Understanding Socialism

 “The basic law of capitalism is you or I, not you and I.” - Karl Liebknecht

If the working men and women took half as much interest in politics as they do in football and tennis or other pastimes we would have a different kind of world. Many people don’t understand the problem of concentration of income and wealth because they don’t see it. People just don't understand how much wealth there is at the top. The wealth at the top is so extreme that it is beyond most people’s ability to comprehend. Most people have not investigated socialism for themselves and accept whatever is said about it, usually by those who oppose it or wish it to be something different from what it is.

 Socialists believe that socialism, by abolishing the profit making system in business, and by establishing the co-operative commonwealth, will remove, more than anything else proposed, the causes of economic wrongs, without destroying individual liberty or the incentive to worthy effort. The means of production and distribution of wealth that are social and public in their nature shall be owned collectively and each person may possess individually as much non-productive property as she or he can earn by an honest labour of hand or brain. This would include your home, automobile and all other private personal effects not used for exploiting purposes.

 Socialism requires that the process of production and distribution shall be regulated, not by competition with self-interest for its moving principle, but by society as a whole, for the good of society. Socialism will abolish wage slavery and its oppression. It will cause the labour-saving automation and technology to fulfill its greatest possible good. It will give employment to all workers during their productive years. It will remove the fear of want and poverty. The production of an overabundance of commodities for life and comfort will not, inside socialism, cause distress and need as now, by closing down mills, workshops and other industries. The more wealth you produce the more you will have available for your use, instead of adding to it, as now, to the capital and exploiting power of a master class. Socialism will end strikes, lockouts, lost jobs, and the ever constant war that is waged between capital and labour. It will end the deceptions of a hundred kinds that are practiced for profit-making. It will eliminate disease to a large degrees by bringing within each reach of all those chief conditions upon which health depends––plenty of pure air and sunlight; enough good food and healthful drinks; cleanliness, proper clothing and shelter; regular periods for sufficient rest, sleep and exercise. Socialism will start the human race on the way to the attainment of physically, mentally and morally well-being. Socialism stands for co-operation and the benefit of all.

The idea that capitalism can be reformed to become charitable is not at all a realistic prospect. Capitalism needs to constantly accumulate and operates on the basis of constantly expanding production. The present world order is driven by the striving for profit. The entire system of production based on wage labour and capital needs to be replaced with a system which produces for human needs. All the half measures of converting aspects of capitalism to socialism, while the fundamentals of capitalism remain in place, are just wishful thinking; and to pretend they could solve our problems is pure deception. The means of production need to be converted from capitalist class property to social property. Instead of the present system in which workers are alienated from the means of production and from the products of their labour, a free association of producers producing for the needs of humanity, is required. We call this type society of property owned in common by freely associated producers, producing for human needs, “socialism” or “communism”. It will be a world in people will give of themselves according to their ability, and take according to their needs. A world where the free development of each will be the condition for the free development of all. Such a society will differentiate itself from capitalist in a myriad of ways, but the principal differences will be that it is a society without state, without money, where the mass of humanity participate in the planning and running of society. It will be a society without wage slavery and commodity production and without classes. It will be possible to democratically and collectively plan the future of the human species. Humanity will have a common interest and will be able to work towards achieving it. Working time will be reduced and the mass of the population will be drawn into the running of that new society. All will have a common interest in solving the ecological problems inherited from capitalism. With the abolition of capitalist society, all its waste, its cruelty, its wars, and all the misery it inflicts on the working people, will be ended. Socialism will draw on the abilities of all and produce for the needs of all. It will be able to balance these needs with sustainability. It will then be possible to roll back and repair the dreadful damage capitalism has inflicted on the planet in the few centuries during which it has been the dominant system of production.

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If we are to survive as a species we must take a radical step, we must break once and for all with capitalism. Capital can never stand still. It exists in order to expand, through accumulation, and as it expands it extends itself across the entire globe and into every sphere of life. If there is any hope for humanity it must come through the realization of socialism. It is essential that the perspective of a total rejection of capitalism emerges and is adopted as the only solution. Humanity faces a crossroads. The turning we take and the direction we travel depends on each one of us. Do we continue down the road of destruction towards possible extinction or organise for our survival as a species with a new society?