Is The End Nigh?

Are socialists all about doom and gloom? Actually, no, but insteadwe offer an antidote to the many apocalyptic catastrophe activists. Many radicals hope the end is indeed nigh but forget that a new world is not easily built upon the ruins of the old one.  Deprivation and hardship, the argument goes, push people to their breaking point —and from there, leftward although not universally as in the case of the racist militia movements in America. But there is nothing preordained about increasing poverty and falling living standards automatically prompting workers towards  radical action. Workers find different ways to cope, some which would not win the approval of the Left. Historically, workers exclude other workers from jobs based on race, ethnicity, or gender. For sure acts of solidarity and resistance, of course, mark the history of capitalism. But they have not always been the strategies which  the working class resort to in hard times. The idea that the worse things get, the more promising it becomes for revolutionary prospects should have been put to rest by the rise of the right-wing populists and in particular the Nazi movement in the depression of the 20s and 30s. Socialist consciousness does not  arise deterministically and mechanically in the class struggle but also requires a battle of ideas.

Some, often described as primitivists or deep greens even view the collapse of society—not simply capitalism, but civilisation—as the harbinger of a better world. They gleefully point to peak oil and the depletion of other natural resources hoping for the hastening of the implosion of industrial society. The global capitalist economy is to fall apart while activists organise small autonomous communities for survival. They understand capitalism and its horrors pretty well, but not well enough to understand that it can be abolished.

Of the many strands of these various apocalyptic outlooks, a common thread is a pessimism about political action and social transformation. Fire and brimstone preaching appears an easier means of communicating than the  unrewarding work of building radical social movements through education. Negativity among the general populace in no way necessarily leads people in general to shift toward an anti-system position but encourages apathy, passivity and a fatalistic acceptance of their fate. Catastrophism is common among environmentalists, and not without good reason. By its very nature, capitalism is catastrophic with the ecological catastrophe replacing the nuclear war apocalypse driven by capitalism the greatest and most serious threat of all others facing humanity and life on earth in the present. All the evidence points to an escalating environmental disaster looming ahead. It is absolutely imperative to begin to resolve this crisis by changing the direction of human society and by rejecting the status quo of capitalist commodity production in the service of the global elites. Acquiescing to environmental doom  plays into the hands of the capitalists and their State.

 The liberatory hopes of our past, and the confidence in the collective power of our class has given way to the uncertainty and fear of society collapse, reflected in many dystopian novels and movies. Even in the darkest of hours, however, it is the responsibility of socialists to construct a political response that rejects catastrophism. Our constant refrain is for a need for knowledge, awareness and education addd to the importance of possessing a common achievable  viable vision. The best way to struggle against capitalism is to struggle directly for socialism while recognising that non-socialist workers can, should and will struggle to survive within the system. In other words, to decline to shoe-horn one into the others space.

During the  Depression of the 1930s , the Socialist Party of Great Britain went out on a limb, or so it may have seemed to many leftists of the time, by insisting that capitalism would not self-destruct, in a pamphlet titled Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse. It rejected the idea that capitalism would “collapse under the weight of its own problems and criticised the “fatalistic attitude of waiting for the system to end itself.” The pamphlet concluded, “ there is no simple way out of capitalism by leaving the system to collapse of its own accord. Until a sufficient number of workers are prepared to organise politically for the conscious purpose of ending capitalism, that system will stagger on indefinitely.”

Many  still cling to the hope that economic crisis, war, or environmental catastrophe could topple capitalism or suddenly transform the consciousness of workers. Capitalism won't end unless we work globally as socialists to counter this doomsday obsession by concentrating our energies into building a society based on free access for all. No-one can predict the precise nature of the future but our actions now can make that future much brighter for everyone. Each day it becomes more obvious that mankind must choose between a rational society, which only conscious action can bring about, and the insecurity which is an inherent part of today's society.

The conflict between nature and society will give way to a harmony of interests between the two. But this can only happen when the individual and society both share the same aim, when all wealth created is commonly owned and therefore benefits both the individual and society equally. The real difference between socialism and present-day society must lie in the people themselves. Socialism depends for its establishment on people deciding to take full democratic control over their own lives. For socialists the only answer to the threat of social destruction is social innovation. And that means a completely new way of organising society based not on the dictatorship of an owning class but on the common ownership of the earth's resources. So long as human beings are characterised by the ability to plan their actions and think with reason, there is no inevitability about an ecological collapse.....for now although the time is growing shorter that the problems can be reversed. Tomorrow's history will result from what we think and do today.  People in a socialist society would be life-affirming and positive about the future, not paranoid and  paralysed by a self-defeating, world weary ennui. Human beings will relate to one another not as economic categories but as social equals. The economic and social frustrations which cause people to seek outlets in violence and scapegoatswill become a thing of the past. The individual will enjoy the security of being integrated with society at large. The framework of a world community will allow cultural diversity to be maintained.

All this is possible and it can be the start of a new era of conscious control we can hardly imagine. It depends on the political organisation of a majority of workers determined to establish a socialist society and not to waste their time trying to modify and reform present-day capitalist society. Humanity has the potential to significantly raise the basic standard of living for every man, woman and child on the planet. Within a generation, we will be able to provide goods and services, once reserved for the wealthy few, to any and all who need them. Or desire them. Abundance for all is actually within our grasp.