Beyond a dream

Imagine ALL humans living in peace and in harmony with nature in a world of plenty.

As long as capitalism has existed there has been a movement in opposition to it known generally as socialism. Socialism is based on the maxim “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” – in other words, a society in which people cooperate voluntarily (without coercion in the form of wage or monetary systems) to produce what is necessary to live and enjoy life, and in turn all would be free to take what they need from what is available. Production would be carried out to provide for human needs, not to make a profit, as is done under capitalism. The first task at hand for us is the education of all working people, the raising of political consciousness; we must all become teachers and teach our brothers and sisters until we develop a class conscious critical mass, i.e., a majority. To accomplish this goal we must utilize all forms of media and spread our ideas – that is the essential first step. Also agreed upon is that systems of organization must be in place before the revolution – industrial unions and worker’s councils, community and solidarity networks.

Socialism is money-less economy, an economic system for the world. Socialist economic system would consist of an organization of production to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs, so that goods and services would be produced directly for use instead of for private profit driven by the accumulation of capital. Accounting would be based on physical quantities, a common physical magnitude,( or some others suggest a direct measure of labour-time) in place of financial calculation. In this system there will no kind of money. All products and services will be available for free. That means you will work free to give your services and you will get everything free, whatever you want. One of the goals of socialists is an economy in which all goods are available to all regardless of family, wealth or occupation. The goal of such an economy is an entirely money-less society in which goods are free for all. Socialists wish to replace the State with a society self-managed by the people, and replace capitalism. Socialism is a money-less system in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the workers and the people of the community, rather than by capitalists. The creation of a socialist society would mean that production would be carried out for human need, instead of for capitalist profit; and that every person would have access to that which is necessary for a happy life. In today’s world production is carried out to make money, not to provide for all the people with needs — this is why millions of people starve when there is plenty of food. The end of capitalism would mean the end of poverty, hunger and of economic strife between nations – the root cause of war.

In socialism all people will be cared for and provided with what is necessary to live a good life; all will be free to pursue happiness and their life’s fulfillment in any way in which they choose. A socialist society would have the immediate goal of doing away with all forms of hierarchy: and classes. Socialist society would eliminate nationalist concepts like borders and nation-states, instead being made up of inter-connected communities. Socialists not only advocate democratic self-management of society, rather than state control, but also place a emphasis on the freedom of the individual. As a general rule socialists feel that one should be free to do as they wish as long as they are not harming anyone else. Additionally, association with any community would be completely voluntary and one would be free to dissociate oneself if they chose to do so. As Peter Kropotkin wrote: “Anarchist communism maintains that most valuable of all conquests, individual liberty – it does not ask the individual who has rejected god the universal tyrant, god the king, and god the parliament, to give himself a god more terrible than any of the preceding – god the community – or to abdicate upon its altar this independence…No society is free so long as the individual is not so.” Socialists, however, believe that some sort of administrative body is necessary to direct production and distribution so as to enable the workers to achieve the full material benefits and leisure that modern scientific advances allow us.

In a socialist society work would not be compulsory and no one would be required to work away much of their day as they are forced to do under capitalism. Workers are required to toil for 8 or more hours a day under capitalism because capitalists need them to do so in order to generate surplus value, i.e., to make a profit for the capitalists. This also entails employing the fewest number of workers possible to maximize profits for the capitalist owners. In capitalism many workers produce nothing of value or provide no service of real value, instead they are managing buying and selling and other relations that are only necessary under capitalism. That means under socialism the workforce would enlarge drastically as this unproductive work is eliminated. Socialism could handle unpleasant or dangerous work in a number of ways: it could be incentivized in order to compensate workers; it could be shared between many individuals, so that degrading work is minimized; it could be automated – done by machines; or it could be done away with completely. Automation and the inclusion of more workers in the workplace would greatly shorten the workday. Capitalism, and not socialism, encourages laziness, by forcing us to perform work that is often only "necessary" to capitalist interests. Work under capitalism is very often irrelevant to our personal interests and talents, and is done merely because we have to do so to survive. We have many socially useless jobs that serve no other useful function to society at large or purpose. Considering the nature of work under capitalism, is it any wonder at all that so many people choose to avoid work under such conditions, and that people often hate their jobs even if they are lucky enough to find a job.

In socialism, however, rewarding work would be available and people would work in jobs that they possess a talent for. The unpleasant jobs would be shared by all. For example, there would be no professional garbage workers forced to do the drudgery all of the time. Everyone would have to occasionally get their "hands dirty", though much of such work could be completely mechanized. Furthermore, the purpose of work would not be personal enrichment, but the betterment of the society we live in, and to produce and distribute all of the things that we need and want. Everyone would have to work, no one would be allowed to "earn" simply by "owning" as in capitalism, but the amount of work we each had to contribute would be a fraction of what it is today, since everyone would be employed all of the time. As a result, work and leisure under socialism would be indistinguishable, unlike under capitalism, where we very often hate our jobs and look forward only to our time off.

Many will argue that socialism won't succeed because of "human nature?" because human beings are naturally selfish and amoral. This is perhaps the most common attack made against the viability of socialism. This is also one of capitalism's most effective social myths in making people believe that socialism is simply “pie in the sky”.

Actually, psychology, sociology and anthropology believe that human “nature” isn't inherantly bad. People are naturally pro-social, not anti-social. Our violent, aberrant and anti-social behavior stems from our living in a socio-economic system that encourages malevolent selfishness, competition, and makes the majority of us live in constant want and anxiety.  Human behavior is known to be adaptable, and the environment we live in greatly influences our thoughts and actions. Human beings do not possess natural "instincts" in the same sense as other animals do. Rather, we possess the ability to reason, to adapt, or consciously modify our behavior according to need or according to what our immediate environment demands of us. When the social framework for greed, violence and competitiveness is removed, our correspondingly aberrant behavior will likewise vanish. It should be pointed out that human beings lived in peaceful cooperation for hundreds of thousands of years in humanity's first economic system, often called primitive communism.

Now thanks to modern technology of production, we will have an opportunity for relative abundance. With modern technology now able to produce an abundance for everyone, and not just a fortunate few, thus making it possible for everybody to contribute to the advancement of society, the ruling class has now become obsolete, and has now become a completely idle class that does nothing whatsoever to benefit society but simply lines its own pockets with the vast majority of the wealth produced by the working (i.e., slave) class. Hence, it's these specific economic conditions, and not some nebulous notion of human nature, that created class-divided societies. When socialism is brought about, human nature (i.e., behaviour) will adapt itself to these changes, and anti-social attitudes such as greed, violence and criminal inclinations will be all but excised from the public mindset.

Genuine socialism has NEVER been tried in any country. In fact, socialism is a system that will be worldwide, and isn't intended to function in just one country. Furthermore, socialists firmly believe that socialism will be brought about by working class organization, and by no other means. It will never be brought about by politicians, whose purpose is to control the working class on behalf of their capitalist masters, not to liberate the working class from oppression, or to meet the needs of the working class. Anyone who states that genuine socialism has been achieved in any country is either seriously misinformed or an outright liar, usually the former.

Socialism can only be established through a world-wide revolution led by a majority of the working class. Socialists categorically reject the position known as reformism, that is, the position that capitalism can be reformed into a humane system or that socialism can be established through gradual reforms. We view reforms as offering only temporary and partial solutions to capitalism’s endemic problems. While certain reforms which benefit the working class may be a worthy short-term goal, they are never a solution. Therefore our ultimate goal will always be the establishment of libertarian socialism, as soon as possible. We also reject Leninism or vanguardism – the view that a professional revolutionary elite must establish a self-serving hierarchy and lead the revolution. Only the organized working class fighting together in solidarity, without leaders or rulers, can win freedom for all people.

Is it really possible to consider the democratic control of something as complex as society? The answer to this question of course is 'Yes it is' - by the democratic principle of delegated authority which a self-managed society would use without having to go to meetings all the time just to keep things going.