Why socialism?

Socialism focuses the attention of the world on the grave evils of the capitalist system that something needs to be done about. Those social evils are not bred in the heart of man but are bred by capitalism, and by nothing else. Socialism is not a mere reform movement. Capitalism is based on private property, the ownership by a minority of the population of the means of production and exchange. The capitalist class is defined in no other way – and maintained in no other way – except by the ownership of the means of production and exchange. This ownership is what gives the capitalist class power of life or death over the working class and over society as a whole. To live, you, the working person, must not only work for the owners of the means of production and exchange – you must guarantee them a profit. Working for them is not enough; a profit is absolutey required for you to get your job; and that profit can be obtained in no other wise except by exploiting that which is your only real possession – namely your physical or mental capacity to work. That is all the worker has. To live economically, the capitalist must accumulate; not that he wants to or doesn’t – he must accumulate in order to live. To accumulate, he must be assured profit. To profit, he must exploit labour. There is no other way. Capital always seeks to intensify exploitation; labour always and necessarily seeks to resist exploitation. Capitalism seeks what is rightfully its own, from its point of view: the maximum that it can get out of the worker. Labour seeks what is rightfully its own: that’s why it forms class organisations, labour unions. Wealth is produced in no other way than by the labour of working people, then the wealth belongs rightfully to the workers. A revolution of working people who have nothing, against capitalists who have everything in superabundance, is the objective of the Socialist Party. The principle of social ownership of the means of production, ownership and control of the means of production by the whole people, by the producers, is our goal and for us the fullest achievement of democracy: the assurance of material abundance for all by wiping out classes.

 

Capitalism cannot guarantee security to the people, cannot guarantee peace to the people, cannot guarantee brotherhood to the people, cannot guarantee abundance to the people. Any social system which cannot guarantee those to the people stands condemned. The only way to replace capitalism is by socialism.