Mankind is moving towards a showdown with all the forces of
the old order. The new challenges of the new technological revolution is
undermining the entire structure and old established relations. Nobody outside
an insane asylum any longer believes that the Labour Party or their Leftist apologists are going to put an end to the capitalist system and usher
in the cooperative commonwealth.
Socialism is not a religion but a method of understanding
and changing the world. It is the complete democratisation of society, not
merely its political forms. Socialism too often has been is widely identified
with a command economy and a police state and not with democratic control by
the people over all facets of life. In socialism, states, territories, or provinces
will exist only as geographical expressions, and have no existence as sources
of governmental power, though they may be seats of administrative bodies. The
political territorial nation-state of capitalist society will have no place or
function inside a socialist society. Therefore, measures which aim to place
industry in the hands of, or under the control of, such a political state are
in no sense steps towards that ideal. To use the word “socialism” for anything
but working people’s power is to misuse the term. Nationalisation of mines,
railways, steel, etc. in a capitalist class society is not socialism, nor does
this constitutes “the socialist sector of a mixed economy”. Such
nationalisation in a capitalist society is simply a degree of state capitalism,
with no relation to socialism. Socialism is rule by the working people. They
will decide how socialism is to work. Socialism will certainly give high
priority to health, education, art, science, and the social well-being of all
its members but the welfare state is not socialism in action but to improve the
efficiency of that state as a profit-maker, a form of state capitalism.
Many people today across the world are involved in issues
and struggles to improve their conditions or stop injustices that they face.
These struggles involve not just political activists but many different people,
ordinary working people. These various struggles are important and can make a
big difference for people. While reforms are important, we believe that no
amount of reform of the present system can offer any lasting improvements,
security or stability for the masses or fundamentally alter their position in
society. While socialists as individuals fight for the immediate amelioration
of the people’s misery, the Socialist Party fights for the long-term interests
of the people and keep in mind that the goal is revolution. By revolution, we
mean the overthrow of the capitalist ruling class and the basic economic system
of society. We believe a revolution is necessary because the social problems of
this are all the product of the capitalist system itself. The basic nature of
capitalism is that while the vast majority of people work and produce the
wealth of society, a handful of capitalists control all the wealth – the
factories, mines, transport and the fields, and all the profits that are
produced. These capitalists prosper at the expense of the vast majority of the
people, and their constant drive for profit and more profit results in only
more problems and suffering for the people. They will try to milk everything
they can from working people to enrich or protect their own interests. Through
education and in helping to sum up the experience of the day-to-day struggle, The
Socialist Party is showing the nature of the system and the need for
fundamental change. Our goal is the establishment of socialism, where classes
are eliminated altogether.
The band-aid patches and piecemeal remedies of the reformers do no
good. Reformists see socialism as something which comes ‘from above’. It is to
be achieved, on workers’ behalf, by an enlightened minority –politicians and
party cadres. ‘Leave it to us,’ they say and working people are expected to
play a purely passive role, just looking on while others transform society for
them. Only workers can liberate themselves. No one can do it for them. In
Marx’s words, socialism is ‘the self-emancipation of the working class’
Capitalism organises workers collectively. Each and every
day we work together co-operatively on a massive scale. Capitalism has in fact
given workers tremendous collective power, power which runs factories,
hospitals, schools, transport systems. This power creates all the things that
we need as human beings but the capitalist class controls and uses this power
for its own ends and its own profit. Our work is to organise on the basis of
social co-operation to run society in the interests of the people themselves, to
use their tremendous economic power to act collectively. That is socialism, people
collectively running society. Our co-operative power would be controlled, not
by a ruling class in the search for ever greater profits, but democratically
and for the fulfilment of human need. With capitalism the underlying purpose,
of production is the amassing of profits for capital; in the new, free society
its sole purpose will be to meet the needs of humankind. In the place of the
present anarchy, waste and inefficiency, production will be planned. This
planning, contrary to the type now commonly envisaged by would-be-advisers of
capital, requires common ownership of the economy. We would see our wealth as
part of mankind’s common heritage. Reason and human solidarity will prevail.
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