The Facets of Socialism

From Western Socialist #5 – 1975.


There are three facets of socialism — as a science, as a movement, and as a social system.

As a science, it is called the Materialist Conception of History. It traces the broad outlines of the social evolution of mankind from its early beginnings up to date. It indicates the processes by which primitive man advanced into tribal society; thence into warrior chiefdoms and chattel slavery; later into feudalism, and now into capitalism, with socialism on the horizon. It describes the social forces within an earlier society that gave rise to its successors.

As a movement, it is the class-conscious organization of the working class to spread socialist knowledge, understanding and fervor to introduce a socialist society — which has become possible, practical and necessary here and now. The tremendous strides within capitalism of technology and science have laid the groundwork for socialism. The alternative facing mankind is socialism or chaos. The lessons of experience have amply shown the futility of all the efforts to reform or administer capitalism in the interests of the working class, or of mankind as a whole, for that matter. Nothing is more inspiring than participation in the one meaningful task today, establishing a world fit for human beings. As a society, socialism is common ownership and democratic control of the means of life by and in the interest of all society. Everyone gives according to his abilities and receives according to his needs.

Capitalism is a commodity society, in which the drive is for profit and accumulation of capital. The Law of Value reveals the economic relations of capitalism. It also gives rise to the Class Struggle between Capital and Wage-Labor.

Finally, in capitalism, there is a need to measure economic values in order to “quantize” costs and prices of commodities. Such needs are nonexistent in socialism because there is common property to take whatever is available for everybody to take whatever their hearts desire.
In socialist society there will be no such things as banks, money, commerce, etc. Nor will there be such things as police, armies, courts, jails, crime, poverty and the other manifold effects of the conflicts of interest at every level of capitalist society. These are all earmarks of property relationships, whether they are private or public properties.
RAB