IS SOCIALISM ?

e Scienc

PART I

is he? -I mean, what does he do?”’
‘to the first part of the question we
old that “he’ is a Frenchman, or a
4, or a Conservative. But when we
does he do?” it is understood that
“what work does he do?’——and the
chat question tells us the main thing
rman. ‘He works in the shipyard”
‘CPR.’ ‘He’s a farmer’ or a ‘doctor.’
n told that, we can picture to our-
aan’s working life. By his work, we
lation to society as a whole.

: mall minority, we'll get a different
wer. “What does he do? He owns
“tory, or ‘a saw-mill.’ In his case,
ywnership is, what matters—not what
ty his: time!) ©

? awhat we do. In Canada, over 85

‘us are wage-workers or farmers Or ,
sing “on their own account’; only

‘are ‘employers...

sgest problems we face—those of
-etting a job, and having enough pur-
yer to make ends meet——we face. in
th our fellow workers in the shops,
“ors in the community. In . other
- are social,.as well as individual,

And the answers to them can be
in an undérstanding of society as a
not just society “in general’ but our
em, as it is today, as it has developed
loping.

> > oh AS Hee es
science is political economy.

ence-of-nature has brought to a man a
iowledge of the world around him.

xr on the foundations of modern
‘rl Marx (1818-1883) and Frederick
320-1895) discovered the:laws gov-
development of society, and thereby

political economy as the science of
\nd where natural science had made
‘vyolutionary changes in our mastery
(as in the invention of gun-powder ;
-angine; electric power), the science of
sonomy opened the path to the big-
ationary change of all—the transfor-
society TtSelf .. .

ually think of economics as having to
bings—stocks or merchandise, output
es, price levels, etc. But economics
science only when it grasps, behind
gs, the relations between people —
elf, at any given stage of its develop-

al economy is the science that studies
opment and changes in the relations
in the course of production—.e., their
relations. It lays bare the laws that

e@ production and distribution of the

of life. It studies the changing eco-
tems or “modes of production” wpon
erent forms of society are built. (For
slavery, feudalism, capitalism, social-
. of these social systems is based on a
mode of production, on different eco-
ations between people.)

de of production is made up of these
‘S:

roductive forces: the instruments of
1, (ranging from crude stone tools to
-lathe), together with the people who
erate them, and the skill and experi-
they. have acquired ;

ations of production: the relations of
production, their economic. relations

— PACIFIC ADVOCATE

= -

as slave and slave-owner, wage-earner and

factory-owner, etc.

It is on the basis of changes in the instru-
ments of production that changes take place in
society as a whole. It was the invention of the
steam-engine and steam-driven machines that
made possible the rise of the modern factory-
system, the tremendous growth of the indus-
trial towns, the gathering of ever-greater num-
bers of wage-workers into ever bigger plants.

But the relations of people in production, in
turn, react upon the forces of production. The
great capitalist monopolies of our day retard
progress when they stifle new inventions; they
do it all the time, and right now they are terrified
lest atomic power should make all their profit-
able equipment out-of-date. Another example—
in the opposite direction—is the way the intro-
duction of the socialist system of collective
ownership of the means of production, in the
Soviet Union, has unleashed.an unparalleled ex-
pansion and growth of all the productive re-
sources of society—-welcoming and using every
advance in science and technique for the. bene-
fit of all.

Reading for this Installment:

Program of the LPP, pp. 30-37.
History of the CPSU, pp. 118-123.

Questions:

1. Give examples, from your own -experi-
ence, of. what capitalist production is. What
are the: ‘‘relations of production’’ under this
system?

2. What subjects does
deal: with? z

. 3, What--is*the difference between produc-
tive forces and‘relations°of production?

political economy

The accompanying outlines prepared by
the LPP* National Educational Director are
designed both for, individual and group. study.
A growing number of people in British Col-
umbia are eager to understand the Marxist
approach to social questions and will welcome
the outlines as a regular feature of the paper.
Simply written and rich in illustration, the
outlines are prepared specially for individuals
who are seeking their first introduction to the
science of Marxism. Questions and comments:
will be welcomed and supplementary materials
will be supplied on request. Please address all
enquiries to—

MINERVA COOPER

Provincial Educational Director
209 Shelly Building, Vancouver, B.C.

‘tory owners.
called; in:the mame of justice and humanity, for

PART I

The history of human society is not a story
of smooth, uninterrupted progress: it is filled
with struggles. And never was this more true
than in the present, when our whole world has
rocked with the mortal combat of the United

Nations against Fascism. Marxism. goes to the

very root of the conflicts and contradictions
within society; it “provides a clue which enables
us to discover the reign of law in this seeming
labyrinth and chaos: the theory of the class
struggle ’’ (Lenin)

What are classes? Lenin, the leader of the
peoples who in 1917 put an end to capitalism
and who under Stalin’s leadership have built
the Socialist society of the Soviet Union, gives
this answer:

Chan ge

“What is meant by classes in general? It is
what permits one part of society to appreciate
the labor of another. If one part of society ap-
propriatés all the land, we have the classes of
landlords and peasants. If one part of society
owns the plants and factories, shares'and capital,
while the other part works in these factories, we
have the classes of capitalists and proletarians-

“Classes are groups of persons, of which
one group is able to appropriate the labor of
another, owing to a difference in their re-
spective positions in a definite order of social.
economy.”

In Canada, as in all capitalist countries, our
society is made up of classes. Out of slightly
over 4 million gainfully occupied people, 2.8
million, or 67 percent, are classified as wage-
earners: 645,000, or 15 percent, are farmers;
252,000, or 6 percent, are employers. “Of these

"°Jast, a very few thousand own the greater part

of all the factories, mines and mills in Canada.
From this ownership they get their income. In
the crisis year of 1934, three-fifths of one per-
cent of the population received close to one. bil-
lion dollars—a quarter of the whole national
income.

Others before Marx and Engels, had been
appalled at the growing misery. and poverty
which the factory system inflicted on the work-
ing people, while it piled up wealth for the fac-
And these earfly Socialists had

the introduction of a fair and just social system

- which: would do away with poverty. They even

painted elaborate and glowing pictures of what
this new system should be like.

But that’s as far as they got.

It remained for Marx and Engels to go be-
yond: wishful thinking, and to transform So-
cialism from a dream into a science. Marx and
Engles,im ‘their study of capitalism, of its inner
workings, its driving forces, concluded that this
society was only one stage in human develop-
ment. and that it was the last stage in the long
history of class societies; and that it must in-
eviably be followed by a new, far higher form
of''society, in which for the first time the fruits
of men’s labor and the benefits of science would
go to better the lot of all who work by ‘hand
and brain: a society without classes, freed -of
all exploitation of man by man. Where the
Utopians had criticized capitalism, the founders
of Scientific Socialism analyzed it,-laid bare its
secrets, discovered its “laws of motion,” and
proved that its expanding productive © forces
must.inevitably break through the cramping fet-
ters. of. capitalist property relations, and bring
into being a new stage of society—Socialism.
Where the Utopians saw only the suffering of
the workers (and appealed to the capitalists to
put an end to it), Marx and Engels saw the
fighting spirit and growing strength of the
workers as a class, and called on.them to. carry
their struggles forward to complete  emancipa-
tion fromthe system that caused their poverty
and suffering. ;

This difference between Utopian and Scien-
tific Socialism can help us.°to. understand one
“angle” of the difference between the outlook
and policies of the CCF and“those of the Marx-
ist party——the Labor-Progréssive Party. There
is more to the difference than that, as we'll see
presently; but the fact that it is only the Marx-
ists who tackle the question of Socialism with
the weapon of a revolutionary science of social
change, and who base themselves on the struggle
of the workers as the advanced revolutionary
class in modern society——that fact is of first-rate
importance..

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1945

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