Towards a cooperative socialist society

To change the world and to create a better one has always been the aspiration of the members of the Socialist Party throughout its history, a hope that tomorrow's world can be free of today's inequalities, hardships, and deprivations, the belief that people can, individually and collectively, influence the shape of the world to come. It is a deep-rooted and unshakable belief that building a better world and a better future by their own hands is both necessary and possible. Socialism is a movement for changing the world and setting up a free, equal, human and prosperous society.

The capitalist system is behind all the ills that burden humanity today. Poverty, deprivation, discrimination, inequality, political repression, ignorance, bigotry, degradation, unemployment, homelessness, economic and political insecurity, corruption and crime are all inevitable products of this system. No doubt apologists for capitalism tell us that these have not been invented by capitalism, but have all existed before capitalism, that exploitation, repression, discrimination, women's oppression, ignorance and prejudice, religion and prostitution are more or less as old as human society itself. What is being covered up here is the fact that, firstly, all these problems have found a new meaning in this society, corresponding to the needs of capitalism. These are being constantly reproduced as integral parts of the modern capitalist system. The source of poverty, starvation, unemployment, homelessness and economic insecurity is the economic system. The brutal dictatorships, wars, genocides, and repressions that define the life of hundreds of millions of people today draw their rationale from the needs of the system that rules the world today and serve specific interests in this world. Oppression today is not the result of medieval economy and morality, but a product of the present society's economic and social system and moral values.

It is the capitalist system itself that continually and relentlessly resists people's effort to eradicate and overcome these ills. The obstacle to workers' struggle to improve living conditions and civil rights is none other than the capitalists and its governments, their parties and apologists. Wherever people rise to take charge of their lives, the first barrier they face is the armed force of the ruling class. It is the capitalist state, its extensive media, the institutions of religion and education which shape biased beliefs among people. There is no doubt that it is capitalism which stands in the way of the attempt by millions of people, driven to despair and desperation but with more or less clear vision about the outlines of a society worthy of human beings, they to change the system. Capitalism, a system of production for profit; a system of international rivalry for domination of foreign territories and trade, which produces one war after another keeps millions subjugated and exploited by its wage system. This system cannot give peace and plenty to its people but socialism will. Socialism means production for use and not for profit. The criteria for production under socialism would be – how much is needed? It means that one working man is not pitted against the other in the fight for a job. It means that one working class is not cutting the throat of the other by producing at lower wages than the other. Some people will argue that it can’t work, it’s a utopia. We can only answer that capitalism has demonstrated that it cannot work. A society organized on the basis of production for use would have more of a chance of working than our present economic system. Let us not be fooled by all of the plans for reforms now floating around. The thing to understand is that none of these plans can solve the basic ills of capitalism. They all seek to do the impossible: make capitalism work - not for the working class, anyway.

A revolution is coming brought about by replacing workers with robots. It is coming from the capitalist who utilized them to increase his profits. Profound changes that are producing a new, growing, destitute class that cannot exist within the old order. When economic change becomes the foundation for social injustice and discontent, a revolution is inevitable. When that job and the basic standards of life they provide are taken from us then we turn from protest to revolution. A socialist’s purpose is to give it direction and to enthuse it. A socialist’s task is to contact, to convince and to bring together fellow workers of like mind. A socialist is not simply fighting against injustice but also passing on a vision of a different and better world. We visualise the world where robotics make possible the material conditions and the leisure time to produce full and happy human beings? This is an era of revolutionary change. For the first time in history, humankind can produce such abundance that society can be free from hunger, homelessness, and backbreaking labour. The only thing standing in the way is this system of exploitation and alienation.  The socialists educate people about the technological revolution that’s disrupting society. Every day, the new technology throws labourers and managers alike out of their jobs. Their labour is worthless to a system that values only what it can exploit. If they cannot work, they cannot eat. Radical changes in the way a society produces its wealth call for radical changes in how that society is organised.

The ruling class cannot convince people to believe in their system while they are hungry and cold, destroying their hopes and dreams. Socialists inspire fellow-workers with an alternative: a society run for the benefit of all, a society built on cooperation that places the well-being of people above the profits and property of the owning class. Working people can reorganise society so that the abundance is distributed according to need. We see how this capitalist system attacks the very people who until recently trusted and defended it. These people are now searching for political direction and for solutions to their problems. The ruling class tries to keep people confused and to keep them from fighting in their own interests. Few can deny the upheaval the widespread anarchy, turmoil, and conflict throughout the world. Yet the beneficiaries and defenders of this chaos never tire of declaring it the “best of all possible systems.” Against this insane capitalist system, a socialist raises his or her voice in emphatic protest and unqualified condemnation. A socialist declares that if our society is to be rid of the host of economic, political and social ills that for so long have plagued it, the outmoded capitalist system of private ownership of the socially operated means of life and production for the profit of a few must be replaced by a new social order. That new social order must be organised on the same basis of social ownership and democratic management of all the instruments of social production, all means of distribution and all of the social services. It must be one in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants.

 In short, it must be genuine socialism. Despite the many threats to workers’ lives, liberty and happiness today, despite the growing poverty and misery that workers are subjected to, a world of peace, liberty, security, health and abundance for all is within our grasp. The potential to create such a society exists, but that potential can be realized only if workers act to gain control of their own lives by organizing, politically and industrially, for socialism. Help build our world in which everyone will enjoy free access to the fruits of their collective labour, multiplied by all the technological inventions of modern civilisation.