All equal but not all the same

There is no future on the basis of capitalism in the world. Unless we overthrow capitalism, only environmental collapse and starvation await us. Capitalism or socialism is now a life and death issue. Revolution is now practical politics for humanity’s survival. But if we can achieve socialism the result is wealth for all and the good things of life for everybody. A comfortable abode, a dining table full of wholesome food and wardrobes of elegant clothes. There will be opportunity and means to the world. Leisure to read and play and work. No poverty anymore with its filth and sickness and vice. You say all this is a dream? No, no dream at all, but an immediate possibility. By means of the vast new technology that now exists of this modern world, we can produce wealth enough for all without any trouble whatever. There is no doubt at all about this. Modern inventions have so increased the productive capacity that mankind across the globe could have an abundance of wealth by working only 3 or 4 hours a day or even a week. Socialists propose to claim a share in this abundance for all people and not for the luxury and privilege of the 1%. Socialists proposes to take for ourselves this vast new technology and use it for satisfying the needs of all, instead of producing for the profit of the few. If we owned the factories and the machinery ourselves and all of us worked at them to produce wealth for our own use and happiness, all the troubles of poverty would disappear at once. The only thing that lies between us and the promise of prosperity is the private ownership of the means of producing wealth. Therefore, what Socialism proposes to do, in order to get wealth for all, is to take possession of the instruments of production and run them for the use of us all.

Those people who are deprived of their right to use the machinery they have made and to get the riches they make, shall come together in a political party and vote the employers out of power.

 These men and women who are denied the right to use their own machinery are the men who now work for wages, a bare living. They have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. This is the working class. Socialism appeals to them on the ground of their self-interests. Our appeal to our fellow workers is simple, not simplistic, practical not impossible.  We indulge in no dreams or offer false hopes. We say to our fellow worker: “Come with us, join our party, vote yourselves into power, use that power of the State to capture back those means of wealth production which the capitalists have stolen from you, and then you will get all that abundance which modern inventions entitle you to.” We've got the abundance - we just have to transform the way we share it out.

The mission of the Socialist Party is to muster all workers under our banner and whose real interests lie in abolishing the private ownership of the means of production, and also to shut out of the party the class whose real interests lie in the preservation of the present system. It is class war, a mighty battle of the ballots. How are we to achieve socialism? A political Party of class-conscious workers is how. Otherwise we are going to a capitalist Hell. Our countries and cities are huge dumping grounds full of poverty, homelessness, joblessness, crime, illiteracy, ill-health, racism, sexism, homophobia, domestic and random violence, addictions, ad nauseam. There is less of everything for everybody except stress and rage. Hitlerite wannabes menace the innocent and the vulnerable.

To many people, socialism is a call for violent action. The ruling class would have it so; they claim for themselves the mantle of progress, logic, truth, beauty, and knowledge. They represent the socialist as deluded, irrational, psychotic, and hateful. But just look at these high-sounding critics; the maniacs in the Pentagon; the perverted and distorted finance capitalists who would see a world plunged into barbarism before they relinquish a penny of their fabulous profits; the power-mad industrialists who calmly grind the working class to dust beneath the wheels of automation; the professors of knowledge who devote their lives to keeping knowledge away from the people. Are these people sane? Socialists are infinitely more rational than our ruling class.

There will be no need of a public coercive force to maintain the power of one class over another, to protect the property of one from the assaults of the other, to assure the continuation of oppression and exploitation. There is ample opportunity for the intellectual development of all. All perform their social duty as a matter of course. What need is there for compulsion, for a machinery of force? To prevent burglary? What will there be to steal in the midst of abundance? To prevent murder or rape? Such cases will be exceedingly rare, we may be sure, and in any case they will require medical attention or confinement for the guilty one in a secure hospital, and not a jail. To regulate traffic? But for that and similar tasks there will be needed, not policemen, as we know them now, but traffic wardens assigned to perform that task. Abundance for all? Free for all to take? A society without money?  They say it is impossible. As the necessities and comforts of life become increasingly abundant, and the differences between physical and mental labour, between town and country are eliminated – the need for tolerating even the last vestiges of inequality will disappear as a matter of course. This may seem incredible to a mind thoroughly poisoned with capitalist prejudices. But why should it be incredible? Mankind will prove that class divisions, poverty and oppression are not unavoidable necessary parts of life. In the socialist society we will show that abundance, freedom and equality are not only possible but the natural condition for the new history of humanity.

Men dying of thirst will fight for a drink at a desert oasis. But if they are up to their hips in water they may have a thousand differences among themselves, but they will not even dream of fighting for a drink. A dozen men in a prison cell with only one tiny window may trample over each other in the fight to get to that tiny source of fresh air. But outside, whoever thinks of fighting for air to breathe, or for more air than the next man? Announce a shortage of bread, and immediately a long line will form, with everyone racing to get there first, and a policeman on hand to “keep order.” But if everyone knew that there is an ample supply of bread today, and there will be just as large a supply tomorrow and the next day, there would be no line, no race, no conflict; nobody would try to hoard an extra loaf in order to make sure of eating the next day; and there would be no need of a policeman to back up his orders by force. If society could assure everyone of as ample and constant a supply of bread as there is of air, why would anyone need or want a greater right to buy bread than his neighbour? Bread is used here only as the simplest illustration. But the same applies to all other foods, to clothing, to shelter, to books, to means of transportation.

A planned organised society, efficiently utilising our present productive equipment and the better equipment to come, could easily assure abundance to all. In return, society could confidently expect every citizen to contribute his or her best voluntarily.