What Is Socialism?

A few weeks ago, I started trying to learn Irish better. One of the first things I learned to say was “Is sóisialach mé” . I am a socialist. But what is a socialist?

A socialist is someone who knows that everything that human beings need and want is created by the daily labour of our class, the working class. A socialist understands that history is there to be re-written in our words and by our actions; we don’t believe in fairytales and we are not afraid of the difficult challenge of creating a better world.

One of the highest values for socialists is solidarity. We know who our friends are and who has our backs, we need them in our struggle against capitalism. What capitalism means is ruthless pursuit of profits and that when working class people suffer under capitalism it’s because the rich ruling class benefits from that suffering.

By sticking together, working class people can take on and defeat the bosses. This is practical solidarity. But it’s more than just practical - it also points the way to a society built around social solidarity - the opposite of the society we live in now!

Solidarity is really important for socialists. We identify with and stand in solidarity not only with workers but also with all oppressed groups. We fight against racism, homophobia and transphobia and we see these poisonous beliefs as operating to divide working class people.

The rich and wealthy love nothing more than seeing ordinary people fighting each other - “divide and conquer”.

Life for ordinary people is really difficult today: homelessness and hospital waiting lists are blights on our communities, parents can’t get their kids into a creche and there is a huge shortage of school places. We know that it is the rich and their politicians - not poor immigrants - who are the cause of our problems. It is profitable for the wealthy to create shortages and to keep people angry, desperate and divided.

A good example of solidarity is how the Right to Water Protests defeated the government’s plans to privatise water services in 2014. Without that solidarity, the working class would have been divided and defeated and we would be paying water charges today to make private investors rich.

Another example of solidarity is how in 2020 & 2021 the Debenhams workers fought for 406 days to get what they were owed by the bosses who had pulled the plug on the business. The Debenhams strike was not totally successful - the workers didn’t get their jobs back - but they did get a much improved offer from the employer. Workers may struggle and lose in the fight against the rich and powerful but the only way to win is through solidarity.

Socialists know that we don’t just live in our town or our own country: we live in a world that is connected like never before. Our struggles are always local and international at the same time. International vulture funds exploit workers in many countries at once. The same goes for big employers.

For example - Amazon workers in the US were made stronger when Amazon workers in Germany went on strike. By hitting the company on an international front the working class exercises our true power.

I began this article in the Irish language - the language of the majority of the labouring classes on this island for most of the last millennium - but socialists know that we live in a global capitalist system. For that reason we know that solidarity with working class people worldwide is essential.

The greatest achievement of working class socialism was the October 1917 Revolution in Russia that gave power to workers’ councils rather than the cruel Tsar, the factory owners or the owners of the huge agricultural estates. Soon after 14 international capitalist armies invaded Russia trying to defeat the infant revolution.

This was known as the Russian civil war but it was really a counter-revolutionary invasion led by Britain, France and the United States. The revolutionary Bolsheviks won the Russian civil war but they were isolated. When the German revolution failed a few years later it was bad because it meant that the Soviet Union was surrounded by states that were hostile to it.

We have to be aware that we fight a powerful international capitalist system and international solidarity is a practical need of our movement. But as socialists we also know that, in the words of Karl Leibnecht “the main enemy is at home”. Our own ruling class is the greatest danger to our lives. Even when they claim to be on our side.

In international struggles we highlight what we can do as workers here in Ireland, the Dunnes workers who used working class power to stand up and strike against Apartheid are an example of this. Their actions helped the workers of South Africa but also helped organise workers here to fight in their own interests.

Under capitalism - a system defined by the exploitation of the working class - someone always pays. For example, after World War Two in Britain a welfare state was introduced to keep British workers from rebelling against the British ruling class. The truth is, much of the money to pay for the National Health was taken from the exploitation of people in colonies like Malaya and Kenya.

Our own political leaders tell us that we need the taxes that come from American multinationals. However, the truth of the matter is that American multinationals only employ 6.5% of the workforce and half of those people are working in financial services that create the tax haven that brings these companies here in the first place. The tax credits available to these companies are staggeringly high.

To take just one example: over €140 billion in “intangible assets” tax credits were claimed in 2023! Not only is this larger than the total profit tax take (€23 billion) it is also larger than the total amount of money available for the entire budget!

In fact, the biggest sources of money for the budget in Ireland come from PAYE and VAT - from workers.

We currently live in a system where most people work but we do not own the great wealth we produce and have no say in decisions as to how it’s used. Our labour is “exploited” - you can be poorly paid or well paid and still be exploited. It’s about how much profit your bosses squeezes out of you each day.

Socialists believe that all wealth is created by workers. All of the things that we need and want are created through labour. If you doubt this, just think about how no profits are made when workers go on strike. Just think about how society would grind to a halt if carers and stay-at-home parents decided to unionise and demand payment.

We reject the idea that is often expressed in the media that multinational companies are coming to Ireland to “provide jobs” to working class people. As socialists we are proud of our class - the working class - because we know we produce everything that anyone has ever needed or wanted.

The people who profit from the things we produce – capitalists, landlords, speculators have that wealth only because we have not yet as a class organised together to overthrow them. The most famous socialist in history, Karl Marx said, “workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains!”

Socialists aim to bring about a classless society - there are parasite classes that live off the labour of others. We don’t need them.

Capitalism is a deeply unjust class system that is held in place by the usually hidden violence of the state. The state props up the parasite classes and we see it in action when workers stand up for their rights - like when Guards attacked the water movement or removed Debenhams workers from picket lines.

Socialism is a society, based on working class solidarity, that gives to each according to their needs and asks from each to contribute according to their ability.

It is a collective system that gives us everything we want and need without the violent and non-violent exploitation of the working class. The only way that capitalism can be replaced by socialism is by a people power revolution.

A socialist knows that the winners write history. However, a socialist also knows that our job is to re-write history in our thoughts and words, and also in our actions. Again, as Marx wrote: “The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class”. When the media and politicians talk about history they tell a child’s story about their favourite kings and queens, nations and empires, goodies and baddies.

This is a fantasy story that disguises the truth about the ruling class (the one percent who travel by private jet and super yachts) and the exploitative capitalist system they benefit from.

What the RTE news and the Irish Times don’t want you to talk about is social class. For socialists, history is all about “class struggle” and nothing else fully explains why things happened, and why they’re happening. It is our job to talk about reality.

Reality is that every society that has ever existed since the neolithic has been a class society: in the words of Karl Marx, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight”.

But history is not a prison. As socialists we know that, through our actions as a united working class we can change the world for the better, defeat oppression and exploitation of all kinds though fighting for a classless society – we can and we must re-write history through our actions.

We believe in revolution. Capitalism is an economic system that is based upon the exploitation of the work of the vast majority of the population of the world by a very small number of people.

We can see this globally: the twenty-two richest men in the world have more money than all the women in Africa. We can see this in Ireland: the two richest men in Ireland have more money than the bottom 50% of the population.

You can see it in your day-to-day life: You can produce 100 mobile phones in a day but still get €13 per hour, the boss sits back and collects all the profits. You care for as many elderly people in a nursing home as you can but the boss can still decide to sell the business tomorrow and put you on the dole. A parasite landlord can steal your home.

Capitalism brings poverty, wars, disease and suffering all over the world. Some of the poorest countries in the world are poor because powerful companies pay poverty wages and avoid paying their fair share of tax. What makes things worse is that money lending systems such as the International Monetary Fund then step in to “bail out” bankrupt states.

As a condition of these IMF loans, countries that are already poor have to cut back on social spending. Worse again is that if any country tries to resist this system they can be attacked by sanctions or even by invasion - this is how American imperialism works.

Another problem caused by capitalism is the devastating climate change that is making parts of our planet unable to support their populations. The victims of the wars, poverty, disease and climate change caused by capitalism and imperialism are always the poorest and most powerless working class and poor people.

There are currently 117.3 million refugees all over the world - some of them are in Ireland and all of them have been driven from their homes by capitalism. Most are in coountries that neighbour the war or disaster driving people to leave.

Thatcher said “there is no alternative” but capitalism is not permanent. It is only three hundred years old and we believe that for the sake of the human race and the planet, it can and must be overthrown. However, capitalism will not bring itself to an end.

As socialists we know it is only the united working class of all races and nations that can bring this about: as Karl Marx said, the workers are the “gravediggers” of capitalism. Some people who believe themselves to be socialists are not in fact socialists because while they are against racism and homophobia they do not wish to overthrow capitalism. They are happy just to increase taxes to pay for hospitals, schools and social welfare.

We fight for ecvery reform that makes working class life better but socialists know that capitalism cannot be defeated by tax increases alone and reforms are always clawed back by the greedy boss class when they sense struggle has dropped.

In times of economic crisis reforms are rolled back by the ruling class and their political representatives. Capitalism is always in crisis. Socialists know this and so, we plan to take advantage of any revolutionary potential arising from those crises.

We seek to bring ‘advanced’ workers into the struggle, preparing the ground so that a revolutionary party, made up of working class people, can lead the organised working class to take on and challenge the capitalist state and system, eventually making true workers’ democracy and socialism a reality.