The amount of pollution that individual people contribute
through their day-to-day activities is relatively very small and practically
irrelevant. The main perpetrator is the business interests which control the
corporations which run the industries which produce almost all the pollution. Yet
in the face of the activities of such companies it is an absurd suggestion to
expect the governments to turn and bite the hands that feed them. There is a
need to recognise the fact that the source of most pollution is business and to
acknowledge that the corporations are not about to cut its profits for anybody.
Business has not cut its profits to end disease or to avoid wars. There’s no
reason to expect them to do such a thing in order to stop pollution. There are
forces in today’s world which are anti-life — the ruling class, which is
content to maintain its rule as the entire society rushes towards oblivion.
Climate change is the direct result of the crazy, profit-motivated system we live
in. And so long as that system is allowed to continue, environmental
destruction will continue and increase. Today we must look ahead to the future
where socialism, as a more advanced social system, will be built on the
powerful productive capacities now thwarted by capitalism.
A system of exploitation, violence, racism and war stifles
our lives. Capitalism thrives on the private ownership of society’s wealth and
production – production involving the interconnected efforts of millions of
working people. The rich have one basic goal in life: to make more and more
profits, and they accomplish this by dominating the economics, politics, and
cultural life of the planet. The capitalist class will throw workers out into
the streets to starve, promote violent racism, and build military arsenals that
can destroy the world several times over – anything for profits! This is an
irrational and unjust system. But life does not have to be this way. We can
improve our lives and society, and we can eliminate exploitation and capitalist
injustice, by overturning the capitalist system. We can replace capitalism with
a rational and humane system – socialism. Socialism is a social system where
social wealth is genuinely controlled by society and for the benefit of
society; where the common good, not profits, becomes the chief concern; where
the everyday working people become the rightful masters of society. If the
working people, and not the owning and employing class, controlled the great
resources of our society, we could improve all our lives.
The aim of socialist industrial production is not profits
but the prosperity of the people. The pollution of water, food and air is
caused by the greed for profit. This could be abolished if the resources of the
countries of the entire planet could be organised rationally to produce a
healthy environment. It is not a technical problem as some imagine. It is a
class and political problem. While capitalism remains, the resources produced
by the labour of the workers will be squandered. All the resources for a world
of abundance, without pollution, disease and squalor, exist at the present time
in skill, technique and science. They are the same resources used to produce
pollution and destruction. They cannot be used for constructive purposes till
the capitalist system of profit-making is overthrown. Grim reality teaches that
the alternative posed by Marx and Engels of socialism or barbarism has been
transformed into a world socialism or extinction. Against this insane
capitalist system the Socialist Party raises its voice in protest and
condemnation. A social order must be organised. It must be one in which
production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. The socialist
revolution has become a historical necessity and possibility. There is no other
choice today but for the working people to organise to struggle and, one day,
win socialism.
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