On the 5th of May British workers endured another sickening charade in which the ruling class elected its governing team. As expected, the Labour government was confirmed as the manager of British capitalism for the next five years. For the bourgeoisie, the result of the election was less important than the fact that the election took place. Labour received 36% of the votes in a pole of 61% so our heroic prime minister has the ringing endorsement of 20% of the electorate. Despite this, the Blair cabal can now present itself as the "people's choice" and all the attacks it launches on the working class can be presented as approved by the "people".

The election was presented as something of the utmost importance and the media never ceased to warm us about the worst possible crime we could commit - abstention. In reality, elections under capitalism are a complete fraud and the CWO urged workers to abstain.

Even in terms of bourgeois political debate the election was appalling. Although there are real differences in the British bourgeoisie, most notably about the position Britain should occupy in the configuration of world imperialism, these issues were never mentioned. Britain's position as a junior partner of US imperialism or a senior partner in a European imperialist bloc is a key issue for the British capitalist class. However, the differences on this issue are intra-party and cut across both Labour and Tory parties, so a veil of silence was drawn over them. Europe and the US were hardly mentioned. Instead we were offered a choice between Tweedledum, in the shape of Blair, and Tweedledee, in the shape of Howard. They vied with each other to show how, under their rule; we would get better hospitals, better schools, better pensions, less tax, less immigrants, less asylum seekers, etc., in a display of hypocrisy not equalled for decades. The policies of both parties are, of course, the precise opposite of what was being claimed, since both stand for cutting the social wage of the working class, increasing taxes and getting more immigrants into Britain to lower average wage costs. The campaign only spluttered into life in the closing stages when the extent of Labour's lies over the Iraq was revealed. However, even this was a damp squib since the only argument it led to, was one of the formal legality of the war, not the reasons for it or its desirability for British imperialism. This was not an issue, since both the main parties endorsed the war and the decision to invade Iraq whether it was legal or not. The third party, the Liberal Democrats, also supported the war but with the reservation that they did not support it before it started.

Both the main parties now occupy the same political ground, supporting free markets, privatisation of state assets, free movement of capital and the globalisation of production. In short, they stand for the general interests of capitalism in the present period, and consequently they find it hard to distinguish themselves one from the other. Of course, it goes without saying that all the parties stand directly against the interests of the working class. Not only is it astounding that the Labour party can still present itself as a friend, even if a somewhat distant friend, to the working class; it is a testament to the powers of deception available to the ruling class in the present society. We have demonstrated how the Labour party has served the capitalist class for the last century and has never at any time supported the interests of the working class. We refer readers to the text "100 years of Labour in the service of the British state" published in RP17. The principal reason that the myth of the proletarian nature of the Labour party persists is their previous commitment to state capitalism expressed through nationalisation. The famous clause 4 of the party's constitution which calls for the common ownership of the means of production is the basis of the party's commitment to state capitalism. This clause was actually inserted into the party's constitution in a direct attempt to turn workers away from a revolutionary challenge to the British capitalist class at a time when there was a real possibility of this. The party's constitution was produced in 1918 at a time when strikes and militancy were rife on the Clyde, the era of the so-called "Red Clydeside", and unrest was occurring in other regions. The Russian revolution had broken out the year before and many workers sympathised with the Bolsheviks and were trying to undermine the British forces who were attacking Russia. Dock workers, for example, were refusing to load arms destined for the British armies who were being sent against the Bolsheviks. Clause 4 was put forward to save the day for the British capitalist class. In the 1922 election Labour's programme finished with the headline "Against Revolution!" and proclaimed:

Labour's programme is the best bulwark against violent upheaval and class war.

The fact that Labour has since eliminated clause 4 from its constitution only shows that in conditions of increased globalisation, nationalisation is no longer in capitalism's best interests, whereas it was the strategy of the ruling class in the period from the '30's to the mid-'70's. Despite all this, the fairy story of a Labour party serving the interests of the working class persists even today.

Capitalism's left wing & RESPECT

For many years the Stalinists and Trotskyists urged workers to vote for the Labour party thereby providing it with critical support from the left. Recently, they have fielded their own candidates under the banner of "Socialist Alliance" and, after the collapse of the Alliance, under the banner of a grouping called RESPECT. We have exposed the bourgeois nature of this group in an article in Revolutionary Perspectives 31 "Respect unity coalition - more bourgeois politics" to which we refer readers. The leading force in the coalition is, as ever, the "Socialist Workers Party" (SWP). The aim of the coalition was to try to build a political force out of the anti-war movement and the environmental movement. The figurehead for this coalition, George Galloway, who was expelled from the Labour party for his opposition to the war, has actually won the parliamentary seat of Bethnal Green and Bow, much to the delight of the coalition.

As we have explained in previous texts, the anti-war movement and now Respect plays a valuable role for capitalism in bringing those disgusted with the hypocrisy shown over the Iraq war back into the fold of bourgeois electoral politics. The fundamental questions raised by the war, such as why did it take place and how can future wars be avoided are answered in the most superficial way by pointing to the dishonesty of our leaders and recommending we should hold them to account in elections and oppose them in parliament. Instead of directing the energy, anger and questioning of those people revolted by the savage barbarity of the war and the so-called peace which followed it, to its true causes which lie in the nature of capitalist society, Respect is leading them back into the parliamentary swamp. Here their questions will never be answered and their anger will be harmlessly defused. The capitalist class will be delighted to have Galloway back in parliament where his opposition to the Blair cabal will only support the lie that parliament is the forum in which the working class should exercise its opposition to capitalist imperialism. As a condemnation of the parliamentary manoeuvres of capital's left wing we are publishing below the "Theses on parliamentarism" produced by the Bordiga faction of the Italian Socialist Party and presented to the second Comintern conference.

In fact, Respect does not even really oppose Labour since it urges its supporters to vote for Labour in the constituencies where it is itself not fielding candidates. It still supports "Old Labour" and particularly its programme of state capitalism derived from Clause 4 discussed above. Respect stands for re-nationalisation of railways, electricity, water gas, steel etc. and against privatisations such as that of the post office, hospital services etc. The illusion that nationalisation is the same as socialisation is an extremely powerful element in the propaganda of capitalism's left wing, which we wish to briefly consider the history of this idea.

Nationalisation and socialisation

Within the Second International there was a majority who believed that capitalism was, simply through its development and growth, socialising the forces of production. This view was given weight by Engels himself in Anti-Dühring where he wrote,

The reaction of the mighty growing productive forces against their character as capital, the increasing compulsion to recognise their social nature [...] forces the capitalist class [...] to treat them as social forces of production.

This thought was developed by Kautsky and particularly Hilferding. The latter expressed it most clearly in the following passage.

The socialising function of finance capital facilitates enormously the task of overcoming capitalism. Once finance capital has brought the most important branches of production under its control, it is enough for society, through its conscious executive organ - the state conquered by the working class - to seize finance capital in order to gain immediate control of these branches of production. ⁽¹⁾

Nationalisation became the first step in the socialisation of the productive forces. This was a dominant view in the Second International which passed virtually unchanged into the Comintern and was accepted by the Bolsheviks. Under Stalin, the final step was taken and nationalisation was equated with socialism. This was similarly endorsed by Trotsky who to his death described Russian productive relations as socialist. The capitalist exploitation of soviet workers thus became a form of socialism, and is still defended today as being this by the Stalinist and Trotskyist political forces.

Engels himself, however, in the same passage from Anti-Dühring quoted above clearly refuted the conclusions of Stalin and Trotsky:

The modern state regardless of its form is... the ideal collective capitalist. The more productive forces it takes into its possession... so many more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage workers, proletarians. The capitalist relation is not eliminated. ⁽²⁾

It has been left to the left communist forces to point out that nationalisation, like privatisation, is simply a change in the form in which capitalism is owned and managed. It is not in any sense a gain for the working class. What needs to be abolished is the wage labour to capital relationship, and it is precisely this which is preserved in nationalisation and which we find defended by the forces of capital's left wing such as RESPECT.

Why elections cannot change anything

Democracy, like military dictatorship or fascism, represents a form of management of capitalism. Such a form cannot change the content of society and it is, of course, the content which needs to be changed. We are often asked why it is that the working class votes for the parties of the bourgeoisie, and have consistently done this since the secret ballot was introduced in 1872. The key to understanding this lies in understanding how ideology in any society is itself a product of the ruling class and is under the control of the ruling class. We have many times quoted a famous passage from The German Ideology and make no apology for quoting it once more.

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i. e. the class which is the ruling material force in society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas: hence the relationships which make one class the ruling one, therefore the ideas of its dominance. ⁽³⁾

The ideological dominance of the capitalist class is such that they can control which parties exist and who the working class votes for. This dominance is not only expressed in the control of the education system and the media. It permeates almost every relationship in our lives. Wage labour is presented as the natural form of human labour and capitalism is presented as the natural form of production. The historically limited nature of capitalist society is concealed and instead capitalism is presented as the culmination of the productive efforts of earlier epochs. The ideological dominance of the capitalist class will only be broken in any significant way when the dominant material relations in capitalist society come under threat. This is not unfortunately a straightforward process and, as we are seeing today, economic problems express themselves through war and imperialism which can be separated from their real causes. The ruling class always tries to disguise its real motives for war with a web of lies which in turn are generally believed. Only a complete break in the chain of ideology and domination of capitalism, such as the Russian revolution of 1917, provides the chance for the ideological hold of the ruling class to begin to unravel. This provides the chance for communist consciousness to take a hold, on a significant scale, in the ranks of the dominated class. Marx himself understood this early in his life and expressed it brilliantly in another passage from The German Ideology.

Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution: this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the much of ages, and become fitted to found society anew. ⁽⁴⁾

While it is true that the description above describes how communist consciousness can be generated on a mass scale, a minority of workers can understand the bankruptcy of present society and begin the task of building up an organisation to propagandise and lead the fight for a higher form of society. This important work, however, entails exposing the reactionary nature of those who foster, in the slightest way, any belief in the usefulness of elections or parliament as a means of "ridding the working class of the muck of ages and founding society anew".

(1) R. Hilferding: Finance Capital, p367

(2) F. Engels: Anti Dühring, p288

(3) K. Marx: German Ideology, p64

(4) K. Marx: German Ideology, p95