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Workers today face so many problems: oppression, poverty, ill health and a world plagued by war. How did we get here, and how can we escape these conditions?

Money and profit over all

Back in 1848, K Marx and F Engels painted a classic portrait of capitalist society:

“The bourgeoisie (the capitalist ruling class) … wherever it has got the upper hand, has … pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his ‘natural superiors’, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment’ …

“It has resolved personal worth into exchange value (the ‘exchange value’ of people is reflected in their wages), and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom – Free Trade.

“In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation. The bourgeoisie has … converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-labourers. It has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.” (Manifesto of the Communist Party)

The ruling class in waiting

Over many decades, Marx and Engels studied the history and development of capitalism and established socialism as a science.

They identified the forces that modern industry has produced and which have made it possible for us to break free from the chains of capitalist slavery and build a new, socialist world, in which workers will set up a different kind of government and organise production themselves, making sure that they make and grow everything they need for a decent life.

Capitalist developments in industry and technology made this possible and even inevitable, but the capitalist system, which concentrates all the wealth and productive power of the world into the hands of a handful of multibillionaires, is incapable of using the forces it has created to fulfil this, their real potential.

Meanwhile, the experience of the socialist countries, and especially the tremendous successes of the Soviet Union in building a huge planned economy in the 1930s, show what can be achieved when the financier elites are deposed and dispossessed and the working people take control of industry and agriculture.

We are collective beings

The processes and contradictions outlined in the Communist Manifesto have only accelerated and intensified since Marx’s day. The further breaking of social bonds that was already visible two centuries ago means isolation and misery for vast swathes of the masses, who are increasingly bereft of meaningful social contact or support.

“The mass of workers find themselves left alone to sink or swim as best they can in a world where nothing can be obtained without money, no matter how necessary it is for existence, and people are valued by their earnings and possessions, no matter what their personal qualities may be – all while they are endlessly assured that their trammelled and stressful existences are somehow the result of their own ‘life choices’.” (J Brar, Identity Politics or Class Politics, 2024)

Our exploiters don’t want us to realise how many workers’ combined and coordinated efforts have gone into creating their wealth. They don’t want us to realise that keeping workers poor is an essential condition for making capitalists rich, and that wealth doesn’t ‘trickle down’ from them to us, but is sucked inexorably upwards from us to them.

When politicians and media talk to us about our individual ‘rights’ and ‘choices’ in such a situation, they are simply trying to hide the workings of the capitalist system. We are assured that the poor are poor through their own personal failings and bad life choices, not through the workings of the capitalist system of production for profit.

“Socialism, on the other hand, recognises that man is first and foremost a collective, social animal. Nothing in society is achieved by individuals; we are all of us reliant on one other, and all of us are happiest when we are working together towards a common aim.

“And not only does humankind need social contact and a sense of community to stay sane and healthy, but the tremendous means of production that capitalism has called into being demand social action on a massive scale.

“In order to harness society’s productive power to the full; in order to unlock its true potential to provide a decent, cultured and ever-rising standard of living to the entire human race, we must not only act collectively at work, but in all spheres of life – and we must do so consciously, rather than unknowingly, as at present.

“In order to resolve the contradictions of capitalist production (social labour, private appropriation) and create the conditions for the development of a new, higher and truly human civilisation, we must think and act as a collective.

“Socialism therefore puts the needs of the collective above the needs or desires of any single individual. But in doing so, it creates the conditions in which individuals (all individuals and not just a privileged few) are truly able to flourish and express themselves – supported and valued by their community.”

Alienation or agency?

The ruling financier elites of capitalist-imperialist Britain have used their control of the media to convince workers that we are merely a collection of weak and powerless individuals; that we have no choice but to struggle separately in a harsh world, and that we have no ability to effect any meaningful change in our conditions.

But this is a lie. We, the vast majority, have all the real power in society. We make everything, grow everything, move everything and do every other important job. If we organise ourselves in sufficient numbers, no power on earth can prevent us from abolishing the system of wage-slavery that holds us back. In the process, we will grow in strength, confidence and resilience – as individuals and as a society.

To struggle against capitalism is to struggle against war, poverty, alienation, social breakdown and exploitation. To fight for socialism is to fight for a bright, healthy, prosperous, community-focused and truly human future for ourselves and our children.

Joining the struggle for socialism means refusing to be a helpless victim, developing our capabilities to the full and putting them at the service of humanity.

Join us!