Make Everything Owned by Everybody

Everywhere one turns, the bad news just seems to be getting worse. There are times when social and economic problems become so bad that people are forced to choose between the system that makes their lives difficult and a new one that will make their lives better. Times like that are called revolutionary times. They don’t come often, but when they do the question of HOW to make the change that’s needed becomes as important as WHAT that change should be. We face that kind of choice today. Capitalism—the social system we live under—no longer serves the interests of the people. It creates countless problems that it cannot solve. It uses technology to throw people out of work and to make those who keep their jobs work harder. It creates hardship and poverty for millions, while the few who own and control the economy grow rich off the labor of those allowed to keep their jobs. It destroys the cities that we built up. It is destroying the natural environment that is the source of the food we eat and the air we breathe.  Every effort made to prevent these problems, or to keep them from growing even worse, has failed. Should we keep a social system that is destroying the lives, the liberties and the chance for happiness that our work and productivity make possible? Is it really worth the price to keep a small and despotic class of capitalists living in obscene wealth? Or shall we do the common sense thing by making the means of production our collective property, abolishing exploitation of the many by the few, and using our productive genius to create security and abundance for all? If we are to avoid planetary catastrophe we have to rethink what and why we produce, where we produce, how we produce, how we transport things and people. We need a new system that is based of democratic decision making for these questions. You can’t keep a good idea down. As much as politicians and academics try to declare socialism dead, it keeps coming back again. Why? Because it is the only way to understand the insanity of a world governed by an unrelenting drive to profit.

The Socialist Party recognises the need for fundamental change in our society and believe that the problems facing the world, such as environmental destruction, persistent unemployment, and the unequal distribution of wealth and power are not mere aberrations of the capitalist system — they are the capitalist system. This is why socialists are not impressed by political appeals based on the personal qualities or “charisma” of any individual politician. Socialists believe that it is the system — and the institutions which make up that system — that must be changed. The Socialist Party seeks a society in which the production and distribution of goods and services is based on public need not private profit. Production will be carried out to satisfy the people’s wants. Those wants are not the number of commodities we can consume but real needs that will be meaningful in our work, in our human relationships which will not be based on exploitation and oppression, but will rest upon cooperation and not competition.

Marx and Engels called this a society of associated producers where “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” – a socialist society. That is a world fighting for. And all around the globe, millions of people are mobilising against what the current system is doing to us. People are saying another world is possible. We need to be looking for every opportunity to link hands in solidarity – in our local communities, in our workplaces and across the globe – with a vision of what that world could look like. If you agree with us that the time for such a change has come, then there are certain things we must all understand. Workers can only rely on themselves to build a better world and free themselves through their own class conscious efforts. Workers makes everything and we make everything work. Collectively, we possess tremendous potential power. However, we can apply their collective strength only through organisation. First, they must form a socialist party to assert their right to make the change that’s needed and to challenge the stranglehold the ruling class has on the political government. The working class runs the industries from top to bottom. The potential economic power rests in our hands but political power for the moment remains within the grip of the capitalist class. The only alternative is to take back the immense wealth accumulated by a tiny minority at the expense of the majority, and use it to democratically serve human need rather than corporate greed.

While many people have become increasingly cynical about this social system, their growing dissatisfaction is combined with political indifference that only exacerbates their alienation. It is the class consciousness that people acquire from political struggles that is critical for real change. The present feeling of impotence incapacitates many people’s ability to participate in political struggles against the system. This sense of powerlessness will always be able to sap the will to struggle. We must admit it has been the failure of the socialist movement to provide a genuine alternative to capitalism which has been perhaps the biggest tragedy of the 20th century. This failure drove many millions who were willing to fight for socialism to a state of despair and demoralisation. The decay of the socialist movement resulted in the rise of reactionary and nationalistic movements throughout the world. The roots of the failure are not the socialist ideas themselves but the distorted and betrayed ideas of socialism arising from the establishment of a monstrous state capitalist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and the rest of the “socialist” countries and, of course, the reformist degeneration of the social democracy parties and their integration into the capitalist political and economic structure. Steered by these two conflicting factions unity against capitalism proved impossible. Social protest and political action against the common capitalist enemy often became ideological bickering sessions rather than class mobilisations. When loyalty is to the party or to political leaders rather than to class it is not possible to build solidarity. A change in the consciousness can occur only in a change in the way humans relate to each other and themselves. It is impossible to change the fundamental economic and social system without a fundamental change that uproot and transform the entire system from top to bottom. But without a transformation of those who want to bring about this social change, it is difficult to fight the system effectively and bring about this fundamental change. We need change we can believe in. The Socialist Party strives to establish a radical democracy that places people's lives under their own control, not mere government ownership, welfare state, or a benevolent bureaucracy but a new social and economic order in which workers and consumers administer their work-places and communities and their neighborhoods. The production of society is used for the benefit of all humanity, not for the private profit of a few. Socialism produces a constantly renewed future by not plundering the resources of the earth. People across the world need to cast off the systems which oppress them, and build a new world fit for all humanity. Democratic revolutions are needed to dissolve the power now exercised by the few who control great wealth and the government. 

By revolution we mean a radical and fundamental change in the structure and quality of economic, political, and personal relations. The building of socialism requires widespread understanding and participation, and will not be achieved by an elite working "on behalf of" the people. The working class is in a key and central position to fight back against the ruling capitalist class and its power. The working class is the major force worldwide that can lead the way to a socialist future – to a real radical democracy from below. Socialists participate in the electoral process to present socialist alternatives. The Socialist Party does not divorce electoral politics from other strategies for basic change. We advocate electoral action independent of the capitalist-controlled two-party system. By fielding socialist candidates in elections at all levels of office, socialists educate the public about socialism and promote the politically independent organisation of working people in direct opposition to the capitalist parties.