The Case For Socialism

One of the great mysteries  is why people tolerate such a system as ours that is full of exploitation and oppression particularly if Abraham Lincoln’s aphorism is true that:
 “You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time. But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
 When the majority of the people refuse to be fooled any longer they can as in Percy Shelley’s words:
 “Rise like lions after slumber,
 In unvanquishable number-
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many - they are few.”

Some refuse to learn while others decline to remember. Socialists are those who remember and set their course by the lessons they have learned. “The emancipation of the working class is the work of the working class itself,” said Karl Marx. When speaking of socialist revolution we seek “no condescending saviors” as the International says. we believe that task belongs to the workers themselves. There can be no socialism without the working class of the world. Those who really want to build a new and better world of socialist freedom must see to it that the intellectual constructors of new models of society do not succeed in enticing the people with their false radicalism. It must be made clear that for all their criticism and attacks on the status quo that they stand for the retention of capitalism in various forms.

There’s no point in forming a socialist party if it isn’t out to change people’s ideas: and if it is, then it must prepare for the task. Socialist parties are the living carriers and embodiment of the ideas learned and recalled from our collective past. Our idea of revolutionary politics boil down to this idea – to teach the working class to rely upon itself and upon its own ideas and organisation and not submit at any time to the interest, the needs, the leadership, the programme, the movement, the organisation, or the ideas of any other class. To remain independent. Some are aghast: “You don’t mean to say that you really believe that the working class can emancipate themselves, can themselves take political power? and establish a new democratic society? ... They need a strong hand over them, to lead them , to show the way ...” These people refuse to learn the idea that the workers can free themselves. If there is one thing that human history shows, and human history is the history of the struggle for human liberation, for the ideas of freedom – it is that these ideas cannot long be suppressed. If history gives no other lesson, it gives this one. Ideas representing the most sacred yearnings of the oppressed and exploited everywhere have triumphed before. They will triumph again. It is our conviction that the socialist revolution will triumph.

We are not deterministically declaring socialism is inevitable. If this was so we would not require a socialist party and simply devote ourselves to social activism as the goal will take care of itself and all we would need is the creation of workers councils. If it were that easy!

The working class understands the necessity of combining into unions, of resisting the onslaught of capital.  As long as the workers’ struggle is confined to the narrow limits of trade unionism the power of capital over labour is guaranteed. Our task in the economic struggle is not to fight for better terms in the sale of labour-power, that role is for the unions, but to fight for the abolition of the capitalist system that compels the working class to sell themselves as wage-slaves. Our task  is to move the class struggle towards capturing the state machine.  After we have overthrown the capitalists we will do away with the capitalist parliament and  we will establish socialism.  People will participate directly in running society from top to bottom to administer the vast riches of the world, its lands, forests, mineral resources, lakes and rivers as well as the means of production, for the common benefit of all. There will be an end to all exploitation. The wealth will be the property of the people and not of individual capitalists.

Gone will be the anarchy of capitalist production. Gone, too, the economic crises which today bring so much misery. The workers will distribute the resources of society according to the needs of the people, not to satisfy a few capitalists’ hunger for profits as is the case today. Through planning we shall build up and modernize the factories and other productive facilities and eliminate backward and backbreaking labor. We will construct new houses and medical, cultural and sports facilities for people. The quality of everyday life will improve vastly as socialist construction proceeds. Socialism will enable us to eliminate the regional economic disparities that today plague the world.

We will also have socialist relations of production to replace the capitalist organization of labour. The repressive system of foremen, supervisors and overseers will be wiped out. Workers will participate in the running of the factories by electing their works committee that will collectively assume the responsibility for the running of production and the quality of production.

 Socialism we will raise the level of education of the whole people. Higher education will no longer be reserved as the privilege of an elite. Not just education but the arts, scientific and cultural pursuits will also flourish. No more will people face deteriorating health or declining health care facilities. Socialism means tremendous progress. The future of humanity is a radically new society where classes and the state will have been completely eliminated. All members of society will contribute and share in the common good.

Voting for Democrats or Republicans, Labour or Tory, means supporting both sides’ attacks against the working class. Workers now face threats from both ruling-class parties on the most vulnerable sections of our class. Capitalism is an exploitative system and sexism and racism  are so interrelated within it that it offers no future for any worker. Workers have a stake in the struggle for democratic rights and must make use of those rights, no matter how limited, under capitalism to build their own organisations of struggle: the trade unions, community organisations — but, most of all, a socialist party. In doing it gives the ability to the working class to bring down this wretched system of exploitation and oppression. The working class needs a political alternative that meets the needs of our class, based on our class’s power and our collective strength, dedicated to overthrowing both the capitalist economic system and the state that defends it.

Raise Your Voice, Not The Sea Level