Socialism is Revolution

The vast majority of people in society to-day are at the mercy of business-men. Capitalism and its agents are governed by the law of production for profit irrespective of the needs of the people. The criteria of all capitalist enterprises are to make a profit. Their calculations are determined by the market. This race for profit ends in a crisis; and then they try to get out of the crisis—at our expense. Throughout the world, without exception, the picture is one of increasing chaos and crisis. The capitalist system is paralysed as never before. Great numbers of workers have been thrown into unemployment and destitution. The standards of living of the most have declined. The ruling class is to try to find a way out of the crisis by throwing its burden upon the shoulders of the working class. If the capitalists have callously forced working people into austerity conditions they have, however, very carefully looked after their own interests. Every appeal of the bankers and industrialists to the government for assistance has met with immediate response and have been shielded from the economic effects of their own bankruptcy.

Workers must face the fact that all capitalism has to offer them to-day is poverty, low wages, and unemployment.  They, nor their families,  have any hope or future under capitalism. There is no need for a single worker to be overworked or in dread of losing his job; no reason why an unemployed worker should lack the necessaries of life. All over the world workers are coming to realise that nothing except the existence of capitalism prevents them building a decent and secure world. But to get this, capitalism must be overthrown. Workers have the power to overthrow capitalism from the very moment that they unite and resist. It will mean that the employers will be deprived of their ownership and control of the factories, mills and mines, shipyards and all the rest of the means of production which they have misused only to make profits for themselves and pile on the poverty for the workers . The workers will end of production for profit and will carry on production for use. The needs of all will be met, and new needs and pleasures now denied to the working class will be created and satisfied by a socialist organisation. We have to-day ample resources for producing all the things we need. Workers will know that greater productivity created by the new technology will no longer be a threat to their livelihood but will make it possible to raise the whole standard of living and shorten the hours of labour.

All over the world there grows a brooding fear of revolution. Oligarchs and plutocrats are busy ensuring that they maintain control of their governments, through financing political parties or imposing dictatorships via “palace revolutions” when elections have failed to go their way. The likes of the Koch brothers tremble with dread at the prospect of revolution. The revolutionary upsurge of the workers is worldwide. It varies in intensity from intensified strike movements to actual struggles for power. Its tempo is greatly increased by the deepening of the capitalist crisis. Workers, faced by worsening conditions are exhibiting the characteristic signs of radicalisation. There is a revolutionary storm brewing. Capitalism has created the objective conditions for Socialism. But it can go no further. It has become an obstacle in the continuing evolution of humanity. Capitalism has provided its own executioners and grave diggers, the  workers. They are freeing themselves from the illusion that capitalism provides the way to prosperity.

Socialism revolutionises the aim of production from production for profitable sale to production for social use. In so doing it frees humanity from the narrow limits of capitalist economy. Socialism abolishes the chaos and anarchy of capitalist production and social organization; it does away with the dog-eat-dog competition of capitalist commerce. It sets up instead a planned system of economy in harmony with social relationships. Instead of a profit-making apparatus to fatten a few while millions suffer, socialism is for the benefit of all. Under capitalism everywhere wealth piles up automatically in the hands of the parasitic owners of the industries, while the actual producers live at subsistence levels. The workers everywhere are beginning to understand and penetrate the lies of capitalism.