions is State intervention, to make the distribution of wealth “fair” and thus relieve the working class of its misery.
The problem with stating the question of social change only in terms of poverty and misery, conditions we also seek to abolish, is that the solution inevitably becomes the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor; yet regardless of the means used to carry this out, a change in the distribution of wealth leaves the mode by which wealth is produced wholly untouched, and it is not distributions, but the capitalist mode of production that is the source of poverty and misery for the working class.
Every mode of production is founded on specific relations. The capitalist mode is founded on the relation of wage-labor to capital. The wage-labor relation inherent to capitalism is exploitative regardless of the greed of an individual or company. The capitalist system regards labor-power as a commodity like any other. Assume for instance that a worker’s wages are equal to their cost of living; during the workday they would add value equal to their wages to the products or services they produce. However, as a commodity a worker’s labor-power belongs to the capitalist for the whole working day. If the worker produces value equal to their wages in 4 hours, the capitalist can work them for the full 8-hours forcing the worker to produce twice the value of their wages. This difference, the value produced by the worker but pocketed by the capitalist, is surplus value, which is realized on the market as profit.
The poverty and misery of the working class are expressions of this relationship and it is this relationship that must be abolished in order to abolish poverty and misery.
The specific relationship between capitalist and wage-worker also contains within it, in embryonic form, the whole contradiction of capitalist production. Namely, the antagonism between socialized production involving the global working class and the private appropriation of profit by a handful of capitalists. Any attempt to abolish poverty and misery on the basis of the capitalist mode of production will inevitably be undermined, not due to the greed or avarice of the capitalist class, but on the basis of the capitalism itself.
Under capitalism, the tendency for the rate of profit to fall is the driver of economic crises. Profit, the surplus value realized in the market, is divided up between different sections of the capitalist class, commercial profit, interest, ground rent, etc. Taxes paid to the State is also included in the distribution of profits. The rate of profit fell from a high point in 1952 through the 1970s when the oil shocks caused an economic crisis. In order to boost the rate of profit, the capitalist class and the State began a process of upward redistribution, that is redistributing wealth to the capitalists in order to raise the rate of profit. The strategy was two-fold. On the one hand breaking up the unions made it easier to impose reduction in wages or at least fend off demands for wage increases. On the other hand, the State cut taxes, primarily to the capitalist class but the effects of those tax cuts also reached the small capitalists and even the top strata of the working class. As a result of the tax cuts, the social safety net was also cut. The efforts of the capitalist State was not able to increase the rate of profit since the 1970s. Even after the 2008-2009 financial crisis the economy has not fully recovered, and that already weak recovery was interrupted by the recent pandemic and associated economic crisis. The social welfare State of the 1950s through the 1970s, even as black workers still faced Jim Crow laws and were excluded from many of the State programs, was the result of the post-World War II economic boom. There hasn’t been a boom on that scale since. Today, with the rate of profit remaining low, it is unlikely that we will see a return to the Welfare State of the 1950s and 1960s.
Ultimately, State intervention in the economy will always run into the problem of the falling rate of profit and crisis. Europe, UK, and even Scandinavia, are neoliberalizing, albeit far slower than the US. Further, wages and profit are inversely related, as wages go up profits fall, relatively speaking. Rising wages further the rate of profit to fall, which led to the crushing of the unions in the 1980s. It should be noted here that the policies of neoliberalism were a response to an economic crisis and not specifically driven by an individual ideological motivation. In fact, both capitalist parties have embraced neoliberalism. Competition between workers for jobs also drives down wages. Unions are able to control competition within workplaces or industries, however, the tendency for wages to fall to the minimum still exists and exerts itself in times of crisis. It would be a mistake to think that the New Deal policies of the 1930s-1960s can be reasserted by fiat, that the collapse of the Democratic Socialism in the US was the result of a few greedy people asserting their political power over society.
Having briefly explored the economic basis for capitalist society we turn to the relationship between that economic foundation and the police. The connection between the economics of capitalism and the police lies in the nature of the modern State. The State is an organ of class domination, namely of capital over labor. It exists to manage a society in crisis, the crisis of capitalism. The modern State apparatus broadly comprises the government, administrative bureaucracy and the police and army. In the US, the executive branch is made up of the president and everything they have control over; the bureaucracy and the military. It is this executive that carries on most of the work of governing the country. This became crystal clear when President Trump and the bureaucracy enacted a number of measures including the continuation of UC extension and the CDC halted evictions until 2021. The legislative branch, trapped in deadlock, took vacation without passing any form of relief, and the executive took action. The bureaucracy, unelected as it is, may seem to stand above society, a neutral administration mediating conflict. In reality, its origin is the class conflict that gave rise to it and thus it remains the executive strictly of the capitalist class.
The Welfare State is only one form of social control exercised against the poor and working class, brought about by the crisis of capitalism and to ensure the continuation of capitalism. The other components of the executive of a modern state, the police and the military, are also forms of social control, more obvious forms to be sure. The rapid rise in incarceration rates took place in the mid-1980s as unemployment was on the rise. Social conditions engendered by unemployment and poverty, are ripe for criminal, or perhaps “criminal” behavior. The social role of the police is to maintain social order for the continuation of capitalism. Incarceration becomes tool for the maintenance of the surplus population. It’s not surprising that Law and Order presidents tend to follow periods of social unrest; Nixon in 1968, Reagan in 1980, and Trump in 2016.
All that has been said here demonstrates that, given the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the social safety net which existed in the 1950s and 1960s (not to mention the high wages) is not coming back. To whatever degree it might, its existence will be short-lived for economic, not simply political or ideological, reasons. The path to a new society, then, must be through the abolition of the capitalist world order, not its reform. And not just in one or two countries; capitalism is global and the struggle against it must be global as well.
Socialism arises as a reflection of the contradictions in capitalism and the need to overcome them. The struggle for higher wages reflects the demand that the workers receive the full value they produced through their labor. Further, only the working class is situated to abolish the wage relationship precisely because they own no property in the capitalist sense. All previous revolutions have only changed who secures dominance over this or that form of property. The working class, having no property of its own, can seize the means of production in the name of society as a whole and immediately work to overturn capitalist relations of production, abolish wage-labor, and create new relations of production. The immensity of the means of production that exist today and the science and technology applied to production are exponentially more powerful than even 100 years ago. The productive capacity exists to provide everyone in the world, not just with the bare necessities, but with nearly all their wants and needs. Under capitalism, a system driven by profit, those means of production cannot be unleashed to their full potential. They are put into motion only insofar as they produce, by way of the labor-power of wage workers, profit for the capitalist. When production outstrips demand, the capitalist mode of production lurches to a halt, and millions of workers are thrown out of work. Abolishing private property, taking over the means of production by society as a whole will free them from the contradictions of capitalism and allow for the full development of our productive forces for the benefit of the whole of society.
It must be emphasized that only the working class can emancipate itself. In the course of its struggle for power, the working class must become conscious of itself as the working class and organize along class lines, both in the economic sphere as unions and in the political sphere as a Socialist Party. Class struggles are political struggles and political struggles are struggles for State power; thus, the working class cannot look to the capitalist state to carry out its program. The capitalist State is an enemy of the working class. For this reason, the working class’s relation to the State and to the capitalist class must be a negative one. That is, it must be based on restricting the power and scope of the capitalist State’s authority over society. Positive demands on the capitalist State, demands that the State carry out active programs to support the working class, lead inevitably to the working class and its party becoming complicit in the management of capitalism and ties the working class movement to the State.
The State as an organ of class domination, is not neutral ground to be contested, but a class enemy to be exposed and resisted at every turn. There is no liberation in the capitalist state.
In order to build the society we want, a society free from police and prisons, the capitalist mode of production, as well as the State must be overthrown.
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What Do Communists Mean?
By S. Callaghan
From the time we begin to understand the world around us, capitalist society teaches us to look at communism through the capitalist lens and interpret communist ideas in ways that serve capitalism. It’s fair to say that since it first challenged capitalism, communism has been defined—and distorted—by its enemies. Let’s set some of this right.
One of the most frequent examples is the term private property. Under capitalism, this covers everything with an individual or corporation as its legal owner regardless of size, value, or function in society. Communism, on the other hand, distinguishes between two very different forms of property, private property and personal property.
Communism limits the term private property to things that produce wealth, like farms, factories, and mines. Communists also refer to these things as the means of production. Whoever controls the means of production controls society and the economy.
The other type of property, personal property, includes the things we use to conduct our everyday lives, from clothing, housewares, and tools to our homes and automobiles. Capitalists distort this critical distinction between types of property to scare working people into thinking communists want to take away our homes and personal possessions, right down to everyone’s toothbrush. Capitalists also blur the distinction so working-class people will look at private property (something owned only by the rich few) with the same regard we understandably have for our personal belongings.
This is similar to how the word capitalist is used. To communists, capitalists are the small group of people who own the means of production and use it to protect and increase their personal wealth. They want working people to think the word capitalist applies to everyone who participates in the capitalist system (not just the people at the “top”) and fool us into thinking their interests are identical to ours. Unlike the capitalist who profits from our labor, we have no choice: participate in the system or die.
In truth, communism seeks a society where what is now private property serves the public, the overwhelming majority. In doing so, communism doesn’t just leave your personal property alone, it protects your personal property so you can use and enjoy it without the necessity of laboring endlessly for the owners of private property.
Because capitalists own the means of production and thus control society, they are also known as the ruling class. Despite the carefully cultivated image of democracy that capitalist countries universally lay claim to, the ruling class regards everything in terms of personal wealth and power. Under capitalism, it’s their job to organize society to expand their wealth and power.
The proletariat is the huge class of wage-earners, the class with no capital and no control over the means of production, thus having no choice but to sell their labor. Proletarians work for the ruling class regardless of personal well-being. This is not a bug, but a feature of capitalism. Without a program of worker exploitation enforced by state violence and the threat of poverty, the capitalist system cannot exist. Capitalism requires the ruling class to exploit the proletariat because the ruling class cannot be supported any other way.
This brings us to surplus value, one of the principal mechanisms capitalists use to profit from working class labor. Surplus value is simply the difference between the value you create though your work and what your employer charges for your work. This is also mandated by capitalism since the capitalist cannot take a profit otherwise. Surplus value is why capitalists and their hired hands always push us to work harder and faster, so we produce more value for them. The capitalist simply pockets the difference without any increase in wages.
One result is that working-class people are effectively forced to bid against each other to see who will take the lowest wages for the privilege of putting money into the capitalist’s pocket. Capitalism trains us to police each other for their benefit while making us fight each other for the crumbs they brush off the table.
Finally, one of the most misunderstood terms, Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Capitalists like to scare people by emphasizing the word dictatorship. What this really refers to is the stage between the end of capitalist society and the beginning of communist society, one finally free from coercion and need. During the intermediate stage the state will still exist, but we in the working class run it for own benefit. But because no revolution can immediately and completely purge society of all capitalist influence, including inevitable violent attempts by the former ruling class to retake power, the working class will use the dictatorship of the proletariat to protect and solidify the revolution. This means the hegemony of the working class, the overwhelming dominance of wage earners over capital. Nothing less will keep us from returning to the system we have now, a dictatorship of the ruling class that puts us all at the mercy of capitalism. A Dictatorship of the Proletariat is a society run by and for the working-class majority, one that will not allow capitalists to take it back.