Keir Hardie, Wikimedia Commons
Dare to dream! Prepare to act!
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Authoritarian Socialism?
What is the obvious puzzle that all humane supporters of communism and socialism are faced with? The problem of authoritarian socialism. It claims to eliminate all forms of exploitation, while, at the same time, clamping down on all dissent, murdering opponents, violating habeas corpus, stifling people’s creativity, restricting freedom of expression and free will, abolishing the possibility of multiple parties, taking away all the independence of the judiciary and taking over all the media. And those are only some of the visible problems.
Who wants a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’? Doesn’t it sound repulsive? That is the period in which all class distinctions are removed and people are re-educated into a sharing, and into an indivisible collective frame of mind. We have seen the perverse results of these ‘proletarian dictatorships’ in China and the former Soviet Union.
The dead giveaway for an authoritarian socialist is that they despise democracy and political representation. They believe in elites and vanguards and people being told what to do and think. When you think of communism, don’t find excuses for its failures. Look them in the face. Look at the man standing in front of the tanks in Tiananmen square. Go and talk to Jewish people, and to other people of different ethnicities about the prejudice they experienced in the former USSR. Talk to the survivors of the Cultural Revolution. Talk to the survivors of the terror.
And even in the best of cases, in Cuba, while they have many benefits, there is no political freedom, no democracy, no freedom of expression and no freedom of belief. There is a deep residual homophobia and the toxic vestiges of all the fossilised values of the 1950s that remained when Fidel and his band took power.
Sham social democracy
In contrast, we see what a sham socialism is in western Europe. So-called socialist parties like Labour were intensely comfortable with people being stinking rich. The British made war on Iraq in the hope of lapping up the scraps of looted oil wealth fallen from the table of the USA. People calling themselves Labour in Britain proudly claimed the inheritance of Thatcherism: privatisation and low taxation. One rule for the rich, another for the ordinary citizens. Currently we have a Labour government that actively supports the horrific genocide in Gaza.
As soon as politicians of any type are elected, they are targeted and corrupted and owned – often well before they are elected. To be a successful politician, you need support from business and the billionaire owned media; you need money and publicity.
After your time in power, if you behave like a good little boy or girl, you will be offered speaking engagements, a job with a corporation. A foundation might be set up in your name. You might even get a directorship or two on one of the boards of the companies you benefitted.
And that’s the problem. The problem is that, inevitably, if you have an uncontrolled capitalist system, certain people are more effective, for good or bad reasons, and they gather more profit – they steal more of the value of other people’s surplus labour. Real economic power produces real political power. You may vote socialist until the cows come home in Britain, but any socialist government will be a pushover for the people with real power in our country, and a pushover for the global corporations. That is, unless we act in concert to support socialism. Jeremy Corbyn was a missed opportunity.
You can’t face down or threaten, or disembowel the companies that pollute and exploit and pay low wages and encourage war, and who profit from illness, without a fight. Do you think voting alone makes a difference to a huge mining corporation, a vast bank or an armaments company? These are people who make money from the misery and exploitation of millions. These are people who produce weapons that kill and maim thousands. Do you think they are afraid of you? No. But they are afraid of us as an active community voting and acting on our shared beliefs. The warmongers and exploiters fear it when a humane and socialist government has the full support of the people.
The corporate wizards behind the curtain
Someone once said that all the answers to life are in the film The Wizard of Oz. The corporations, with all their money and power, are like the wizards behind the curtain speaking in big booming voices using megaphones, impressing us with tricks and wizardry into their service and into resignation and the worship of technology. These wizards are not that impressive as human beings and their values are suspect. Study them more closely!
Yes, it is true that the power of the corporations to extract all the work they can from us while paying as little as possible is real. Yes, they don’t pay enough taxes and can use lawyers and the law to defend themselves when ordinary people can’t. Yes, it is true that the police and the army of the state can repress dissent use real bullets if push comes to shove. They have cameras everywhere and are watching you on the Internet. They have killer robots and drones. One day They may have DNA coded weapons – one day. But where the inequality and exploitation and powerlessness is really perpetuated is in our heads. We have to agree to everything. We have to agree that things should be the way they are; that it is right that they are the way they are. This agreement of ours permits the ruling class to exploit and go to war. Our acceptance of the status quo allows social injustice to continue.
In response to the seemingly immoveable power and reality of the status quo in the USA in the 50s and 60s, Angela Davis quoted her mother. Angela Davis, growing up in Birmingham Alabama, cried when she was told that she could not use the local library because she was black. But her mother took her aside and said something to her that stayed with her all her life. She said:
‘Just because things are this way now doesn’t mean that they should be this way. And it doesn’t mean they always will be this way.’
For many of us, the lessons of Karl Marx communism and socialism boil down to one very simple fact. It is not scientific or difficult at all. We can all understand this fact. There is no need to read anything to understand, not even Robert Tressell’s Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, to know what it means: so long as you have unfairness, prejudice and injustice anywhere, people will fight to stop it because they don’t like it. Because they are human. Humanism is at the heart of a fair and just, a kind and a free society.
How do we deal with the wizards behind the curtain, with their armed guards and megaphones, their mass media, and all the paraphernalia in place that to guarantee that the relations to production are reproduced in a way that benefits them almost exclusively?
After the army, the Navy, the Air Force, the police and the prisons, the Internet is the most powerful weapon our masters control. They may monitor what people are thinking and target them, but they can only obfuscate, confuse, misinform and persuade. They cannot stop people from thinking and sharing ideas. The weapon there to monitor and control us – the Internet – is a double-edged sword. It serves the purposes of humane socialists too.
Ignore those people who say that activists on the Internet are armchair activists. On the contrary. Thinking and politicisation is the first step you take before you join a trade union, before you join a social movement. Before you act you read, think and discuss and understand.
There is an alternative
When the USSR fell, the ultra-right neoliberal ideologues in the pay of the corporations in the USA, the current centre of global capitalism, were pleased. They claimed that it was the end of history and that there were no alternatives to capitalism any more and that capitalism could easily be reformed into something better and kinder. Do you see that better and kinder capitalism in operation around you now?
For years, with all the power of modern corporate capitalism behind it, after the fall of the USSR, socialists were told there was no sun – that a humane sharing society was a pipe dream, a fantasy. They were told that people were not really good, that they were evil and greedy. That sharing and kindness were just a disguise for self-interest. That the only reality was the reality of looking out for yourself. That community action was wrong because it automatically denied the importance of the dissenting individual.
This story, with so much money and power behind it, was disrupted by the young. Stories about the impossibility of change are always disrupted by the young. Now the young people of the world are connected up. They can see the wizards poking their heads out from behind the curtains and they don’t think much of them.
Young people think there is the possibility of a better society because they really want and need it, because they can’t get good, well-paid jobs easily, because they see the dangers of automation, because the health service they will rely on is being defunded and outsourced, because property speculation has meant they have to live in tiny nooks and give all their money away to landlords, and because they see the corporations externalising their costs and bringing us to the point of systemic environmental collapse. They know there must be a sun. There has to be a sun called socialism.
The contradictions of capitalism mean the people at the sharp end of exploitation and marginalisation will need to finally fully understand what’s happening and why, and understand who benefits from iniquity, and how they do and how they hide their parasitism. Then they will will decide on a course of action together and act – intersectionality. We all need to act together collectively against weird cabals of wizened, scheming, cold-hearted, blood sucking Neocon wizards.
Like smoking, we all know capitalism is bad for us.
Modern Capitalism is like smoking, or cars designed without any safety features. We all know that smoking has killed millions, and that poor safety features on cars have killed and maimed millions – so many innocents. The companies that made a profit from cigarettes and unsafe cars actually knew that the world knew. They knew that scientists had already exposed them as pushers and killers. They knew that ordinary people also knew. Cigarette manufacturers were playing for time.
Modern capitalism is playing for time, too. It is the cause of poverty and climate change and of nearly all the evils faced by people on this planet. It is very simple. This is what you get if you run a society based on greed and exploitation. But capitalism’s number is up. The problem of climate change alone is enough to kill it. So many of us see the creeps behind the curtain for what they are. They are not almighty and omniscient controllers, they are just rich, selfish, ruthless, dodgy, old, white, ruling class men.
Noam Chomsky answers the question perfectly. When he was challenged by someone who suggested there was no alternative to capitalism he said that of course there was an alternative. The alternative to modern capitalism is not to exploit, not to pollute, not to declare war, not to divide and rule, not to do all the things that are done to ensure the wealthy stay wealthy and get wealthier and instead, to do the things that socialists, and perhaps even communists, have always wanted to do to improve the lot of humanity and life on the planet. What are they? Well what is humane socialism? Humane socialism, my friends, is the socialism that we want it to be.
What would do if one member of your family hoarded all the family food in his room so that there was nothing left for anyone else, and refused to share it with the rest of his family, and threatened them with violence when they came near the it?
You would probably call the police, or the hospital. You would think they had gone mad. The philosophy of Greed was a value enshrined by the likes of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the 80s. It was and is a form of sociopathy and psychopathy.
RESPONSES TO THE QUESTION: WHAT IS HUMANE SOCIALISM?
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One contributor said: Quote Thomas Hardy’s poem:
A Plaint to Man
When you slowly emerged from the den of Time,
And gained percipience as you grew,
And fleshed you fair out of shapeless slime,
Wherefore, O Man, did there come to you
The unhappy need of creating me –
A form like your own for praying to?
My virtue, power, utility,
Within my maker must all abide,
Since none in myself can ever be,
One thin as a phasm on a lantern-slide
Shown forth in the dark upon some dim sheet,
And by none but its showman vivified.
“Such a forced device,” you may say, “is meet
For easing a loaded heart at whiles:
Man needs to conceive of a mercy-seat
Somewhere above the gloomy aisles
Of this wailful world, or he could not bear
The irk no local hope beguiles.”
But since I was framed in your first despair
The doing without me has had no play
In the minds of men when shadows scare;
And now that I dwindle day by day
Beneath the deicide eyes of seers
In a light that will not let me stay,
And to-morrow the whole of me disappears,
The truth should be told, and the fact be faced
That had best been faced in earlier years:
The fact of life with dependence placed
On the human heart’s resource alone,
In brotherhood bonded close and graced
With loving-kindness fully blown,
And visioned help unsought, unknown.
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Another contributor said: Quote Keir Hardie’s Bradford speech
I shall not weary you by repeating the tale of how public opinion has changed during those twenty-one years. But, as an example, I may recall the fact that in those days, and for many years thereafter, it was tenaciously upheld by the public authorities, here and elsewhere, that it was an offence against laws of nature and ruinous to the State for public authorities to provide food for starving children, or independent aid for the aged poor. Even safety regulations in mines and factories were taboo. They interfered with the ‘freedom of the individual’. As for such proposals as an eight-hour day, a minimum wage, the right to work, and municipal houses, any serious mention of such classed a man as a fool.
These cruel, heartless dogmas, backed up by quotations from Jeremy Bentham, Malthus, and Herbert Spencer, and by a bogus interpretation of Darwin’s theory of evolution, were accepted as part of the unalterable laws of nature, sacred and inviolable, and were maintained by statesmen, town councillors, ministers of the Gospel, and, strangest of all, by the bulk of Trade Union leaders. That was the political, social and religious element in which our Party saw the light. There was much bitter fighting in those days. Even municipal contests evoked the wildest passions.And if today there is a kindlier social atmosphere it is mainly because of twenty-one years’ work of the ILP.
Scientists are constantly revealing the hidden powers of nature. By the aid of the X-rays we can now see through rocks and stones; the discovery of radium has revealed a great force which is already healing disease and will one day drive machinery; Marconi, with his wireless system of telegraphy and now of telephony, enables us to speak and send messages for thousands of miles through space.
Another discoverer, through means of the same invisible medium, can blow up ships, arsenals, and forts at a distance of eight miles.
But though these powers and forces are only now being revealed, they have existed since before the foundation of the world. The scientists, by sympathetic study and laborious toil, have brought them within our ken. And so, in like manner, our Socialist propaganda is revealing hidden and hitherto undreamed of powers and forces in human nature.
Think of the thousands of men and women who, during the past twenty-one years, have toiled unceasingly for the good of the race. The results are already being seen on every hand, alike in legislation and administration. And who shall estimate or put a limit to the forces and powers which yet lie concealed in human nature?
Frozen and hemmed in by a cold, callous greed, the warming influence of Socialism is beginning to liberate them. We see it in the growing altruism of Trade Unionism. We see it, perhaps, most of all in the awakening of women. Who that has ever known woman as mother or wife has not felt the dormant powers which, under the emotions of life, or at the stern call of duty are even now momentarily revealed? And who is there who can even dimly forecast the powers that lie latent in the patient drudging woman, which a freer life would bring forth? Woman, even more than the working class, is the great unknown quantity of the race.
Already we see how their emergence into politics is affecting the prospects of men. Their agitation has produced a state of affairs in which even Radicals are afraid to give more votes to men, since they cannot do so without also enfranchising women. Henceforward we must march forward as comrades in the great struggle for human freedom.
The Independent Labour Party has pioneered progress in this country, is breaking down sex barriers and class barriers, is giving a lead to the great women’s movement as well as to the great working-class movement. We are here beginning the twenty-second year of our existence. The past twenty-one years have been years of continuous progress, but we are only at the beginning. The emancipation of the worker has still to be achieved and just as the ILP in the past has given a good, straight lead, so shall the ILP in the future, through good report and through ill, pursue the even tenor of its way, until the sunshine of Socialism and human freedom break forth upon our land.
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Other recommendations from a contributor were quite conservative.
Medical care for everyone, a good educational system, gender equality, reducing the gap between social classes, freedom of movement for individuals, a solid constitution to safeguard the people from dictatorship and corruption, freedom of speech and respecting human rights.
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Some contributors were clear about how they saw a future socialist society.
A humane, democratic and socialist society is one that is organised according to kindness, compassion and love. Its values and goals are that of unity, peace, equality and tolerance. These ideals are achieved by people living together as one community, abandoning our selfish, greedy and territorial ways, instead living for one’s neighbours and community, not oneself. A manifesto provides practical ways of how we can achieve this ideal. The overall aims of this manifesto is to fight injustice, poverty, climate change, war and capitalism, as these are the obstacles in the way of the world, we want to build..
Responsible and Sensible Leadership/Greater accountability of power
1. Pooling of sovereignty of all nations, so to prevent the outbreak of wars, international tensions and concerns for international security. It also ensures accountability of world governments, protecting democracy, human rights and civil liberties, as well as ensuring that governments commit to solving climate change, tackling poverty and dispensing social justice. Inspiration is derived from the European Union (EU), which has been credited for maintaining peace and protecting human rights for over sixty years.
2. Parliaments and governments to be elected by proportional voting. A “Swiss style” of government – a country led by a presidential council with equal representation of both men and women, rather than a single individual as head of state. Direct democracy, including more referendums.
Caring for our planet
3. Ban the use of fossil fuels and non-recyclable products and packaging. Invest in renewable energy, homes, products and transport. Use recyclable and reusable material in products and packaging. Improve and invest more into public transport. Plant more trees and create more green spaces in urban areas. Protect green belts, natural habitats, forests and fields. Stricter penalties for littering and causing pollution. Penalties to businesses and organisations that fail to cut carbon emissions. Sanction countries that fail to reduce carbon footprint.
4. Our planet is not only for humans, we also share it with animals and we should care more for them. Animal rights to have greater recognition and be taken more seriously. Reduce consumption of meat and move towards a more plant-based society. Stricter penalties for abuse of animals. Introduce more ethical farming..
No one is left behind
5. Nationalisation of all public services, making them accessible for all who need them. Improve these public services as well.
6. All citizens to be entitled to universal basic income and access to safe and clean accommodation, so that no one has to go without and have access to their basic needs.
7. Free healthcare, education and social services for all.
A spiritually and emotionally healthy world
8. You work to live, not live to work. Workers rights to be protected. Four day working week to be introduced. More bank holidays to be introduced. Increase minimum wage. All employers must provide support for employees. Employees to be regularly motivated in their roles, by being made to feel appreciated and valued.
9. Make showing compassion and kindness to others, a social norm. Educate children and young people and encourage adults. An Inclusive World
10. Promoting diversity and ending discrimination. There is no place in society for discrimination and cannot be tolerated. Human rights are to be protected. Encourage society to be multicultural and accepting of difference. Introduce stricter penalties for discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, sexuality, disability and nationality.
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Another person was heartfelt.
Compassion. Compassion even for those who may only be the figments of our deranged imaginations. Compassion even for those we will never meet, but whom we can imagine being. Compassion even for those who will never help us, and never even know of us. Compassion even for the lowliest ant, or fly. And gratitude for what we have.
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Another said:
Justice for Palestine and for all oppressed people in the world, that the yoke of oppression be lifted.
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Yet another person was a practical visionary and gave the following detailed response.
Economic and Governance Reforms
Commit to maintaining fair and open markets, recognising the dynamic, innovative role free enterprise can play.
Ensure free expression through diverse and independent – not corporate-dominated – mainstream media, including public broadcasting. Implement stricter controls on advertising practices.
Strengthen government and public oversight to prevent a free-market economy from devolving into a speculative “casino economy” through robust regulation, mediation, and accountability mechanisms.
Retain or restore public ownership of strategic economic sectors (e.g., infrastructure, essential services). Compensate privatised entities based on post-tax valuation, deducting excess profits accrued during private operation.
Corporate governance reform: Allocate 35% of board seats to government and trade union representatives each, with 30% reserved for private sector stakeholders. Cap executive compensation across all sectors and enforce strict adherence to this structure.
Renationalise BP, reducing fuel prices retroactively. Compensation to former owners adjusted for past overpricing (calculated over five years).
Climate and Infrastructure
Transition to a net-zero carbon economy by 2030.
Phase out investments in air travel and polluting maritime transport. Prioritise expanding UK rail networks and improving European transport links.
Ban foreign speculative ownership of British property. Investigate and regulate overseas purchases of European real estate.
Social and Labour Policies
Enact a Universal Basic Income (UBI) for all adult UK citizens.
Launch a public housing initiative to address shortages, repurpose vacant speculative properties, and criminalise exploitative rent practices (e.g., “Rackmanism”).
Abolish university tuition fees, reinstate means-tested grants, and cancel all student debt.
Mandate severe penalties for hate crimes (homophobia, transphobia, racism, misogyny, religious intolerance).
Break up or strictly regulate tech monopolies (e.g., Google, Facebook). Require unionisation and fair wages at companies like Uber and Amazon.
Limit online surveillance to criminal activity; establish clear free-speech guidelines for digital platforms.
Taxation and Public Services
Provide free utilities (water, electricity) to low-income households.
Offer small businesses a two-year tax grace period and lower proportional rates compared to large corporations. Close offshore tax havens.
Restore funding to local councils for parks, libraries, and civic infrastructure via publicly managed projects.
Implement progressive taxation (up to 90% for extreme wealth/corporate profits) to fund NHS expansion, education, and cultural subsidies.
Justice and Rights
Expedite trials for violent crimes (within 3 months), impose mandatory minimum sentences, and ban solitary confinement.
Legalise cannabis; intensify crackdowns on hard drug trafficking.
Reform policing to address systemic bias; boost mental health services to reduce police intervention in non-criminal crises.
Outlaw all discrimination; guarantee free legal aid for victims.
Rehabilitate prisoners via mandatory 40-hour working weeks (skills training included); return prison management to the public sector.
Foreign Policy
Rejoin the EU Social Charter, align policies with the EU, and restore free movement/trade.
Decouple foreign aid from commercial interests. Strengthen EU and Scandinavian ties; pursue pragmatic relations with Russia.
Suspend UK-Israel relations until it complies with 1967 borders, ends apartheid policies, and acknowledges Palestinian right of return. Apply sanctions akin to those against apartheid South Africa if unresolved.
Cultural Initiatives
Fund museums documenting slavery, colonialism, and UK cultural heritage. Support arts, film, and theatre through grants.
Expand vocational/IT education with modernised facilities and elevated prestige.
Humane socialism will be what we want it to be. Dare to dream! Prepare to act!
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