A socialist society will be a classless society, in which all the means of producing wealth are owned in common. Instead of being divided into workers and employers, rich and poor, society will be an association of free people, all making their special contributions to the well-being of society, which in return will supply them with what they need in order to live full and happy lives. Such a society can be summed up in the slogan:
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
For this to be possible, Socialism must be based on abundance. Production will be organised in such a way that there is plenty of everything for everybody: not only food, houses and so on, to satisfy material needs; but also education, healthcare, and sport, so that people can lead fulfilling lives. work, instead of being simply a means of earning a living, will have become the natural expression of men’s lives, freely given according to their abilities. Moreover, the nature of work will itself have changed. Through the development of science, much of its drudgery will have disappeared and every man and woman wild develop their mental and physical capacities to the full
Socialism not something which can exist in one country, isolated from the rest of the world. On the contrary, it must eventually embrace all the peoples of the world; and in so doing it will put an end to all war. Because no wars can take place in a truly international society there will be no need for armies. Thus, for the first time, mankind, united in a world-wide family of nations, will be free to devote all its creative energies to completing the mastery of nature.
Because it will be a community of plenty, where there is enough for all and therefore no advantage can be obtained by theft or other forms of crime, all need for courts of justice and police will have disappeared. In other words, the State, which is the sum of all these institutions will itself disappear. Instead of one section of society ruling and oppressing another, men and will have grown accustomed to living together in society without fear and compulsion.
The unity and harmony of mankind is an age-old dream. Is this goal just an illusion? No, answer socialists, it can be achieved. God did not create mankind – or anything else. Man has created and recreated himself. The Supreme Being for man is man himself – not man as he is at any given stage, but man in the making, man as he can and will be. Mankind has reached the point where a truly human mode of existence is within sight. Society is not the product of human nature. Human nature, good, bad, or indifferent, is the product of society. The qualities of human beings are endlessly changeable, just as their potential capacities are boundless. Human nature is malleable. Human nature is like clay that can be moulded and re-moulded and recast into very different, almost unrecognizable, forms. Whole of social evolution testifies to this flexibility of humankind. Society makes people what they are and prevents them from being otherwise. That is why socialists say there is no such thing as human nature in general, but human behavior. Socialists assert that if society shapes men, men in turn can reshape society through their collective efforts. Society forms people – and then people transform their social relations and their selves in the process. But, add the historical materialists, the ways in which people behave toward one another and the kind of ties they have with one another, are determined, both in the first and final instance, by the productive powers they possess. And the degree in which they can change their social relations, and the directions of the evolution of their social organisation, depends upon the capacities of their system of production. The material historical conditions under which people live and labor are so decisive because they fix the framework of social action, both in its extent and in its limits, at any given time. It is possible to outgrow these conditions but it is not possible to jump out of them or over them at will. Socialists recognise that human behavior can be changed only by altering the social structure.
The supreme task of our age is to abolish capitalism as an outmoded and dangerous system and proceed to build socialism on a world scale. This can be done only through the action of a working class majority, not because of their better qualities as individuals, but because of their position and functions in the economy. They are the principal objects of exploitation under capitalism and the fighters against it. And they become the bearers of a higher mode of production and builders of a superior social system under post-capitalist conditions. Socialists place active conscious human beings at the very centre of the historical process and social change. Mankind, as producers, have produced their own history. Unfortunately, up to now, humanity has not produced their history in a conscious or planned manner – and that is why the net result of their work has led to such contradictory and detrimental consequences.
But now with automation scientific technology and other industrial accomplishments, mankind has the chance of eliminating all relations of oppression and exploitation and then lightening the burdens of necessary labour – and other curses – imposed by the low levels of labour productivity. A socialist future will be able to achieve the total abolition of all compulsory work to become free to do with as he or she pleases. They will produce wonders. Creativity and imagination are the finest qualities of mankind. The aim of socialists is to bring about those conditions which will make both individual and collective ingenuity the rule, rather than the exception, in human life.
The Socialist Party believes in human decency and dignity. It endeavours to aid the exploited against the exploiters and the oppressed against their oppressors, and take whatever actions to clear the way to a free and equal society.
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