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| FIGHT FOR A WORLD OF ABUNDANCE |
Many mistake the economic crash, the failures at the Stock Exchange, financial and banking disasters for the cause. Such like factors may lead to, but are not the causes of, business depressions and the recession. Capitalism is a s free-for-all that endures for a while. Every manufacturer and trader is the antagonist, opponent, and rival of all others; each seeks to surpass or conquer all others in the industrial battle. Manufacturers must keep on turning out goods to keep machinery and works in action; the businessman places orders in anticipation of new orders, and in this way pays his old debts by contracting new ones. Finally all trade becomes blockaded; business stagnates; industry languishes; orders slow up, for
stocks are abnormally large. Workers are put on short-time, temporary laid off, or made redundant and dismissed. Manufacturers are compelled to shut down their works, or cut back on production. Businesses cannot pay their old debts, for they cannot contract new ones. Banks refuse to loan money, some of them will even burst because they have loaned out too much.
Capitalism has itself constructed the basis for transcending the misery to which it condemns humanity. It long ago built up the productive forces—industry, technology and a globalised network economy—to the point where the possibility exists to produce an abundance of all the things people need. Shortages of housing, food and every other form of want can be easily overcome, but that potential remains trapped by capitalism’s pursuit of profit. Capitalism is a free-for-all that endures for a while. Every manufacturer and trader is the antagonist, opponent, and rival of all others; each seeks to surpass or conquer all others in the industrial battle.
Reformists promise to redistribute wealth, to regulate the multinationals and the banking giants. They promise panaceas of social security that are unrealisable while the conditions of capitalism remain. Hopes arise that out of this they may restore the economy. Futile hopes, empty dreams! Raw material exists in abundance, human energy and ingenuity is in abundance, the genuine desire for useful articles of all kinds exists in every home,yet under capitalist control of industry it is impossible to bring these together. Nothing is so easily produced as wealth. The earth is one vast mass of raw materials. Hidden in every passing river, in every wave or tide, in every gust of wind and ray of sun, are the renewable forces to be transformed into energy. We can tap into Nature’s fabulous abundance to banish for all time the spectre of want, and make Earth fit for human habitation, once again. The Socialist’s mission is to win the world back from capitalist barbarism. A socialist society would seek to produce the needs of all rather than the profit of an elite class of profiteers.
By producing an abundance of necessary goods for all, socialism removes the very basis for the existence of classes. Necessary work would be divided equally among all. And the introduction of labor-saving technology, instead of creating unemployment as it does under capitalism, would be used to shorten the work week and free workers’ lives for greater leisure. In such ways the basis would be laid for the development of a society free of all forms of exploitation and oppression. The worst in socialism will be better than the best in capitalism
Socialism is the common ownership of the means of production and exchange and their democratic organization and management by all the people in a society free of classes, class divisions and class rule. Socialism is the democratic organization of production use, of production for abundance, of plenty for all, without the exploitation of man by man. Socialism is the union of the whole world into an international association of free and equal peoples, disposing in common of the natural resources and wealth of our shared planet.
Can this great ideal ever be realised?
Socialist society is not a dream or utopia. All the conditions for the formation of such a society have already created within the capitalist world itself. The scientific, technological and productive powers of humanity have already grown so enormously that founding a society committed to the well-being of all is perfectly feasible. Capitalism has created the great social force that can materialise this liberating prospect. The staggering power of capital on a global scale is a reflection of the power of a world working class. Unlike other oppressed classes in the history of human society, the working class cannot set itself free without freeing the whole of humanity. Socialist society is the product of workers' revolution to put an end to the system of wage-slavery; a social revolution which inevitably transforms the entire foundation of the production relations.A large part of these resources is now either wasted in different ways or is even deliberately used to hinder efforts to improve society and satisfy human needs. But for all the immensity of society's material resources.
The advances in computerisation and information technology means that the organisation of a world community with collective participation in the design, planning and execution of society's diverse functions is possible more than ever before. The backbone of socialist society is the creative and living power of billions of men and women beings freed from class bondage, wage-slavery, intellectual slavery, alienation and degradation. The free human being is the guarantee for the realisation of communist society.
In socialism, production is organised for use, not for profit. Production is carried on in a planned, democratically-controlled way, not on the basis of whether or not the private capitalist can make a profit on the market.
Where there is abundance for all, the nightmare of insecurity vanishes. There are jobs for all, and they are no longer dependent on whether or not the employer can make a fat profit on a fat market. There is not only a high standard of living, but every industrial advance is followed by a rising standard of living and a declining working-day. More leisure, less toil.
Where there is abundance for all, and where no one has the economic power to exploit and oppress others, the basis of classes, class division and class conflict vanishes. The basis of a ruling state, of a government of violence and repression, with its prisons and police and army, also disappears. Police and thieves, prisons and violence are inevitable where there is economic inequality, or abundance for the few and scarcity for the many. They disappear when there is plenty for all, therefore economic equality, therefore social equality.
Where there is abundance for all, and where all have equal access to the fruits of the soil and the wealth of industry, the mad conflicts and wars between nations and peoples vanish. With them vanishes the irrepressible urge that exists under capitalism for one nation to subject others, to rob it of its resources, to exploit and oppress it, to provoke and maintain the hideous national and racial antagonisms that cling to capitalism like an ineradicable bloodstain.
We in the Socialist Party of Great Britain are organized to make the working class conscious of its historical mission, of the great part it must play in reorganising society itself. We are part and parcel of the working class and the labour movement.
We do not say to the workers: "Fix your eyes so rigidly on the socialist future that you ignore the needs and battles of the day." Rather, we also say: "Fight every-day for that which will strengthens the working class, which gives it a stronger position in society, which increases its self-confidence and militancy, which pits it against its mortal enemy capitalism and the capitalist class-which strengthens its independence, and which, therefore, brings it a step further along the road of struggle for the socialist future."
Socialism puts an end to the class division of society and abolishes the wage-labour system. Thus, market, exchange of commodities, and money disappear. Production for profit is replaced by production to meet people's needs and to bring about greater prosperity for all. Work, which in capitalist society for the overwhelming majority is an involuntary, mechanical and strenuous activity to earn a living, gives way to voluntary, creative and conscious activity to enrich human life. Everyone, by virtue of being a human being and being born into human society will be equally entitled to all of life's resources and the products of collective effort. From everyone according to their ability, to everyone according to their need — this is a basic principle of communist society. The administrative affairs of the society will be managed by the cooperation, consensus and collective decision-making of all of its members.
Not only class divisions but also the division of people according to occupation will disappear. All fields of creative activity will be opened up to all. The development of each person will be the condition of development of the society.
Socialism is a global society. National boundaries and divisions will disappear and give way to a universal human identity. Socialist society is a society free of religion, superstitious beliefs, ideology and archaic traditions and moralities that strangle free thought.
The wage-labour system, that is the daily compulsion of the great majority of people to sell their physical and intellectual abilities to others in order to make a living, is the source and essence of the violence which is inherent of this system. This naked violence has many direct victims: Women, workers, children, the aged, people of the poorer regions of the world, anyone who stands up to any oppression, and anyone who has been branded as belonging to this or that "minority". In this system, thanks essentially to the rivalry of economic blocs, war and genocide have assumed staggering proportions. The technology of war and mass destruction is far more advanced than the technology used in production of goods. The bourgeoisie's global arsenal can annihilate the world several times over. This is the system that has actually used horrendous nuclear and chemical weapons against people.
Nowhere in socialist theory is use of force viewed as a necessary component of workers' revolution.
Capitalism is a world system and the workers' socialist movement must also be organised on a global scale, a body uniting the workers' global struggle for socialism.
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