Vote Labour?

For those not fortunate to have been born with a silver spoon, unhappy with the status
quo, wanting change, the task of finding a political home is no mean feat. For many the
answer is obvious enough. It may be a simple ”Leave the EU” or “Get the Torys out”.
But for many, Corbyn and his Labour Party represent the way out.

Indeed, Corbyn is painted by the billionaire and state-owned press alike as a man of the
left, the far left, a self-confessed Marxist, fan of “Marxist economics” and long term
opponent of the Labour right which led the discredited New Labour project away from
its traditional imagery of the friend of the working class. Multiple apparently radical
groups urge support for Corbyn as a step towards the classless society that we too
want to replace the present unequal society ever more divided between haves and have-
nots; Socialist this and Workers that all advocate with greater or less caution, however
critically, a vote for Corbyn led labour.

We do not share this enthusiasm, critical or otherwise. For we of the ICT, Labour
undermines support for the emergence of a real socialist party in the working class
which would advocate revolution; the abolition of capitalism and its class divisions.

Anyone with a little effort can find the reality of Labour’s record. Most labourites
supported WW1 whilst its unions suspended all strikes during the war, Sabotage of the
1926 general strike, imposing the hated Means test in the 30s cutting benefits to the
unemployed, multiple use of troops to break strikes post WW2, and when the crisis
returned after the boom of the sixties, Labour was brought back to power to try to
sell the cuts to the working class who would have none of it and Labour found itself out
of power as the Thatcher projects cruelty was unleashed. During the miners’ strike of
84/85 Kinnock and the TUC refused to support strikers and instruct workers not to
cross picket lines, and the neoliberal agenda thus quashed a major opponent, inflicting
enormous suffering on communities which never recovered. Under Blair, New Labour
emerged as an openly capitalist party, abandoning Clause 4 (out of fear of the
Revolutionary upsurge of 1917 Clause 4 was adopted in 1918, it called for nationalisation
of key features of the economy).

With both New Labour and the Tory parties singing the praises of neoliberal capitalist
globalisation and overseeing the inch by inch erosion of working-class conditions, the
victims of the process eventually rallied around Jeremy Corbyn who seemed to be
saying something different.

But Corbyn, and all the leftist hangers on, from the Morning Star, a whole spectrum of
Trotskyist outfits, even some anarchists, are selling a deception, a dangerous illusion.
The fantasy that capitalism can be reformed for the benefit of the majority. Hope for
the hopeless. This reformed capitalism can serve as a stepping stone to further gains,
all the way to socialism which will be an easy leap once the groundwork has been laid by
radical reforms.
This is obvious nonsense. It ignores the actual state of capitalism which has nothing in
common with the days when serious reform could be granted to the working class,
albeit to prevent revolution rather than a step to a post capitalist society. Capitalism
today is not attacking the conditions of the majority and transferring ever more wealth
to a tiny minority because the wrong party sits in parliament or its equivalents
worldwide. It is doing so because that is the only way capitalism can maintain
profitability, the only way it can squeeze enough profits to carry on functioning. The
capitalist system of competition between economic entities ensures that workers are
able to process ever more materials via improved technology, machinery, robots,
computers. The end result is an ever-greater share of capital invested pays for
factors of production other than paying workers. But since there is no source of profit
other than those acquired by the exploitation of labour (i.e. the value of wages is far
less than the value the worker adds, hence the possibility of profit) the rate of profit
is constantly being pressured down and capitalists compensate this at least in part by
exploiting workers more. This includes paying less tax for the various services and
benefits workers won in the past as well as holding down wages.

The reality is not that capitalism can be directed to serving the community in general,
but that its survival depends on an ever-greater attack on workers’ conditions and even
that will not be enough to keep the system going. The climate crisis is becoming ever
more critical and the great powers are ever more aggressively confronting their rivals,
threatening more war.

Workers cannot emulate the capitalist class. It came to power through a lengthy
process of building economic power under the previous regime, the feudal regime of
aristocrats, monarchy and peasants. The working class can do nothing of the sort. Its
fate rises and falls with the capitalist cycle and that has now entered the phase of
crisis with no solution (outside of the devastation of another round of generalised
imperialist war which would likely mean extinction). The working class can only come to
power by an understanding of its general situation as a global class (class
consciousness) and creating an alternative social organisation based on its own
independent bodies to supersede capitalism’s economic and political structures

An essential part of that process is a revolutionary party which does not act as a false
guide, channelling workers into capitalism’s electoral charades, fostering illusions in a
brighter, better day under capitalism if only the good people occupy the parliamentary
window dressing. Creating that revolutionary party, a global organisation independent
of capitalism, is our goal. We have to free ourselves from the illusions that the
capitalist system can be reformed for the benefit of the majority. The reality is not
gradual improvement “things can only get better” if only we rally around Corbyn or
equivalent figures home or abroad. The reality is either humanity takes down
capitalism, or capitalism takes down humanity, with no better day this side of
revolution.