Humanity needs a socialist world

In the 19thC and early 20thC, the socialist movement knew better how to talk socialism. Nobody has ever come up with— or will come up with — any policy which will change the nature of capitalism. What workers get is exploitation and misery all the time, relieved occasionally by a boom but the worsened in recession. Those who doubt that capitalist society fails to satisfy the needs of the majority of people should look at the ways in which so many of our fellow-workers cherish remote hopes of escaping from their position in it. It is natural to want to break away from wage slavery. The chances are slim, but the likelihood that one’s subject position in the present order of things will continue without respite until one’s dying day is a dismal contemplation. How many dreams, we wonder, are based upon that lucky jackpot lottery ticket? This does not mean that we should not aim to get as much from capitalism as we can. All power to the unions! It does mean though that this approach to the satisfying of human needs is a limited one. It cannot solve the predicament with which human beings are faced in capitalist society. The fact is that the working class cannot opt out of the ill effects of capitalism without deciding to get rid of it. Reformers in spite of good intentions and with the best will in the world and the support of electors, have made plain the futility of trying to obtain beneficial results from a system that is basically harmful. Success for a few at the expense of failure for most is all that this profit-motivated system can offer. In the long run, the solution for the individual is the solution for mankind as a whole: to organise the world in accord with the needs of humanity.

The working class is not only held economic prisoner by the capitalist mode of production but it shackled by the frequently unperceived but overwhelming intellectual, social, political and cultural hegemony of the ruling class , which further strengthen the chains. Socialism is a method of understanding the world for the express purpose of changing it. Socialism shows how liberation can be won, not in fantasy by pious moral persuasion, but objectively and historically by class struggle and political action. The socialist movement will not advance significantly until it regains the initiative and takes the offensive against capitalism.  Only the revolution that replaces the class rule of the capitalists by the class rule of the workers can really establish democracy. Socialism as a class-free society—with abundance, freedom and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state, certainly not a workers’ state with its monstrous bureaucratic dictatorship of a privileged minority. Poverty is inevitable so long as capitalism exists, so long as the profit-economy reigns. Capitalism, greedily demands more and more profits. Only by overthrowing the system of capitalism will unemployment be done away with. The real job today is to spread the ideas of socialism, organise the workers in their own political party that will wipe out capitalism with its waste and be able to plan production and plenty for all.

The Socialist Party realises that only with a foundation of common ownership can society create the conditions for the betterment of human beings. The Socialist Party seeks a world where we can live in harmony and peace, where the interest of the individual is aligned to that of society as a whole. Let people remember that this is the system which causes their and other people’s problems will still be there. This economic system leads to slumps and wars and sets man against man in the struggle, not only to get to the top, but to avoid being shoved to the bottom. The competition for more things, higher status, greater power, will remain with the rest of its ill effects. The evidence of mental ill-health indicates the high number of people unable to cope with modern life. The inability or reluctance to face the facts of life in a class-divided, money-collecting system indicates the failure of the social organisation. Let us see it for what it is and consider the positive alternative that socialism offers. For the majority of people the lower portion of the social pyramid is where they must remain until society is changed. The important thing for workers is to recognise the need for such a change. To work for that end is the most worthwhile task of our time.