Our dreams have become real

Progressives and liberals base their ideas that capitalism can be humane and can function for the greater good. Many of those types of reformers seem to genuinely believe in their approach. Yet in any economic system that depends on the exploitation, in the end, they will ally themselves with the ruling class. When the employers want to keep their profits high and the rising cost of materials conspires with the lower prices in the market due to increased competition, the difference must be made upon the backs of the employees. This is the fundamental truth of capitalism. It is also why working people who are not organised are more certain that their pay will be reduced or their jobs will be lost. This basic reality of capitalism is employers will fight unions and it is almost inevitable that the intellectuals and academics will justify such attacks, claiming it is a natural law of society and workers can’t defy its logic. The progressive liberal helps the bosses keep the lid on the rest of us. The still claim the possibility of global poverty reduction and when they fail they resort to simplistic excuses such as to blame “overpopulation”.

There are essentially only two models of social production in the modern world. Despite some superficial differences, one is the capitalist system dictates production for profit throughout the world to benefit the owners of capital. The other still only a potential than actuality is socialism, which is production for use to meet the needs of the working class. The people exercise no control over social production, and it was the same in those so-called workers’ states where workers were subordinated to an all-powerful bureaucracy.  Marx spoke of the ‘free association of real producers’. It is through such a free association where production will rest not upon decisions of either the boardroom of investors or the ministries of technocrats, but of the freely determined wishes of the producers themselves. Socialism will have no need of the irrational remnants of a past age, such as prices or wages. Money itself grows redundant and superfluous.

Humanity has reached a turning point in its history. The dreams of the past have become real possibilities for a future that can already be foreseen, because the material conditions necessary for achieving them are here right now and in place, just waiting to be utilized and implemented. A workers’ revolution can put an end to the capitalist relations of exploitation that are now the fundamental obstacle to further progress for mankind. This is the meaning of the struggle for a society of abundance, of justice and of freedom: socialism. The working class cannot free itself without freeing all of Humanity at the same time because the ultimate goal of its struggle is not to replace the power of one class with that of another but rather to abolish all classes. This is the only way to put an end to all the social divisions and inequalities that have characterized class societies thus far.

The capitalist’s power is rooted in the appropriation of new wealth produced by the labour of the working class. Workers are forced to exchange their labour-power for a wage that allows them to survive but that represents less value than that produced by their labour; this is the source of capital accumulation. In this way, the capitalists, the owners of the means of production, constantly deprive the workers of part of the fruits of their labour. Capitalists have only one reason for existing– to accumulate more and more capital. They are therefore always looking for ways to increase the productivity of labour. This stimulates the development of science and technology and leads to an ever greater division of labour. It also results in very keen competition among capitalists themselves; many are reduced to bankruptcy while a minority get richer and richer. Capitalists seek to increase the productivity of workers. They impose speed-ups . They attack the democratic rights of working people and continually try to control any organization of workers and if they don’t succeed they destroy them. The State is controlled entirely by and in the service of, the capitalist class. The abolition of classes will in turn lead to the withering away of the State and its extinction,  for the State is not, and can never be, anything other than the instrument of the dictatorship of one class over others.

Capitalism has created the very conditions for its own destruction. Capitalism, undermined by its own contradictions, will inevitably be overthrown, just as all previous systems of class exploitation, including slavery and feudalism, have been. The working class has the mission of carrying this task out to its conclusion: the abolition of class society. The emergence of socialist society will permit a steady reduction in the human work needed to produce goods. The socialist society is based on the free association of all individuals who work together to produce the goods necessary for their collective well-being. All will work according to their capacities and their needs will be fully satisfied.