Socialism - the Aspiration of the Workers

The world is rich in natural resources. It is capable of satisfying the needs of all its people. But today the great majority of our people are faced with poverty, food insecurity and lack of health-care. Suffering and misery is created so a small clique of very wealthy individuals can continue to line their pockets. A handful of capitalists control our country and make fabulous profits off the labour of working people. All the major means of production - the factories, the mines, telecommunications and transportation – are concentrated in the hands of these few capitalists who employ millions of workers.The two classes in our society, the working class and the employing/investing class, are locked in a bitter struggle. The capitalists represents the system of exploitation and oppression. The working class represents the progressive force to eliminate capitalism. Capitalism is a system based on exploitation by a small minority of parasites who leech off the blood of the workers.

Every bit of capitalists’ vast possessions was stolen from the people. It’s the capitalists that get rich by appropriating the fruits of our labour. At the end of a working-week the worker collects his pay. The capitalists claim this is a fair exchange. But it is highway robbery. In reality, a worker gets paid for only a small part of the value he produced. The rest, the surplus value, goes straight into the boss’s pocket. The idea that everyone can get rich under this system is a lie invented by the rich themselves. Under capitalism, the only way to get rich is to trample on someone else. The bosses get rich, not because they have “taken risks” or “worked harder,” as they would have us believe. The more they keep wages down and reduce the number of employees with speed-ups, the more they can steal from us and the greater their profits. And if the boss thinks he can make more profit somewhere else, he just closes his factory and throws the workers out on the street.

The state apparatus – parliaments, the army, police, etc. – is in fact an instrument which the ruling bourgeois class uses to maintain its domination over the people. No matter which party is in power, the state’s role is to protect capitalist private property and defend its interests. The police will not attack scabs to block them from entering a factory on strike. The government has a thousand ties with the big capitalists. Government consultation committees are made up of industrialists and financiers. Politicians meet daily with the leading employers, and many politicians have their own personal fortunes.

The state is also used as an economic tool by the ruling class. When the capitalists need to develop certain sectors  of the economy that require large initial investments, when they need to protect certain industries that are essential to serve the entire capitalist class (like transport), when they face bankruptcy or produce too little profit (health care and hospital services), the state just steps in with subsidies and bail-outs and, if required, nationalises them. At the same time, no political party can offer real convincing solutions to the problems facing the country.

The world is presently in the throes of a serious economic recession. How is it possible to have such a crisis in a planet so rich in natural resources, manpower and technology? Crises like these are an integral part of capitalism. They are rooted in the capitalist class’s insatiable thirst for profits. Economic crises break out regularly. Some, like the Great Depression of the ’30s and the present crisis, are particularly serious. Each capitalist is out to make the most profit, and to achieve this he produces as many goods as possible. The different groups of capitalists, the sections of the bourgeoisie, are engaged in deadly competition each trying to seize more  profit and control over the economy. The employers  are wracked with divisions and contradictions.This is the anarchy of capitalism. These crises spread around the world to all the capitalist countries. The system as a whole is plunged into crisis. Governments has tried everything over the years to put an end to these crises. It has resorted to massive government spending to try to stimulate the economy. It has given huge gifts to the big business and the banks. But ir will be spending cutbacks , the wage freezes and all sorts of attacks against working people, which will  transfer the weight of the crisis onto the working class and restore the employers profitability.

As people lose hope and their lives become meaningless, families fall apart and crime, drug abuse, violence and sexual violence increase. The working class’s anger, its struggles for its demands and its refusal to pay the price of the crisis intensify daily. Workers can either submit to wage slavery or fight it. The working class has always fought against the capitalists. There can never be class peace between exploiter and exploited, between boss and worker. The working class cannot eliminate exploitation and poverty unless it overthrows the capitalist system. It must wipe away the nightmare of capitalism. It must destroy the State, its Parliament, its courts of “justice”, its prisons and its army. Only socialism can respond to the just aspirations of the working class.