The Critique of the Gotha Programme remained an unfinished sketch
which Karx Marx had not intended for publication. As a result
this text remains fragmentary and inconsistent. What Marx was
dealing with in the Gotha Programme was communist society not as
it has developed on its own foundations but, on the contrary, just
as it was emerging from capitalist society.
Karl Marx's discussion of the future socialist society remained
fragmentary and experimental. He never attempted to offer a
blueprint for a future socialist society. He remained convinced
that the success of Socialism depended in the last analysis on the
historical circumstances that by nature vary from one country to
another. Karl Marx was at most times uncertain concerning the
course which Socialism was to pass through. However, he remained
convinced that the workers had no ideals to realise apart from
setting free the elements of the new society with which the old
collapsing bourgeois society is pregnant.
Trotskyism, Anarchism and Bolshevism are heavy-handed definitions
with 19th century traditions. They remain what they are: violent
versions of socialism and everyone using them stands to be
ridiculed. The International Union of Socialists, the Industrial
Workers of the World and the Independent Socialist Party are all
leftist petty-bourgeois anarchical movements embroiled in the
post-WWI socialist movements. They follow the traditions of
Leninism and vanguard political socialism interested by usurping
political power from the state through Trade Union labour
militancy.
Thus De Leon's interest in Market Socialism under labour-time
vouchers. After the workers have usurped political power from the
state, the bourgeois class would automatically abolish itself and
become a part of the classless socialist society; the bourgeoisie
cannot be conceived to remain as a distinct sect within socialist
society.
To believe in first stage Socialism is to discredit the vision of
Socialism as a universal realisation of a classless, moneyless and
stateless society. Socialism can only be propagated through a
socialist party organically composed of working class members.
Socialism must not be spear-headed by a vanguard of think-tank
intellectuals. After Socialism has been universally realised the
need for a specialised leadership would abolish itself-the
Socialist parfies would be disbanded. The eradication of
capitalism would denote the end of the market system and commodity
exchange.
The whole edifice of De Leon's infatuation with Socialism hinges
upon belief in first-stage Socialism under a market system in
which the allocation of individual needs would be evaluated upon
an exchange mechanism. Labour time vouchers do not differ from
money; they are all units of labour exchange. The critics of Karl
Marx fail to appreciate the differences between the two stages of
Socialism and thus confuse the first stage of Socialism with the
second stage. They fail to appreciate the fact that during the
first stage the production relations still remain dependent upon
the exchange values between different individuals unpacified from
the class divisions inherent under the division of labour.
It is only during the second phase of Socialism that the market
system finally abolishes itself, when human labour is freed from
money and taxes and that we can inscribe on the banners of working
class the slogan: To each according to his needs, and from each
according to his capabilities. Needs and talents are freed from
money and price restrictions and become mere activities taking
place in a classless and non-market society. Needs are not
reckoned under demand prices in a scarcity society, but as an
individual claim. Thus Socialism will achieve a universal high
standard of living and would solve the riddle of poverty.
Trade unions are representatives of working class organised
industrial militancy against private capital. They fight for wage
increments, not for the eradication of private capital. Trade
unions cannot be tumed into jumping boards to Socialism unless
when these unions are under the influence of socialist agitators.
Yet trade unions even under the influence of socialist agitators
remain what they are: labour arbitration movements.
Trade unions cannot exist under socialist society because there
won't be a distinct class to defend.
Trade unions are a phenomenon of antagonistic class interests and
work to organise working class industrial resistance against
private capitalism. Thus a vote for a trade union is a vote for a
wage increment while a vote for a socialist party is a vote for
unrestrained consumption.
Under capitalism marriage, love and happiness become inhibited by
income conventions. Free socialisation becomes restricted. Class
barriers check and put limits upon labour mobility. The working
class sanctify themselves under the protection of trade unions,
the first expression of working class organised resistance against
private capital.
Thus trade union movements and labour associations cannot by
themselves succeed in usurping political power from the state.
K. Mulenga, Box 280 168, Chimwemwe. Kitwe, ZAMBIA
