Work under Socialism

Comrade Pannekoek sent this article with an accompanying letter, from which we would like to quote a passage by way of introduction. He writes:

“ [...] I read some articles in Funken with great interest, but not always with pleasure. What your best colleagues so often emphasize, that the Marxist foundations of good socialist practice are missing, I have to agree with you. Because I myself participated in the German socialist movement in my best years (around and after 1900, first from Holland, then in Germany itself), I feel the difference to the present very strongly. No wonder, considering that since then the German workers first went through reformism and the world war, then 15 years of ministerialism, and then the spiritual void under Hitler. While the rising generation was repeatedly misled by the Bolshevik degeneration of Marxism. German socialists who now want to create a new basis in a thorough theoretical development have to take two steps: first, to regain the level of theoretical consciousness of the SPD around 1900; and then to take up and continue the approaches to the further development of theory and tactics that emerged in the party discussions between 1903 and 1914 and in the practical struggle up to 1920 (imperialism, mass strike debates, mass actions). Many valuable and fruitful new ideas were developed then and in the 1920s, but they only reached small groups; and everything has been lost in magazines and newspapers that are hard to find. And what now calls itself SPD is a purely parliamentary, completely bourgeois party that seeks to defeat the Christian party through an excess of nationalism.”

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Among workers, the main interest will be focused on the question of the character of work under socialism, more than on organizational issues. Now the term “socialism” is used for very different things. When we speak of socialism, we always think of a labor system that is fundamentally different from capitalism. This is not the case with Russian state capitalism, even though it calls itself socialism. Nor is it the case with the industries nationalized by the English Labour Government.

Here the workers are still subordinates who have to obey the command of a director appointed from above. A fundamental change will only come about when the workers themselves are masters of the factory, masters of the production apparatus, and regulate their work themselves by the joint decision of the workforce. The condition for this is that the means of power of capital, through which it dominates production, are destroyed by the revolution of the working class. This will abolish exploitation.

Capitalist exploitation does not only mean that capital confiscates the product of labor as its property and leaves to the workers only that part of it which is necessary for life. It also determines the special character of labor under capitalism. This is the expenditure of labor power per se, of indiscriminate, quantitative labor power, and its conversion into a quantity of surplus value for capital. The product itself is indifferent if it can only be sold. Whether it is trash or quality goods, whether it gives the worker pleasure or disgusts him, is irrelevant. He cannot express his creative joy in the product; he has to deliver as much added value as possible by expending his labor to the point of exhaustion. Here man is degraded to a machine that produces profit for capital.

Labor under socialism is distinguished by the disappearance of everything that makes it unbearable under capitalism. Instead of the production of surplus value, it becomes the production of the things necessary for life, at the same time the natural activity of all human powers and faculties. When the workers are masters in the factory and regulate their own work, they will naturally begin to do away with everything which, by the command of the capitalist, has made work a mind-numbing drudgery. The endless repetition of the same manual operations can easily be replaced by automatic devices. Why doesn't capitalism do this? Because it has enough cheap labor degraded to automatons. It is equally obvious that the workers will then no longer struggle with obsolete tools and unproductive working methods, but will introduce the most advanced technology everywhere. This will considerably reduce the necessary working time. In addition, all labor power, which now serves the purposes of war production, luxury and the personal care of the ruling class, will then be freed up to contribute to the needs of society.

In his letter printed in the August issue of Funken, Paul Frölich points to another factor in the degradation of the working man under capitalism. Through the development of technology and the ever-increasing division of labor, people have become “clueless, unconscious tools of this enormous development, dead particles of the gigantic machine”. “They know neither the functions nor the purpose of what they produce.” “The individual human being is and becomes more and more part of an organic whole. Like its product, he becomes a splinter.” This is indeed another circumstance that makes work under capitalism a torture. This becomes even more apparent if we draw a comparison with medieval craftsmanship. There the craftsman himself was the owner of his tool, his means of production, and could use it according to his own plan. Incidentally, it should be borne in mind that under capitalism the division of labor, with a view to greater profit, is carried much further than would be technically necessary.

However, the division of labour as a technical and organizational structure also means cooperation. The large machines and the large factories can only be set in motion by large organized crowds of workers. When we speak of workers here, we are of course referring to all employees, including technical officials. Now this happens under the command of capital. Under socialism it is done according to the decision and will of the community of workers, by the workforce. Those who do the work also regulate it. As a member of the community, each individual has to participate not only in the actual work, but also in the planning, the organization, the intellectual leadership. Where the capitalist commands the organization and oversees the whole, what Frölich expresses applies: the individuals, including the technicians, work blindly without knowing what they are creating. But where the community has to design, decide and carry out the organization of work itself, it also sees through and knows what it is creating. And every member of the community, because he or she participates in the discussions, decisions and implementation, shares in this knowledge. The fact that he is part of an organic whole is then not an evil but a happiness, not a humiliation of his personality but an elevation. The socialized human being is not a degraded degeneracy but a higher form of humanity. He is the new man of the future, the bearer of a higher culture.

For it is clear that through this reorganization of work the foundations of all human feeling, thinking and acting will be transformed. From the constant cooperation in common tasks, an ever stronger sense of community will grow, which will increasingly dominate the nature of mankind. It is the further development of solidarity, which previously blossomed in the class struggle, and which, in the difficult struggles to destroy the rule of capital that still lie ahead of us, is increasingly becoming a fixed characteristic of the workers.

And finally, it becomes questionable whether labor, i.e. human activity, can still be called by this name. Under capitalism there is a fundamental difference between work and leisure. The moment the drudgery of forced wage labor ends, one's own free life begins. But if, by increasing productivity, the livelihood of all is secured with little effort, then people's activity will be directed more and more towards creating works that make life richer and the earth more beautiful. Where such goals constantly occupy the thoughts, the contrast between work and leisure is lost in the activity of building a new world.