All For Each And Each For All

The spectre of poverty and insecurity haunts every worker. For centuries we have lived as slaves.  Are we not all equal? Well then, we claim the right to live and die equal, the way we were born. And we’ll have this real equality, at whatever price. Gutless politicians have no more genius than they do good faith. None have had the courage to tell the whole truth. The selfish and the ambitious will tremble with rage and those who possess unjustly will cry out about injustice. Freedom for them is when one class can starve another with impunity. Equality is nothing but a vain phantom when the rich, through monopoly of ownership, exercise the right of life or death over the poor.

We seek the common good and the community of goods. We declare that we can no longer put up with the fact that the great majority work and sweat for the smallest of minorities. No more individual property in land: the land belongs to no one. We demand the common enjoyment of the fruits of the land that belong to all. Long enough, and for too long, the few have disposed of that which belongs to us all. The people want freedom and equality.

Let it at last end this great scandal of distinctions between rich and poor, great and small, masters and servants, rulers and ruled. Let there no longer be any difference between people. Since all have the same faculties and the same needs, let there then be for them but one education, but one food. They are satisfied with one sun and one air for all: why then would the same portion and the same quality of food not suffice for each of them? We tell you that we are organising for no other goal than to put an end to civil dissension and public misery. Never before has a vaster plan been conceived of or carried out than the organisation of real equality, the only one that responds to all needs, without causing any victims, without costing any sacrifice.

The day after this real revolution, we’ll say with astonishment: What? Happiness was so easy to obtain? All we had to do was want it? Why, oh why, didn’t we desire it sooner? Open your eyes and your hearts to the fulfilment of happiness: recognise and proclaim a society of equals and an emancipated world. A society of economic and social equals wherein class divisions, privileges and disabilities will for the first time in history be impossible; a system of social ownership of the means of production industrially administered by the workers on an organised and harmonious plan, ensuring from every person according to his or her capacity and to everyone according to his or her needs.

This Social Revolution is the objective of the World Socialist Movement, the goal which every step it takes heads towards It is time for the labour movement, too, to hearken to the call of the times to discard its futile reformism. It is time to recognise the nature of the fight and to unite all our forces in countering the enemy. We hold aloft the banner of World Socialism, when the class war shall have been for ever stamped out, when mankind shall no longer cower under the oppressor, when the necessaries and amenities of life, its comfort and culture shall be to those who toil and not them that exploits, a society where none shall be called master and none servant, but all shall be fellow workers in common.

Either we get rid of this capitalist system or it will devastate humanity. People know that capitalism is no good but few can see a way forward to a better type of society. Our human resources are wasted through social and economic conditions which stunt human growth, through unemployment and through our failure to provide adequate education. We aim to replace  the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supersede unregulated private enterprise and competition, and in which genuine democracy based upon economic equality will be possible. The present order is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth and opportunity, by chaotic waste and instability; and in an age of plenty it condemns the great mass of the people to poverty and insecurity. Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of financiers and industrialists and to their predatory interests the majority are habitually sacrificed. When private profit is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression, in which the common man's normal state of insecurity and hardship is accentuated. We believe that these evils can be removed only in a planned and socialized economy in which our natural resources and principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated by the people. What we seek is a proper collective organisation of our economic resources such as will make possible a much greater degree of leisure and a much richer individual life for every person. The community must organise its resources to effect a reduction of the hours of work in accordance with technological development.

Unprecedented scientific and technological advances have brought us to the threshold of bountiful abundance. Opportunities for enriching the standard of life are greater than ever. However, unless there is intelligent planning, the evils of the past will be multiplied in the future. The technological changes will produce even greater concentrations of wealth and power and will cause widespread distress through unemployment and the displacement of populations.

 We do not believe in change by violence but that this social and economic transformation can be brought about by political action. As a social movement, we support all struggles against the injustices of capitalism. We cannot offer a blueprint to a better future but we offer an invitation to all workers to join us, as we join them, in our common efforts to eradicate a social system based on exploitation, discrimination, poverty and war. The capitalist system must be replaced by socialist democracy. That is the burning issue of our era.

 A free life on a free earth. Only socialism can turn the boundless potential of working people and resources to the creation of a world free from tyranny, greed, poverty and exploitation. That is the only hope of humanity.