Socialism Is Better Than Capitalism

Members of our party have found themselves arguing about socialism and or Marxism, mostly trying to debunk the common misconceptions about our ideas. Growing numbers of people are concerned about the state of the world and the fate of the planet. Do things have to be this way? No, there is a real world alternative: socialism. But people are constantly bombarded with the message that socialism has failed and that capitalism is the best of all possible worlds. People has basically heard nothing else about socialism other than it is a nightmare. This rewriting of history has influenced many to think that as bad as capitalism is, any attempts to get rid of it will make things far worse. In a thousand different ways it is the message put out. There’s just one problem. This conventional wisdom about socialism is not true. It is built on the wholesale distortion where lies and slanders are repeated endlessly and become accepted as self-evident truth. It's quite amazing how well-educated folk who pride themselves on intellectual rigour and honesty have been fooled.

Almost always the first point to be made when discussing anything to do with socialism is someone will mention “Look at the Soviet Union that was a totalitarian state, millions died and their economy was all awful” First thing that has to be said here is that socialism is a stateless classless society. So did the Soviet Union possess a State? Yes, it did. Therefore was it a socialist society. No. What we saw in the Soviet Union was state capitalism. In one sentence instead of the capitalist class exploiting the Workers, the state and its bureaucracy exploited the workers.

Something which is almost bound to come up is then the argument that greedy selfish aggressive human nature makes it impossible for people to live peacefully in a well-ordered society of sharing. Human nature (human behaviour to be more exact) adapts to the social structures we create. In essence humans create human nature and can, with the right social structures, manipulate it to create a better world for everybody.

The key socialist idea is that the workers will rise up and overthrow the capitalists. We still have not seen this world revolution. However, it worth keeping in mind that one possible explanation is the massive rise in the power and size of the state that was seen in the 20th century. The state is the mitigating force of class warfare and reduced the chances for revolution.  It is worth noting here that firstly; revolutionary change does not always involve hanging the politicians from the lamp-posts but can occur in more civil ways depending on the situation. That said when one is unable to feed their family we are told we are only a dozen meals away from rebellion. The capitalist system thrives of exploitation and we are beginning to see once again capitalism’s more brutal face.

But we can change the system from within many still persist in pleading and is often put forward by those who support mainstream political parties such as the Labour PartyThe difficulty here is that you are effectively trying to hold back the tide by being reformists. To make the necessary changes to society to restructure capitalism from the capitalism state would take many governments and would undoubtedly lose favour with businesses likely resulting with the loss of the next election and any work being undone.  If a party had enough support to get through using capitalist democracy then they would have enough support to have a peaceful revolution which would be much quicker and much more effective. The main goal of socialists is to show that capitalism is inherently flawed. Capitalism creates crisis and inequality and that to tackle this is to tackle capitalism at its heart. The need to make profit creates exploitation and classstruggle, the need to out compete competitors creates market crises, the division of Labour produces alienation. All of this is what socialists aim to show.  Capitalism is a bad idea in theory and in practice. It relies of exploitation, it creates political division, it alienates workers from their labour, it is unstable and creates a society where it is not the people who are Sovereign but Capital who is. Socialism is a solution to these problems. We cannot retain the Capitalist system and survive as a civilization.  We must fight against it, however, to do so, first require knowledge of what is wrong with capitalism, what are its faults, and what we want in its place. To obtain this we need to think, analyse and debate, to create a society better for all. There are people hankering for an alternative to this system. Who want to do something meaningful for humanity with their lives. Humanity can move beyond exploitation and social division. It can move towards a classless society and a world of freely associating human beings—socialism. This is what revolution is about. Socialism is more relevant than ever.

Socialism is not a big welfare state that looks after people. It is not the old capitalist economy simply taken over by a state. Imagine, instead, people consciously learning about how to transform the world, no longer shackled by the chains of tradition and ignorance, seeking a culture where people not only cooperatively work to produce the necessities of life, but have fun doing it, where the scientific outlook mingles imagination, strengthening and inspiring each other, where people interact with each other based on mutual respect, concern, and love for humanity. It is about unleashing the creativity and initiative of those who had been on the bottom of society. World socialism cares about and takes care of the environment. That is socialism, a worldwide society—and it is yet to be achieved—in which all classes and class distinctions have been overcome; all systems and relations of exploitation abolished; all oppressive social institutions and relations of social inequality, like racial discrimination and the domination of women by men, put an end to; and oppressive and backward ideas and values cast off. Socialism is a world of abundance, where people together hold all of society's resources in common. A socialist world is not some sort of wishful and airy dream or utopia. The development of human society has brought humanity to this historic threshold. The productive forces of society—not just machinery, equipment, and technology but also people and their knowledge—have developed to a level that can allow humanity to overcome scarcity, to provide for people's basic material needs, and beyond that to have a large surplus left over to devote to the all-around and future development of society. The socialist revolution establishes a new economy based on social ownership of the means of production and social planning; on people cooperating to solve problems and to meet social need; and with a whole new set of economic and social priorities. Socialism is a moneyless society based on the free access to the wealth of the world.