Abundance For All

The objective of the Socialist Party is to achieve wealth for all. Plenty of the good things of life for everybody. A fine house to live in, nice furniture in it, and a garden  about it. A table set with good things to eat. A wardrobe of quality clothing, comfortable and elegant. Opportunity and means to travel  the world. Leisure to read and play and work. No poverty anymore. With all these things, socialism will get the consequences of all these things, a natural human development, healthy men and women, a happy people. You of course say all this is a utopian fantasy but no, it’s not a dream but an immediate possibility. By means of the vast array of technology at our disposal we can produce wealth enough for all without any trouble whatever. By means of the new automated machinery a person can produce a hundred or a thousand times as much wealth as in the times of our fathers. There is no doubt at all about this. Modern inventions have so increased the productive capacity of mankind that all could have an abundance of wealth by working only 3 or 4 hours a day. Abundance under capitalism would indeed be a ‘‘miracle”. In fact, it is impossible. The idea of abundance has no place in capitalism. It is socialism that proposes to get this abundance for all.

In order to get this abundance for all, we must take these new inventions and use them for producing new wealth for all to share instead of producing it for a few. The only reason we are not all well off now is that a few people own these great machines and refuse to let us work at them except when they can make a profit for themselves. If we collectively owned these factories and railroads and mines and mills ourselves and all of us worked at them to produce wealth for our own use an happiness, all the troubles of poverty would disappear. The only thing that lies between us and the promised land is this private ownership of the means of producing wealth.Therefore, what socialism proposes to do, in order to get wealth for all, is to take possession of the instruments of wealth production and run them for the use of all. Just how do we do that?

The workers who are deprived of their right to the machinery shall come together in a political party and vote the current owners out! We say to the worker “Come join our party, vote yourselves into power, use that power to capture back those means of wealth production which the capitalists have stolen from you, and then you will get all that abundance which modern life entitle you to.” The Socialist Party appeals to your self-interest. We are practical and indulge in no dreams or false hopes. Your real interests lie in abolishing the private ownership of the means of production.

Socialism has unfortunately been presented in the past as a system not of abundance but of scarcity, as a system not of increased leisure and comfort, but of sacrifice and back-breaking toil, not political and industrial democracy and a wider freedom, but of less freedom and increased labour discipline. But socialism is not the politics of poverty but of abundance. Socialists presupposes the abundant availability of material goods to ensure full satisfaction of human needs. Sciene and technology has worked wonders in today's world by creating the necessary material conditions for humanity's march towards a socialist society. The development of automation has the potential to obliterate the difference between manual and mental labour. The grounds are being laid, all we have to do is to wrest control of the means of production from the capitalists so that productive forces can grow unhindered and undistorted.

 Always the paradox of poverty amid abundance faces us. The productive capacity of the world, which could produce an abundant standard of living for all, is not being utilised. Industry is being run not for use, but for the private profit of the banks, the business tycoons and the big landowners. It is this that tears society apart. Bosses, when they fire workers, do they worry whether or not they or their families are  going to suffer? There are some who out of charity give assistance, but they are powerless to relieve all those in need and who will either die prematurely because of privations of various kinds, or voluntarily by suicide in order to put an end to a miserable existence and to not have to put up with the rigors of hunger, with countless shames and humiliations, and who are without hope of ever seeing them end. We see fathers and mothers who kill their children so as not to see them suffer any longer, and women who, in fear of not being able to feed a child, don’t hesitate to destroy in their wombs the fruit of their love. These things happened in a country abundance reigns, where butcher shops are filled with meat, bakeries full of bread, where clothing and shoes are piled up high in stores, where there are unoccupied houses. There are many people who will feel sorry for the victims, but who’ll tell you they can’t do anything about it. let everyone survive the best they can. And all these things happen in the midst of an abundance of all sorts of products. If only all those in need, instead of waiting - took.

Even the environmentalists do not have the confidence that the world can produce sufficient  in a sustainable manner to provide for all. We are cautioned against unlimited growth and warned that the planet’s resources are finite and to this we answer, we know. Our reply to the  many well meaning environmentalists is that they have accepted the false premise of capitalism that people possess limitless wants - or in plain language, people are greedy. Yet right in front of their eyes, exposing the lie, exist the vast advertising industry that capitalism requires to create demand all and around us the hierarchial society where ones status is expressed by a display of conspicuous consumption that we are all taught to try and emulate.

 Socialists declare that all things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned—that industry, the basis of our social life, instead of being the private property of a few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the common property of all,democratically administered in the interest of all. There will be no money, and there will not even be any bookkeeping transactions or coupons to regulate how much one works and how much a person gets. People will work without any compulsion and take what they need. So said Marx. Does that still sound like an unrealistic vision? Once again, we say lift yourself out of the framework of this present society, and do not consider this conception absurd or impractical. For in the socialist society, when there is plenty and abundance for all, what will be the point in keeping account of each one’s share, any more than in the distribution of food at a well-supplied family table? You don’t keep a tally as to who eats how much. Nobody snatches food when the table is fully laden. If you have a guest, you don’t seize the best choice of meat for yourself, you pass the plate and offer it. We've got the abundance - we just have to change the way we distribute it.

No, what’s absurd is the ethic of capitalism: “From each whatever you can —to each whatever he can grab.” The socialist society of universal abundance will be regulated by a rational standard. It will be “From each according to his ability—to each according to his needs.”