The Capitalist Disorder

The world capitalist economy with its unceasing drive for capital accumulation is the most immediate cause of the current ecological crisis. The solution requires replacing the world capitalist system with a socialist society where humanity’s alienation from nature, hence from itself, is overcome with reconciliation and harmony. For any emancipatory movement it is essential to understand the genesis and laws of motion of the world capitalist economy and the existing capitalist culture. Without a radical understanding of what exists it is highly unlikely to transcend it. We live in a far different world than a few decades ago yet the fundamentals have not changed that much. The basic conflicts between the classes, between the oppressed and the oppressors, have not ceased.  The threat of what Marx and Engels saw as 'the common ruin of the contending classes' is already on in the world, a perspective that Rosa Luxemburg summed up in the dictum 'Socialism or barbarism' and modified by Istvan Meszaros to ‘socialism or barbarism, if we are lucky’, in the sense, that the extinction of humankind is now a real possibility which is implicit in the uncontrollable accumulative logic of capitalism. Noam Chomsky has explained it 'At this stage of history, either one of two things is possible.  Either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community interests, guided by values of solidarity, sympathy, and concern for others, or, alternatively, there will be no destiny for anyone to control.'  

We need to change the world so that there can still be a world. Socialism is precisely the change we need. Socialism has now become a question of survival. Human species needs socialism not only to realise its potentials but to continue its existence.

Socialism is a method of common ownership, shared wealth, and collective control that fosters cultural freedom and human emancipation. Socialism provides the material basis for people’s freedom. We should remember that the slogan ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ has always been a part of the socialist tradition. Revolution remains the unfinished story of our times. Socialism today stands poised, as never before, to be 'the movement of immense majority in the interest of immense majority' as Marx proclaimed in the Communist Manifesto. Socialism may not have succeeded for the time being, but it remains the alternative if humankind would survive and hope for a safe world and life worthy of human beings. Socialism is individualist in that our vision is a society where every individual can be a fully human being, as Marx himself put it, 'the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all'. Engels expressed it as ' humanity's leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom', the end of its 'pre-history' and beginning of 'truly human history'.

Socialism remains on the agenda for as long as capitalism exists. There are no inevitabilities in socialism and no guarantees of victory either; only alternatives for people to choose to aspire to achieve. Capitalism remains, but this, by itself, cannot be seen as an argument for the desirability, or a sign of the progressiveness of the capitalist order, much less as any sort of 'triumph' of capitalism. The system is in the grip of crises which they cannot resolve, which manifest themselves variously in different places as racism, sexism, xenophobia, ethnic or national hatreds, religious fundamentalism and intolerance.  Poverty, unemployment and insecurity-related crimes and associated phenomena -- ill health and suicides, alcoholism and drug addiction, criminal violence, violence against women and child abuse, etc. are on the rise everywhere.  Capitalism is an irrationally organised society that has proved incapable of generating the satisfaction of basic human needs -- decent livelihood, knowledge, solidarity, cooperation with fellow human beings, gratification in work and freedom from toil. The writer, Arundhati Roy, uses an expression, “the ghosts of capitalism," to describe the invisible, discarded people who are deemed surplus to requirements of capital accumulation?

The severe and widespread economic and social problems facing working people today demand a revolutionary solution. For those problems are rooted in the very nature of capitalist society and cannot be solved without uprooting capitalism. Toward that end, the Socialist Party was founded. The capitalist class rules and controls our society today by virtue of its control of the political state. A socialist party is needed for the purpose of challenging, capturing and dismantling the capitalist political state. Such a party is also needed to convince the working-class majority of the need for socialism and to recruit the forces for carrying out the revolution. Socialism is not free education, it is not taxing the rich more, it is not better pay. Free education, high pay, appropriation from the rich are things that would happen in a socialist society. Socialism is democratic control of the entire economy. Every workplace a democratically run cooperative of associated producers. The economy co-ordinated by various federations of these democratically run workplaces. Socialism is not the current state, with more localism. Socialism is an emancipated and free society, full democracy in the economy and the abolition of the ruling class. This is the true idea of socialism, which we must seek to build. Our purpose is not to manage capitalism in order to make it nicer or more ethical. Our goal is to move beyond the capitalism system of economics. If we give up and throw our lot in with the reformist we have lost a historic battle of ideas and any chance of an emancipatory socialism emerging. If we don’t manage to create the attraction on the basis of socialism as a revolutionary and emancipatory it will set back for yet another generation to undergo an environmental crisis that humanity may not survive. The principal task of socialists is to try to restore the credibility of socialism in the consciousness of millions of men and women. We can formulate these in near biblical terms: eliminate hunger, clothe the naked, give a dignified life to everyone, save the lives of those who die for lack of proper medical attention, the elimination of illiteracy, generalise free access and universalise democratic freedoms, human rights, and eliminate repressive violence in all its forms. None of this is dogmatic or utopian. Although people are not ready to fight for socialist revolution, it can raise pertinent questions. What type of food production is possible? With what agrarian techniques? In which places? Which materials can be produced? In which localities on the largest scale? We do not condemn reforms but reject reformism. We should be convinced that people who are struggling for these objectives will not abandon the struggle when reality demonstrates the implications of their answers.

The struggle for socialism is not the dogmatic and sectarian imposition of some pre-established objective on the real movement. The building of socialism is a huge laboratory of new experiences which are still undefined. We must learn from practice. We must take into account the fact that the stakes in the world today are dramatic: it is literally a question of the physical survival of humanity. Hunger, epidemics, the deterioration of the natural environment: all of this is the fundamental reality of capitalist New World Disorder. Socialism can regain its credibility and validity if it is ready to totally identify with the struggle against these threats. We carry out our education for the socialist model that takes into account the experiences in all areas of life. The producers must hold the real decision making power over what they produce and receive of the social product. This power must be exercised in a completely democratic manner. If our practice is consistent with this imperative, socialism will once again become a political force that will be invincible.