Let's Change the World

‘Something must be done about hunger'…'Something must be done about global warming'…..'Something must be done about war ...Something must be done... And so it goes on, a litany of pleas for something to be done about an almost endless list of social problems.

Socialism, based upon the planned organisation of production for use by means of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, is the abolition of all classes and class differences. Without production, society cannot live. One class—the capitalist class—owns and controls the economic resources of the world. That class, for its own protection and perpetuation in power, subjects all institutions to its own interests. The Socialist Party appeals to the world’s workers upon the lines of THEIR their class interests.  The Socialist Party counts among the world’s workers all those who labour with hand or brain in the production of life’s necessities and luxuries.  In regards the interests of the owners of industry and commerce the Socialist Party have no concern whatsoever, except to abolish that ownership. People are not puppets in that they are beings endowed with certain wants and impulses, with certain physical and mental powers which they will seek to use in their own interest. Conditions will compel the exploited classes to rise against this system of private ownership.

For hundred of years the possessing classes have been trying to prevent revolution. Social reform is the name they give to their perpetual tinkerings to remove this or that ill effect of private property, without touching private property itself. Cures have been recommended and applied but all the so-called  panaceas of our political quacks which are to heal the old social sores quickly, without pain and without expense, are, upon closer inspection, discovered to be but a revival of old devices, all of which have been tried before in other places and found worthless.

The Socialist Party’s 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 competition. Our goal is a socialist world based on common ownership of our resources and industry, cooperation, production for use and genuine democracy. Only socialism can turn the boundless potential of people and resources to the creation of a world free from tyranny, greed, poverty and exploitation. The needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of a socialist society. The Socialist Party is the party of the dispossessed with the object to build a new world.

We need socialism because the flaws of capitalism are too basic, the power of the corporations too great, the chasm separating the compulsions of profit and the needs of people too wide, for anything less to succeed. Half-measures of government intervention—tampering with monetary and fiscal policy to stimulate investment and spending—has proven bankrupt. Legislative reforms, aimed at the blatant abuses of corporate power, have failed .Welfare-state policies although won by hard struggles, have done little to correct deep-rooted structural social inequality. Even well-intentioned governments have buckled under economic pressure, and passed vicious legislation and  slashed social services to trample the basic rights of workers. Capitalism has failed us, and so have efforts to fix it. From the ruling class  the cry is “to cut.” Everything is to be “to be cut.” What is everything? Is it to be the military adventures abroad, the luxuries of the rich, their mansions, their private healthcare, their Public Schools? No. What is to be “ to be cut ” is the worker’s education, the worker’s housing, the workers hospitals. Above all, wages are to be cut. Reforms have now become “impossible” and even past achievements and gains are being  rolled back. “We can’t afford these luxuries any more” is the complaint from the rich. As people find themselves suffering hard times, it is “everyone for themselves”. We begin to blame eachother, turning on one another.

The socialist revolution is, however, the struggle for the overthrow of the system which allows profit to monopolise the supply of the community’s needs.  Everything has to be reorganised and built up on a new basis; a basis of production for use, not for profit. Everyone has new hopes and desires, new claims upon life and the community, more pleasure, more leisure.  Everyone, too, is demanding a new share in deciding how things shall be done. The only people who could deal with revolutionary change and its new requirements are the people, all interlinked by bonds of family, friendship and fraternity as they are, who are actually engaged in the making every product. It will be by the co-operative effort of the countless members of the community that our world will be transformed.

Fact is, the capitalist system and its various layers of control and exploitation will not stop until we make it stop! While issuing demands and raising voices is necessary, the harsh reality is the needs of the people have continued to be ignored.  Capitalism couldn’t care less about the needs of the oppressed. Capitalism in all its manifestations must be abolished.