We need socialism

Things are changing, and not always for the better. Within capitalism our basic needs are met only as a means to improve our productive efficiency and not for their own sake; they are measured as costs. Human beings are not ends in themselves; they are but instruments in the productive machine. Commercial and costing values take precedence over human values. We are continuously subjected to a barrage of advertising for products of positive harm to the human constitution. Ad campaigns encourage the invidious distinctions we make between ourselves. We are encouraged to ape our supposed betters. The world of advertising is an escapist dream world. This is life today; people treated not as human beings but as machines. Socialists reject the present degrading social system lock, stock, and barrel; we will have nothing to do with patching it up and making it more efficient. We want men and women to free themselves from this existence and set up a truly human society in which the productive machine will be used to satisfy the many and various needs of people. What we want is a new society in which the commodity and cost status of human beings will be ended.

The socialist analysis of society has many unique features in that our analysis fits in with reality, with the material experience of society. No other analysis explains the wars, the poverty, the numerous social problems of capitalism. The socialist analysis is based rock-firm on the principle that capitalism’s problems spring from the nature of that social system and that they can be abolished only by ending capitalism and replacing it with socialism. This principle stands because capitalism itself is essentially unchanged, as it has to be. Thus a socialist party must be uncompromising and consistent, at all times pressing the case for the social revolution.

 Socialism means different things to different people. To some, it means social reforms, to others state ownership of industry, to others the kind of one-party state that exists in Russia or China. Very few people, however, view socialism in the same way as the Socialist Party. We possess a clear definition of socialism; it will be a society of common, not state or private, ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution; there will be democratic and not minority control of social affairs; production will be solely for use rather than for sale or profit; there will be free access by all people to all goods and services, without the fetters of the money economy. All of that is clear and anyone who cares to go back to 1904 will find all of our literature advocating the same principled and unequivocal socialist aim. There will be no state in a socialist society. The state is the body which has existed for as long as property society has existed, in order to defend the propertied ruling class against the propertyless majority. Socialism will be a classless society, without exploiters and exploited, rulers and the ruled, coercion and submission. There is no point in having a state unless there are people to be bullied and coerced.  Once the capitalists have been stripped of their power to exploit workers economically there will be no need to control them with a state: there will be a classless society without the need for a body of class rule. There will be no classes, no banks or exchange controls or capital, and no money—for what use could money have in a society where everything belongs to everyone? Our appeal is to those who are committed to the concept of a self-organised majority revolution without leaders to abandon their opposition to the working class forming a political party to contest elections and eventually win control of political power, not to form a government but to immediately abolish capitalism and usher in the class-free, state-free, money-free, wage-free society that real socialism will be.

Capitalism means the whole economic system of buying and selling which keeps a small minority extremely rich and powerful and the vast majority, all those who depend on a wage or salary, relatively poor, problem-ridden and powerless. This system has as its lynch-pin “profitability” which “sacrifices on its altar the interest of peoples”, brings insoluble problems such as unemployment and corruption, and prevents the realisation of the abundance of goods and services which modern technology is capable of producing. The way out of the mess is through the abolition, by democratic means (by people consciously voting for it) of the present “exchange economy” and the introduction of what CAN BE termed a “distributive economy of abundance”.  Therefore those few already conscious of the need for such a change must make an immense effort to spread their ideas and educate people to accept them

We are told by the defenders of capitalism that the ordinary person in the street would not be intelligent enough to take over the running of society from top to bottom. In fact, it is the workers who run society now — from managers to doctors to coal miners — but far from using their abilities for their own benefit, they use them for the benefit of the privileged few who own and control the means of wealth production and distribution. It is not new leaders that are needed, but a new system which puts human needs, instead of the hunger for profit, first. It is to advocate a new system of society, not new and superior leaders. Our alternative to capitalism is socialism, which will only be achieved when the majority of the working class understand and realise the need for it. Socialism will not be brought about by workers following some self-appointed vanguard.

Our whole miserable and aimless existence can be traced back to the social system under which we live. The basis of this system is the use of the productive machine to create articles for sale for the market with a view to profit. The problem of production has been solved long ago; scarcity is no longer a necessity. However, the vast productive forces of the world have yet to be harnessed to the satisfaction of human needs. Instead, they are used only where a profit can be made and controlled by a minority to the detriment of the vast majority of us. We who make up this majority do all kinds of work—in mines, on ships, in factories, shops, offices, and schools—but we have one thing in common: we are every one of us sellers of working power.

No piecemeal tinkering will solve all our problems; what is required is a social revolution—a change in the basis of society which will allow the productive machine to be used to satisfy our many needs. This is not a utopian dream. The productive resources of the world are quite sufficient to allow men and women to free themselves from their present degradation. We can construct a world society which will be a community in the real sense of the term, in which we can treat others as fellow human beings; in which we can assert the balance between human beings and society and society and nature; in which we can live a truly human life. The Socialist Party rejects reformist policies and advocates social revolution. Capitalism cannot be made to work in the interest of the workers; those who claim otherwise are not realists — they have been wrong every time.

Socialist society will be a society where there will be no money and free access to all the wealth produced; no buying and selling will take place because no private property will exist. Instead, the means of wealth production will be commonly owned and democratically controlled. Wars, poverty, class division and the environment from which leadership emerges will have gone forever. The need for socialism is more urgent now than ever, as capitalism advances towards environmental crises that could possibly wipe out much of the human race.