Over the years fewer and fewer people have got involved in political parties. Not that political interest or activity has declined. What has happened is that the sort of people who would once have joined the Labour Party are now active in single-issue pressure groups and campaigning charities, lobbying directly for a particular cause or reform. Those who in the past might have joined the Communist Party have turned to “direct action” to get reforms or, rather, these days, to stop past reforms being whittled away.
This is a reflection of the failure of traditional reformism which had proposed government action at national level to try to improve the lives of people. In the twenty or thirty years after the end of the last World War this had a limited success in obtaining some concessions from capitalism, but since the post-war boom ended in the mid-seventies all governments, whether Labour or Tory or now Coalition, have had to claw back these concessions because the capitalist system whose political side they administer can no longer afford them.
Instead of the reformist Labour Party reforming capitalism it has been the other way round. Capitalism reformed the Labour Party in its own image, and Labour now openly promotes itself as the party that can run capitalism better than its opponents, including imposing cuts even if with a painful expression. Who would want to be in such a party other than political careerists?
So it is understandable that many concerned people have abandoned the Labour Party for single-issue groups which can offer the satisfaction of helping a few individuals or mitigating some cutback. But this satisfaction comes at a price – the price of lowering expectations, of abandoning the idea of a change in society. The satisfaction is obtained by being satisfied with less.
Whatever else could be said about reformist parties such as Labour in their heyday, they did at least offer the prospect of a new society however vague or merely rhetorical.
The switch to single-issue campaigns represents the effective abandoning of any attempt to change society as a whole. It means accepting the existing capitalist system and restricting oneself to aiming at concessions within it, not even for everyone but just for particular groups or particular causes. It offers the prospect only of a never-ending struggle against some effect of the system. At best it is running fast to stand still. At worst it is running fast so as not to slip back so much.
We are not necessarily against all of these campaigns even if it is our policy not to get involved in them as a party. But we would ask those who are involved: Is this all you aspire to? Can you not envisage a time when you would not have to continuously – endlessly – campaign to try to mitigate some effect of a system that is not geared, and cannot be geared, to meeting people’s needs?
That is why we in the Socialist Party say that there is really only one single issue: capitalism or socialism? The production for profit system or one where the world’s resources are the common heritage of all so that there will no longer be any obstacles to them being used to meet needs of all.
Un-used editorial for the Socialist Standard
This is a reflection of the failure of traditional reformism which had proposed government action at national level to try to improve the lives of people. In the twenty or thirty years after the end of the last World War this had a limited success in obtaining some concessions from capitalism, but since the post-war boom ended in the mid-seventies all governments, whether Labour or Tory or now Coalition, have had to claw back these concessions because the capitalist system whose political side they administer can no longer afford them.
Instead of the reformist Labour Party reforming capitalism it has been the other way round. Capitalism reformed the Labour Party in its own image, and Labour now openly promotes itself as the party that can run capitalism better than its opponents, including imposing cuts even if with a painful expression. Who would want to be in such a party other than political careerists?
So it is understandable that many concerned people have abandoned the Labour Party for single-issue groups which can offer the satisfaction of helping a few individuals or mitigating some cutback. But this satisfaction comes at a price – the price of lowering expectations, of abandoning the idea of a change in society. The satisfaction is obtained by being satisfied with less.
Whatever else could be said about reformist parties such as Labour in their heyday, they did at least offer the prospect of a new society however vague or merely rhetorical.
The switch to single-issue campaigns represents the effective abandoning of any attempt to change society as a whole. It means accepting the existing capitalist system and restricting oneself to aiming at concessions within it, not even for everyone but just for particular groups or particular causes. It offers the prospect only of a never-ending struggle against some effect of the system. At best it is running fast to stand still. At worst it is running fast so as not to slip back so much.
We are not necessarily against all of these campaigns even if it is our policy not to get involved in them as a party. But we would ask those who are involved: Is this all you aspire to? Can you not envisage a time when you would not have to continuously – endlessly – campaign to try to mitigate some effect of a system that is not geared, and cannot be geared, to meeting people’s needs?
That is why we in the Socialist Party say that there is really only one single issue: capitalism or socialism? The production for profit system or one where the world’s resources are the common heritage of all so that there will no longer be any obstacles to them being used to meet needs of all.
Un-used editorial for the Socialist Standard
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