We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane
social system based on rational planning, meaningful work, a healthy and sustainable
environment, with gender and racial equality. Under capitalism, markets manufacture
scarcity. Anything that is in abundance cannot be sold on the market. As
capitalism must constantly grow without limit, so too must it also relentlessly
create scarcity. Capitalism is driven to
destroy abundance. We live in an interconnected world. Nobody can escape
climate change, which will be a problem so long as the world capitalist market
persist. Local economies are perpetually undermined by world markets. Ideas
about reverting to family farming and small business economy, breaking up monopoly
capital don’t recognise the real forces driving capitalism. Concentrated
capital can’t be opposed by weak capital. Alternative economic forms can’t
escape the net of capitalism without first overturning it. Thus, even
worker-owned cooperatives must exist and make a profit within the capitalist
framework, or they go under. This isn’t to say these are not worthwhile
efforts, but their limits under capitalism should be recognised. Our goal is a
social and economic system based on direct democracy in politics and economy
and on democratically planned production. We want a system of production and
distribution that is in accordance with the needs of each individual and of
society as a whole, and which takes into account the regenerative capacities of
the natural environment. For us in the Socialist Party socialism is not a
utopian vision of a distant future.
Many ecologists are rooted in the idea that “civilisation”
threatens the rest of the planet, passing over any mention of the role of
capitalist production entirely. If the problem lies in the individual amoral
actions of humans, divorced from economics and politics, this opens the door to
blaming certain humans for the ecological crisis. Focusing on overpopulation
rather than resource misdistribution and capitalist growth boils down to
blaming the poor. It ignores the facts that that the average American has an
enormous carbon footprint compared to those in the Global South. The military
machine produces massive emissions and pollution, and much of the industrial
pollution in the developing world is from production for First World
consumption. Also ignored is that birth rates rise with poverty and fall with
adequate social development and the empowerment of women.
“Tragedy of the Commons” is an invented fable by Garrett
Hardin, a University of California professor who argued for sterilisation of
“genetically defective” people and against foreign food aid because it would
enable starving children in poor countries to survive, increasing
overpopulation. It has been used as justification to disenfranchise indigenous
people of their land and delegitimise non-capitalist social systems. It argues
for enclosure and privatisation of public property on the claim that users of
the commons are inherently selfish and will overuse the resource by trying to
outcompete their neighbour. It has no basis or evidence in reality whatsoever.
In reality, communities with common ownership of property have existed stably
for thousands of years by self-regulating through common decision-making. This
was true democratic, social management of resources, and it resulted in
balance. It is private property in the capitalist era which has driven
over-exploitation, the exact opposite of Hardin’s thesis.
The goals of The Socialist Party is a life free of
exploitation, insecurity, poverty; an end to unemployment, hunger and
homelessness; an end to all forms of discrimination, prejudice and bigotry; the
extension of democracy and the creation of a truly humane and rationally
planned society that will stimulate the fullest flowering of the human
personality, creativity and talent. The advocates of capitalism hold that such
goals are unrealistic because that human beings are inherently selfish and
evil. We are confident, however, that such goals can be realised, but only
through a socialist society. Since its inception capitalism has been fatally
flawed. Its inherent laws - to maximise profit on the backs of the working
class - give rise to the class struggle. History is a continuous story of people
rising up against those who exploit and oppress them, to demand what's theirs.
Socialists say that capitalism won't be around forever. Just like previous
societies weren't around forever either. Slavery gave rise to feudalism and
feudalism to capitalism. So, too, capitalism gives rise to socialism.
Poverty will be ended quickly with the end of unemployment
and the redeployment of the vast resources now wasted in war production. There
are plenty of jobs that need doing and plenty of people who can do them. Automation
at the service of the working people will lead to both reduced hours of work
and higher living standards, with no layoffs. Under capitalism, improvements in
skill, organisation and technology are rightly feared by the worker, since they
threaten jobs. Under socialism, they offer the chance to make the job more
interesting and rewarding, as well as to improve living standards. Socialism
provides moral incentives because the fruits of labor benefit all. No person
robs others of the profits from their labour; when social goals are adopted by
the majority, people will want to work for these goals. Work will seem less a
burden, more and more a creative activity, where everyone is his/her neighbour's
helper instead of rival. With capitalism gone, crime will also begin to
disappear, for it is the vicious profit system that corrupts people and breeds
crime.
There are broadly two ways in which the socialist movement
strives for change. Some like ourselves
are organised as parties to gain political power. Others are organised as
protest movements fighting for change but with no desire to seize political
power. We believe that the struggle for socialism must necessarily make use of
both types of strategies in parallel for the abolition of the existing social
relations. To carry through the socialist economic and social transformation
requires political rule by the working class - a government of, by and for the
people. Capitalists like to claim that socialism means dictatorship and
capitalism means democracy. The opposite is true. Capitalism is the
dictatorship of the market, a system of the rich, for the rich, by the rich.
Socialism completes the democratic project by extending popular decision making
to the economic sphere. Socialism is democracy. Capitalism is a system of wage
slavery which turns individuals into commodities who are purchased and owned
through market exchange which creates a sense of being owned and a loss of
dignity.
The Socialist Party say that it is possible to bring socialism
through peaceful means, through the ballot box. One thing is clear, there won't
be socialism until the majority of the people want it. Socialism is our vision
for the future. It is a vision winning more and more people to because it is the
logical replacement for capitalism and the next inevitable step up the ladder
of human civilisation.
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