From here to where?

Has socialism lost its way, lost its goal? Apologists for capitalism have long devoted enormous efforts to arguing against socialism. They argue that it is a completely utopian exercise that flies in the face of human nature. They say that it will never work. If you don’t know where you want to go, no road will take you there. You need an understanding of your destination. You need a vision for the future. Socialists possess a very clear vision, one which would permit the full development of all human beings – a society where everyone is allowed to develop their potential that can only come about by our own actions. As socialists, we urge working people to break with the capitalist parties, to fight for their own independent class interests. One way or another, this century will be decisive for the fate of human civilisation. Environmental catastrophe on an almost unimaginable scale, threatens the survival of all life on the planet. The capitalist response is either denial, quack remedies or business as usual.

Capitalism itself has provided the prerequisites for building socialism. Firstly it has progressively eliminating the need for routine drudgery and toil. We can share now in increased leisure and luxury rather than suffer shared poverty. Socialism will eliminate the alienating nature of work under capitalism that takes out the fun and the desire to do one’s bit for the common good. A socialist society is where each consumes freely according to needs, with all types of exchange relationship absent. Social or common ownership means all property (except personal property) is held collectively by everyone in society. Socialists do not aim to create a market economy of cooperatives with workers privately owning their means of production. Rather, our aim is that the means of production be owned by all the people. We are also opposed to any form of state ownership which assumes the right to sell the means of production, the right to hire managers to control people who use the means of production, right to own the revenue from sale of commodities made using the means of production, etc. State ownership simply takes over this capitalist definition and thus sets up a managerial regime to control workers just as capitalists do.

Socialism is the way to ensure that our communal, social productivity is directed to the free development of all rather than used to satisfy the private goals of capitalists, groups of producers, or state bureaucrats. It permits workers to develop their capacities by combining thinking and doing in the workplace and, thus, to produce not only things but also themselves as self-conscious collective producers. It substitutes the focus upon self-interest and selfishness to satisfy the needs of others and relations based upon solidarity. This is the society we want to build. This is where we want to go. And if we don’t know that, no road will take us there. However, knowing where you want to go is not enough. There exists a connection between the objective, and the means we intend to take to get there. True socialism is based around a voluntary society that does not involve the state. Socialism can be defined as a political and economic system with freedom and equality for all, so that people may develop to their fullest potential in harmony with others.

If freed of the fetters of private ownership and converted into social property, technology and automation becomes a blessing and not a curse. Owned in common, super-efficient factories could be cooperatively operated to produce for our collective use, and an abundance for everyone, readily turned out with the minimum of labour contribution from each. And the same units of production that, while they are capitalist-controlled, menace us with unemployment and alienated work, would, when socially controlled, serve ideally as the constituencies of a modern industrial democracy, a self-government of free producers unmatched in the previous experience. Socialism -- social ownership of every facility and resource needed for social production -- is the only answer to the grave problems raised by the advent of the automatic factory. We fight for a world fit for human beings. To save ourselves and our planet we need a sharp change of direction towards a new people-centred form of social organisation — socialism.

Imagine a society where each individual has the means to live a life of dignity and fulfilment, without exception; where discrimination and prejudice are wiped out; where all members of society are guaranteed a decent life, the means to contribute to society; and where the environment is protected and rehabilitated. This is socialism — a truly humane, a truly ecological society. More and more people are realising that society needs to be liberated from the rule of capital. We need a radical system of grassroots, participatory democracy that empowers the people who are currently excluded from genuine decision making power. This would be based on organisations of popular democracy in localities and workplaces which could directly make decisions affecting their respective communities. Real democracy is impossible if one part of society (the capitalist class) owns the main levers of the economy and can run them autocratically in their own private interest and at the expense of the workers who are compelled to work for them. In other words, we need revolutionary change. Revolution doesn’t mean a violent insurrection by a minority: a revolution can only come about when the majority of people see the need for radical change, and are actively involved in bringing it about. A revolution is a mass struggle to create new and far more democratic forms of political power and a new social system. The guiding principle of a socialist society would be placing the welfare of all people and ecological sustainability first. No one would be abandoned to their fate, as is the case under capitalism.