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World Socialist Party of the United States | |
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Founded | 1916 |
Split from | Socialist Party of America |
Headquarters | Las Vegas, Nevada |
Newspaper |
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Youth wing | World Socialist Youth |
Ideology | Anti-Leninism Classical Marxism Impossibilism Revolutionary socialism Socialism |
Political position | Far-left |
International affiliation | World Socialist Movement |
Colors | Red |
Website | |
wspus | |
This article is part of a series on |
Socialism in the United States |
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Socialism |
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The World Socialist Party of the United States (WSPUS) is a socialist political organization that was established in Detroit, Michigan as the Socialist Party of the United States in 1916 and which operated as the Socialist Educational Society in the 1920s before being renamed the Workers' Socialist Party. The organization reemerged in the 1990s and exists today as the American companion party of the World Socialist Movement.
The WSPUS maintains that it has been unique in the history of American socialist and parties since its inception by maintaining the original conception of socialism as first propounded by 19th-century theorists such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Antonie Pannekoek and William Morris.[ citation needed ] Within this tradition, socialism is defined as a post-capitalist mode of production where the accumulation of capital is no longer the driving force governing production and where production is undertaken to produce goods and services directly for use.
The WSPUS defines socialism as a moneyless society based on common ownership of the means of production, production for use and social relations involving cooperative and democratic associations as opposed to bureaucratic hierarchies and companies. Additionally, the WSPUS considers statelessness, classlessness and the abolition of wage labor as components of a socialist society, [1] characteristics that are usually reserved to describe a fully developed communist society, but that both Marx and Engels used to describe interchangeable with the words "socialism" and "communism".
The WSPUS condemns other parties that call themselves "socialist" for supporting causes within capitalism (such as the interests of labor within capitalism), which they see as being but one side of the same coin. The WSPUS criticizes them for being reformist and for abandoning the long-term goal of building socialism in favor of maintaining the capitalist mode of production tempered by a welfare state. The World Socialist Movement also criticizes "democratic socialists" and labor unionists for coming to define socialism as political struggle within capitalism as opposed to defining it as a system to replace capitalism. [2] For instance, they criticize the Socialist Party USA for advocating policies like full employment instead of dealing with the structural issues of capitalism like questioning the need to retain wage labor in the first place. The WSPUS also contends that nationalization, state ownership and even decentralized-public ownership of industry is not socialism because capital, monetary relations, exploitation, wage labor and bureaucratic hierarchy still exist in such organizations and in most cases state-run organizations are still structured around generating profits. [3]
The WSPUS advocates the abolition of all employment, which they argue is a modern form of slavery, as well as its replacement by a society of voluntary labor and free association that produces wealth to be distributed through channels of free and open access. [4]
Unlike anarchists, the WSPUS advocates a political revolution because it argues that as the state is the "executive committee" of the capitalist class, it must be captured by the working class to keep the former from using it against the will of the latter. It also condemns the reformist nature of much anarchist activism.[ citation needed ] The WSPUS maintains that the revolution must be carried out by a willing majority organized without leaders, capturing the state by means of delegates elected solely to carry out the wishes of the majority to destroy the state by replacing it immediately with democratic control of the means of production across the entire country and indeed the entire planet.[ citation needed ]
It has stood against all wars fought since its inception on the grounds that they always represent the economic interests of the owning class and never those of the working class. Unlike much of the left, it does not take sides in wars. For example, it did not call for a victory for the Vietnamese against the United States. It has opposed the traditional radical opposition to the (usually Republican) incumbent presidents (e.g. anti-Nixonism, anti-Reaganism, or anti-Bushism) arguing that the enemy of the working class is the entire exploitative social system based on ownership of the means of the production, not the presidents elected to run that system efficiently, as such opposition fosters the illusion of "better presidents" rather than an understanding of and opposition to the entire economic system based on an owning minority employing a non-owning majority to produce its profits.[ citation needed ]
The Socialist Party of the United States (SPUS)—its name inspired by co-thinkers in the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) and the original (non-WSM) Socialist Party of Canada (SPC)—was established on July 7, 1916 by 42 defecting members of Local Detroit of the Socialist Party of America (SPA). [5] Those leaving to found the new organization were encouraged by the rapid growth of the so-called impossibilist movement in Canada and were deeply discouraged by the growing trend towards reformism in the SPA. Many founding members of the WSPUS were employed in the growing Michigan auto industry. [6]
The group was initially headed by an immigrant from England named Adolph Kohn, who was later remembered by one factional opponent as a "mild-mannered, blue-eyed man with a vast memory" who was "textually brilliant in Marxist lore". [7] Writing under the pseudonym John O'London, Kohn attempted to gather around him others opposed to the World War in Europe who felt that the pursuit of ameliorative reforms only served to bolster the capitalist system.
The SPUS participated in the left-socialist circles of the time, especially with the Michigan Socialists expelled from the SPA in 1919 who first helped form the Communist Party of America (CPA) and later formed the Proletarian Party of America. Groups were formed in New York City, Cleveland, Portland and San Francisco. [8]
The Proletarian group and the SPUS split apart over support for the Soviet Union. The WSPUS applauded the Bolshevik's withdraw from the first World War, but felt that the new Soviet regime could only be state capitalist and hence should not be supported. The Proletarian Party, headed by Scottish emigrant John Keracher, regarded the Soviet Union as a workers' state which needed defending.
The WSPUS was given a regular page in the Western Clarion , the weekly paper of the original (non-WSM) Socialist Party of Canada, a publication which circulated broadly in American Left-socialist circles.
Pressured by the Palmer Raids of January 1920 and threatened with trademark litigation by the SPA, the SPUS in the early 1920s as the Socialist Educational Society (SES). There were three locals in the SES period, located in Boston, Detroit and New York. The New York City local was the most active and events often included Louis Boudin as guest lecturer. [5]
In 1927, the SES changed its name again to the Workers' Socialist Party (WSP).
The party published an irregular organ during the 1930s, The Socialist, which was launched in November 1929 and continued publication until July 1938. [9]
The heyday of the WSP was 1930 and 1940s when it had perhaps 150 members. During that time, WSP members were quite active in the workers' movement, especially the United Auto Workers union which a number of WSP members helped form. WSP members were also active in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the International Typographical Union in New England.
Since October 1933, the Socialist Party of Canada had published the Western Socialist from Winnipeg. After the outbreak of World War II, the Western Socialist could not be published in Canada as an anti-war journal. Beginning with Vol. VI whole number 55, October 1939, the periodical was published in Boston and became the official organ of both the SPC and the WSPUS. [10] Its final issue was Vol. XL, whole number 319, 1979–1980.
In 1947, the party's name was changed, this time to the present World Socialist Party of the United States. [5]
During the 1980s, the party began to publish World Socialist Review, the first issue being dated 1986. World Socialist Review has been published irregularly since then.
The WSPUS rejuvenated in the mid-1990s due to the emergence of the Internet.
As of September 2008, it has members scattered throughout the United States, including local branches in Boston and Portland as well as a regional branch in the area encompassing Detroit and Toledo, Ohio.
State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises. The definition can also include the state dominance of corporatized government agencies or of public companies in which the state has controlling shares.
Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, such as socialism or communism.
Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which is owned by a state entity, and from collective or cooperative property, which is owned by one or more non-governmental entities.
The Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) was a political party that existed from 1904 to 1925, led by E. T. Kingsley. It published the newspaper, Western Clarion.
An economic system, or economic order, is a system of production, resource allocation and distribution of goods and services within a society. It includes the combination of the various institutions, agencies, entities, decision-making processes, and patterns of consumption that comprise the economic structure of a given community.
Dennis E. Batt was an American political journalist and trade union activist. Best remembered as the first editor of The Communist, the official organ of the Communist Party of America and leading member of the Proletarian Party of America, in later years Batt's political views became increasingly conservative and he ended his life as a mainstream functionary in the union movement.
Production for use is a phrase referring to the principle of economic organization and production taken as a defining criterion for a socialist economy. It is held in contrast to production for profit. This criterion is used to distinguish communism from capitalism, and is one of the fundamental defining characteristics of communism.
State socialism is a political and economic ideology within the socialist movement that advocates state ownership of the means of production. This is intended either as a temporary measure, or as a characteristic of socialism in the transition from the capitalist to the socialist mode of production or to a communist society. State socialism was first theorised by Ferdinand Lassalle. It advocates a planned economy controlled by the state in which all industries and natural resources are state-owned.
Eco-socialism is an ideology merging aspects of socialism with that of green politics, ecology and alter-globalization or anti-globalization. Eco-socialists generally believe that the expansion of the capitalist system is the cause of social exclusion, poverty, war and environmental degradation through globalization and imperialism, under the supervision of repressive states and transnational structures.
Impossibilism is a Marxist theory that stresses the limited value of political, economic, and social reforms under capitalism. As a doctrine, impossibilism views the pursuit of such reforms as counterproductive to the goal of achieving socialism as they stabilize, and therefore strengthen, support for capitalism. Impossibilism holds that reforms to capitalism are irrelevant or outright counter-productive to the goal of achieving socialism and should not be a major focus of socialist politics.
In Karl Marx's critique of political economy and subsequent Marxian analyses, the capitalist mode of production refers to the systems of organizing production and distribution within capitalist societies. Private money-making in various forms preceded the development of the capitalist mode of production as such. The capitalist mode of production proper, based on wage-labour and private ownership of the means of production and on industrial technology, began to grow rapidly in Western Europe from the Industrial Revolution, later extending to most of the world.
The socialist mode of production, or simply (Marxist) socialism or communism as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the terms communism and socialism interchangeably, is a specific historical phase of economic development and its corresponding set of social relations that emerge from capitalism in the schema of historical materialism within Marxist theory. The Marxist definition of socialism is that of production for use-value, therefore the law of value no longer directs economic activity. Marxist production for use is coordinated through conscious economic planning. According to Marx, distribution of products is based on the principle of "to each according to his needs"; Soviet models often distributed products based on the principle of "to each according to his contribution". The social relations of socialism are characterized by the proletariat effectively controlling the means of production, either through cooperative enterprises or by public ownership or private artisanal tools and self-management. Surplus value goes to the working class and hence society as a whole.
Social ownership is a type of property where an asset is recognized to be in the possession of society as a whole rather than individual members or groups within it. Social ownership of the means of production is the defining characteristic of a socialist economy, and can take the form of community ownership, state ownership, common ownership, employee ownership, cooperative ownership, and citizen ownership of equity. Within the context of socialist economics it refers particularly to the appropriation of the surplus product, produced by the means of production, or the wealth that comes from it, to society at large or the workers themselves. Traditionally, social ownership implied that capital and factor markets would cease to exist under the assumption that market exchanges within the production process would be made redundant if capital goods were owned and integrated by a single entity or network of entities representing society. However, the articulation of models of market socialism where factor markets are utilized for allocating capital goods between socially owned enterprises broadened the definition to include autonomous entities within a market economy.
Socialist economics comprises the economic theories, practices and norms of hypothetical and existing socialist economic systems. A socialist economic system is characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production that may take the form of autonomous cooperatives or direct public ownership wherein production is carried out directly for use rather than for profit. Socialist systems that utilize markets for allocating capital goods and factors of production among economic units are designated market socialism. When planning is utilized, the economic system is designated as a socialist planned economy. Non-market forms of socialism usually include a system of accounting based on calculation-in-kind to value resources and goods.
The World Socialist Movement (WSM) is an international organisation of socialist parties created in 1904 with the founding of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB).
The proletariat is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power. A member of such a class is a proletarian or a proletaire. Marxist philosophy regards the proletariat under conditions of capitalism as an exploited class— forced to accept meager wages in return for operating the means of production, which belong to the class of business owners, the bourgeoisie.
A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country, sometimes referred to as a workers' state or workers' republic, is a sovereign state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. The term communist state is often used synonymously in the West, specifically when referring to one-party socialist states governed by Marxist–Leninist communist parties, despite these countries being officially socialist states in the process of building socialism and progressing toward a communist society. These countries never describe themselves as communist nor as having implemented a communist society. Additionally, a number of countries that are multi-party capitalist states make references to socialism in their constitutions, in most cases alluding to the building of a socialist society, naming socialism, claiming to be a socialist state, or including the term people's republic or socialist republic in their country's full name, although this does not necessarily reflect the structure and development paths of these countries' political and economic systems. Currently, these countries include Algeria, Bangladesh, Guyana, India, Nepal, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.
The World Socialist Party (Ireland), founded as the Socialist Party of Ireland in 1949 before changing its name a decade later, was a Marxist political party in the impossibilist tradition. It was a companion party of the World Socialist Movement (WSM) and was closely connected to the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB). The party's offices were in Belfast and it was most active in Northern Ireland, although it was also active in the Republic of Ireland. The party participated in elections in Northern Ireland, but without success. Socialist View was the party's newspaper. The party disbanded in the 1990s.
"To each according to his contribution" is a principle of distribution considered to be one of the defining features of socialism. It refers to an arrangement whereby individual compensation is representative of one's contribution to the social product in terms of effort, labor and productivity. This is in contrast to the method of distribution and compensation in capitalism, an economic and political system in which property owners can receive income by virtue of ownership irrespective of their contribution to the social product.
In the theoretical works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and subsequent Marxist writers, socialization is the process of transforming the act of producing and distributing goods and services from a solitary to a social relationship and collective endeavor. With the development of capitalism, production becomes centralized in firms and increasingly mechanized in contrast to the pre-capitalist modes of production where the act of production was a largely solitary act performed by individuals. Socialization occurs due to centralization of capital in industries where there are increasing returns to scale and a deepening of the division of labor and the specialization in skills necessary for increasingly complex forms of production and value creation. Progressive socialization of the forces of production under capitalism eventually comes into conflict with the persistence of relations of production based on private property; this contradiction between socialized production and private appropriation of the social product forms the impetus for the socialization of property relations (socialism).