Why ‘Abundant Material Wealth for All’ Should Be the Title of Your Party’s Manifesto

Ted Reese

June 8, 2024

‘Manifesto of X Party’, ‘X Country’s Road to Socialism’, ‘X Party: What We Stand For’ – these are typically the kind of titles that Socialist/Communist parties give their manifestos. The framing is insular – it appeals to people who are already sympathetic to socialist politics, which is presently a small minority of people. ‘Abundant Material Wealth For All’, by contrast, vastly broadens and in fact maximizes the appeal of the title, piques the interest of the unconverted, and speaks to the needs and wants of ‘the masses’ – people are more likely to buy a lottery ticket than a political, let alone revolutionary, pamphlet. 

During the development of capitalism since the 1960s, annual productive output has roughly doubled every 25 years, with that compound growth adding up to increasingly exponential growth. In terms of raw numbers – leaving aside the fact that extractive production is not environmentally sustainable – the productive forces are ‘already capable’ of providing extremely plentiful material wealth for all (if not in terms of distribution). This factor is contributing to making capitalism obsolete, since the more commodities (or use values) are produced in larger quantities and quicker time, the more the exchange value contained in use values withers away.

The recognition that our productive capacity tends to rise and that that in fact lays the foundation for a qualitatively higher mode of production – communism – makes our suggested title the best one for addressing and combating anti-communism as the class struggle intensifies and, vitally, shifts in character. Anti-communism is not only a symptom of ruling-class propaganda, state oppression that enforces obedience, and the capitalist state’s education system (which ‘dumbs down’ the masses for ideological purposes but also because funding good education eats into profit margins). The material basis for anti-communism is broader and more fundamental than that: with each passing decade, a greater proportion of people have tended to become investors in private property. In 1989, the percentage of US households that owned stocks was 32%, rising to 53% in 2001 and 58% in 2023.

In one sense, we can identify a trend towards 100% and therefore public ownership. But with capitalist relations of production, the trend cannot last. Its growth has tended to slow down and, more critically, the time for which these stocks are held on to is plummeting – now down to 10 months from 5 years in 1975. The figures are even starker in the UK – down to 0.8 years from 9.7 years in 1980, a decline of 91.75%.

What we have seen then during the post-1970s era of ‘neoliberalism’ is a tendency towards either ‘bourgeoisification’ or ‘semi-proletarianisation’; whereby an increasingly large portion of the working class has either ascended into the capitalist class or supplemented their wages by investing in stocks. At the same time, dialectically (bidirectionally), with the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the returns on such investments have trended downwards to the point that such supplemental investments are on the verge of being absolutely disincentivised.

What we are likely about to experience then with the next major financial/economic crash is a critical shift in the balance of class forces as portions of the capitalist class and perhaps the entirety of the semi-proletariat are fully proletarianised, re-proletarianised or even lumpenised (made destitute). As exchange value withers away, so does the capitalist.

Capitalists and semi-proletarians, of course, do not automatically acquire a revolutionary communist consciousness the moment they are demoted into the ranks of the proletariat. Their ‘petty bourgeois’ and anti-communist consciousness is likely retained to some degree and perhaps exacerbated in some cases by the devastating experience they are thrown into.

Easier solutions than revolution are instinctively yearned for. They might demand that fewer migrants are allowed into the country, for instance, instinctively feeling that fewer people means less competition for fewer resources when in reality the finger should be pointed at capital’s tendency to ‘overaccumulate’ – to become unprofitable to reinvest – a fetter on investment and productivity growth.

The vast majority of workers who depend wholly on a wage themselves do not yet have a revolutionary communist outlook. To help them and ‘the downwardly mobile’ overcome any anti-communist instincts and attitudes, we have to appeal to their immediate needs. They want back what they had. They want the things they were planning and aiming to achieve and build. We must convince them that their interests therefore lay with communism – not simply because we like communism more than capitalism and know that it is better, but because this reality is now becoming true. It is vital in the majority of cases that we do convince – not immediately, of course, but with time along the way during the struggle – for we must remember that this process in the change in class character is objectively tipping the balance of class forces in the class struggle in favour of socialism.

Rehabituation

Our manifesto then must appeal to immediate needs and long-term wants and aspirations. This is critical from neuroscientific point of view as much as anything. All ‘addictions’ are learned behaviours that can be unlearned and supplanted by different habits. Class consciousness and ideology are learned habits. 

How do we change habits? Habits are changing all the time – we all change a little bit everyday, of course. But to make changes lasting and with intention, a few principles can help. James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, recommends: 1) starting with a small target; 2) increasing the target incrementally; 3) breaking the new habit down into chunks; 4) aiming for consistency, not perfection; 5) focus on systems instead of goals.

So if you want to learn to stress less and aim to do so by meditating for 30 minutes a day, you could start with (1) one minute per day and then, (2) once comfortable with that, after say a week or two, move on to two minutes, and so on. As you get towards 20 minutes, you could (3) break this into two chunks to make that stretch of time less daunting. (4) You could plan to have, say, one or two days off a week, so then when you feel like you need a break you do not end up missing three days in a row, which could make you feel like a failure. (5) Instead of focusing on the goal of 30 minutes, focus on embracing the process of becoming someone who is mastering self-control through meditation.

If you need to cut refined sugar out of your daily consumption to reverse the build-up of disease/chronic inflammation in your body, trying to do so immediately is likely to result in a sugar and dopamine crash, reinforcing the cravings and chronic sugar-dopamine, rush-crash cycle. It is much more viable for the body to adapt biochemically and neurochemically if you reduce your refined sugar intake by, say, 10% every 2-4 weeks, while also slowly introducing complex sugars from wholewheat carbs and fibrous fruits in small doses that gradually grow. As the new habit forms, the old habit withers away. You stop thinking about what you used to eat and now get a much more consistent drip-feed of sugar, energy and dopamine. 

Stress compartmentalises the brain – its different regions stop communicating with each other, generating fear and selfishness (which, at the risk of being accused of positivism, we could associate with the competition of capitalism and fascistic ideology). Destressing the brain enables the brain to communicate as a whole (like the co-ordinated planning of a socialist economy).

How do we apply these principles to ‘raising class consciousness’ and changing ideologies? Certainly not by aiming for ‘great leaps forward’. We cannot expect people to go from 0-100mph. We have to challenge ourselves and ask the question: are we re-enforcing reactionary habits or working-class divisions (given that the working class is not homogenous or fixed in its views) by attacking particular perspectives too frequently and vehemently? Do we need to take a different approach? Is this a habit of ours that we need to work on ourselves?

If our manifesto is based on ultimate communist ideals instead of immediate needs then we are biting off more than we can chew. Take as an abstraction, for the sake of making the point, an exaggerated ‘ultra-left’ manifesto called ‘Full Communism Now’ with proposals such as:– Abolish the nation and ban all national emblems– Abolish the family– Abolish religion– Abolish gender– Abolish race– Ban cars– Eat the rich– Expropriate all private property without compensation.

A communist likely thinks these policies should be considered desirable by the vast majority of humanity but an advanced Marxist will understand the ones that apply as manifestations of ‘higher communism’ when several generations have adapted ‘culturally’ to changes that take place by dint of living in a classless, technologically-advancing society with fully-automated, publicly-owned production. (Gender is already withering away because of the decline of manual labor and manufacturing; and because capital has increasingly tended to bring women out of the confines of domestic servitude to expand its exploitable labor base, for example.) Are they ‘desirable’ for the majority of the (largely semi-proletarian) masses right now, who have not had the time or proclivity, amid more pressing demands, to study Marxism to the extent that long-time communists have? The answer of course is no, not even for the majority of absolute wage-workers, most of whom may be relatively socially conservative and at best social democrats (because they are most concerned with the immediate need of earning enough to put food on the table; fear the brutal repression of the capitalist state; social democrats are allowed influential platforms; etc).

Instead, my draft manifesto reads as follows:1) Sovereignty of the people and nation2) Public ownership of production and services: continually falling prices and rising economic independence for all3) A clean industrial, energy and farming revolution that is actually clean4) Full employment (including earn-as-you-learn trainee schemes)5) Continually reduced working week and retirement age; revitalizing independent creativity and craftsmanship6) Abolish exploitation and economic crises7) Universal education, health, social and child care, free at the point of access; and low cost, highly accessible public transport8) Cancel all mortgages and personal debt9) Low-rent, high-quality housing for all10) A new democratic constitution – written by the people – enshrining the rights of humanity11) Revitalized space exploration and generalized off-world tourism12) Build great monuments to the working class.

Obviously this is a draft to be tinkered with and each point is fleshed out in some detail that we cannot go into here. Production and services will be progressively taken under public ownership, not all in one go, starting with the essentials that meet the most pressings needs of the masses. 

Outlined in point 2 (and 3, regarding farmers) is the offer to compensate the last capitalists via long-term debt payments – no problem for a system that, unleashed from the fetters of capital, will enormously raise productivity. (They will have to be expropriated without compensation if they refuse all negotiation, of course.) They will also be offered fulfilling jobs in social enterprises in the industries they presently work in or similar in order to motivate them and retain any useful expertise, which is especially important in the case of farmers.

In this way, we are trying to destress, as best as possible in extremely challenging circumstances, the minds of people who are presently anti-communist – again, that’s presently most people – by making people realize and understand that they have everything to gain from communism and nothing to lose.

I am not deluded or naive. I do not think or claim that this approach can prevent a violent counter-revolution or that we can convert every fascist through ‘love-bombing’. The historical circumstances into which we are being thrown are far too complex for that. The revolution will be defended militaristically to some or other extent (and it is also true that the dwindling capitalist class will lose because capitalism is necessarily using up its ammunition quicker that it can be replenished).

But this approach is the best one for shortening the period and brutality of the counter-revolution, thereby saving as many lives as possible. We will never know how successful we are with this approach without being able to travel to a parallel universe. But to the purists who consider this approach idealistic, we have to consider the following: 

1) Capitalism has not been overthrown before it has more or less historically exhausted itself (i.e. before exchange value has all but withered away as production has become almost completely fully automated). While it has produced enough value, capitalism has been able to produce and wield enough carrot and stick to sustain sufficient obedience and division among the majority of the working class.

2) The evidence from history’s revolutions (not just socialist revolutions) suggests capitalism will not be ‘overthrowable’ until the capitalist state is more or less unable to pay most of its state workers, including soldiers. Every revolution I have studied has seen the majority of state workers continue to work for the new state. 

3) Revolutions of the past have always made not-insignificant concessions ‘to the right’ (which would include socially conservative parts of the working class) or the old ruling class in order to dampen the appeal of the counter-revolution. In Marx’s manifesto he predicts that a decisive portion of the capitalist class will at some point side with the new ruling class, the working class, just as a portion of the feudal ruling class – sensing the new direction of blowing wind and realising they could enrich themselves via the new, more productive mode of production – eventually sided with the then-revolutionary and ascending capitalist class. Our approach will foster this process by incentivising splits and defections and disincentivising rebellion.

4) We also have to take into account the fact that we are trying to slow down and reverse global warming before it is too late and prevent a nuclear world war that is becoming increasingly possible as capitalist competition intensifies over dwindling profits.

We have to make the world-historical process of transitioning to communism as smooth and easy as possible. We have to make offers that cannot be refused. We will have to do this in incredibly difficult circumstances, during a period in which history is accelerating (as quantitative changes add up to seismic qualitative ones) – but we will have to stick to our guns, stay disciplined and ‘trust the process’ as much as possible throughout.

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