Socialism means the common ownership by all the people of
the factories, mills, mines, transportation, land and all the other instruments
of wealth-production ad that does not mean nationalization and state ownership.
In the 1870s, Engels noted,
“Since Bismarck went
in for state-ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious
socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of
flunkeyism, that without more ado declares all state ownership, even of the
Bismarckian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the state
of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be
numbered among the founders of socialism.”
Socialism means production of things to satisfy human needs,
and not, as under capitalism, for sale and profit. Socialism means free access
to and democratic management of the industries by the workers. Capitalism gives
to the owning class the terrifying power to hurl millions upon the mercy of
charity food-banks with a stroke of the pen. Socialism destroys this despotic
power, and creates an economic foundation for complete democracy. Socialism is
the exact opposite of capitalism. In socialism, every man carries an equal
burden of work and shares equally in the good things that society has to offer.
There is no poverty, because all the idle land and machines have been put to
use to produce the things people want. Production is aimed at satisfying the
needs of the masses rather than the profit interest of a few. There is no
unemployment, because a plan has been created to put everyone to work.
Illiteracy is soon abolished, and the diseases that plague people are reduced
to the few for which advanced medicine has not found a cure. Each individual is
given the chance of developing himself to the fullest, with everyone helping
him in whatever way they can.
For you, as an individual, socialism means a full, happy and
useful life. It means the opportunity to develop all your faculties and latent
talents. It means that, instead of being a mere chattel bought and sold in the
labor market, an appendage to a machine, an automaton, a producer of wealth for
the aggrandisement of idlers, you will take your place as a human being in a
free society of human beings, and a participant in its administration. Your job
inside socialism will not be dependent on the caprices either of a private
employer or the capitalist market. It will be possible to go beyond market
incentives and reward people not in accordance with their individual
contribution, but in accordance with what they need to flourish. When things
are produced to satisfy human needs, instead of primarily for sale and profit,
involuntary idleness will be an impossibility. The "demand," instead
of being limited to what people can buy, will be limited only to what people
can use. Nor will technological unemployment be possible with socialism.
Instead of kicking workers out of their jobs, the improved methods and
facilities will kick hours out of the working day. "Jobs for all"
under capitalism is a hypocritical slogan, except possibly when capitalism is
preparing for, or engaged in, an all-out war. Socialism alone can give jobs for
all and open wide the doorway to economic opportunity. Your hours of work in socialism
will be the minimum necessary to fulfill society's needs. Work is not the end
and aim of man's existence; it is the means to an end. We do not live to work;
we work to live. Socialism will, therefore, strive in every way to lighten the
labor of man and give him the leisure to develop his faculties and live a
happy, healthful, useful life. It was estimated two decades ago that with the
facilities then in existence, by the elimination of capitalist waste and
duplication, and by opening jobs at useful work to all who were deprived of
them, we could produce an abundance for all by working four hours a day, three
or four days a week, and thirty or forty weeks a year.
Workers can no longer be held to the word of command of a
few leaders and the socialisation of the means of production cannot be the work
of a masses led by a few. If our goal is to preserve the existing system for as
long as possible, we have no hope to create a movement to replace it. The
choice we face is a stark one. The choice between a world of poverty,
exploitation and war, and a world of democracy, equality and plenty. Workers, mustered
under the red banner of socialism, have the power to bring this whole wretched
capitalist system down.
The Socialist Party is unlike any other political party. We
believe that a new society must be organised and built that can serve the
interests of the true majority; the working class. The Socialist Party is
committed to break the grip of the industrial and financial barons that lords
it over society and instead bring genuine power to the people through community
control of neighbourhoods and cities, going hand-in-hand with workers’
self-management of production. Either we as a people continue down the
unsustainable path of upholding capitalism’s callous disregard and neglect of
human and environmental needs; or, we as a people seek out and develop a new
vision for the world in which we live. The Socialist Party works today for a
world without war, without poverty, without discrimination or chauvinism, without
fear and desperation. Working people are now rejected the “politics as usual”
of the mainstream political parties. They have done this by “voting with their
feet” in their majority, and not casting ballots in recent elections. We
believe they are ready for a fundamental change of direction in society, and
are willing to place their trust in a movement of working people. We teach the
way forward towards a new society of freedom and equality, and lay the basis
for taking those decisive steps into a new tomorrow – a socialist tomorrow; a
tomorrow where a completely way of doing things will be created by working
people; of democratic assemblies, of
recallable workers’ delegates and direct mass democracy wherever possible where
workers will take possession of the means of production and distribution, and
institute a democratically planned economy to meet the needs of all.
Socialists oppose the false principle of the survival of the
fittest, and believe that human survival and social development can best be
secured through co-operation among individuals and groups to their mutual
benefit. We say that the emancipation of the working class must be the work of
the workers themselves. The working class and the employing class have nothing
in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger, want and boredom are found
among billions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class,
have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go
on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the
means of production, abolish capitalism and the state, and live in harmony with
the Earth. Socialism means the common ownership of the means of production and
the free association of producers. The implementation of anarchism can only be
through the free federation of productive and communal organisations.
Marx and Engels criticised utopian socialists for having no
contemplation of the huge forces within capitalism and of having little idea of
the means and methods of achieving their “utopias” except by appeals to the
heart. And like these early unrealistic utopians, some contemporary activists
think it possible to create in the midst of capitalist society a microcosm of
an essentially non-capitalist society such as co-ops - which it is hoped might
spread by example. Some social democratic attempt to create capitalism with
human and ecological values and these too are unrealistic, and destined to go
nowhere. However many consider visions of the future as vital to the health of
the socialist movement. They give constant inspiration, hope and direction to
those engaged in what is still a long struggle.
No comments:
Post a Comment