Dreaming Beyond Capitalism

Things are changing and a lot is at stake. It is even possible that civilisation may collapse in our lifetime. We need a revolution that builds new foundations for humanity. We need a revolution of solidarity. This revolution will not be achieved by switching government from one party to another.

For much of the last million years, human beings have lived in communities; in fact, the era in which we have not is only a tiny fraction in the entirety of human history. Making our human existence compatible with nature again may well be our only opportunity to secure ourselves and our children a future worth living. We need a revolution. Poverty is a tremendous waste of human resources. The human potential that is lost is massive. Real political change is a revolution of social consciousness. We need to be unified. For that, we have to heal the divisions the elite fuel within the working class: the antagonisms of white vs. black, men vs. women, young vs. old, native vs. newcomer. This requires being organized. Just being angry isn’t enough; unless we actively join with others, we won’t be able to build a successful alternative to the capitalist parties. Working together is an antidote to the isolation that can afflict those who try to go it alone. Bonds of comradeship and solidarity sustain us in difficult times.

Reformism hasn’t yielded any lasting changes. Reforms have had only a temporary impact. A kinder, gentler capitalism is impossible, and the hopeful rhetoric of progressive reformists isn’t going to change this economic reality. Their program is designed to divert potentially revolutionary energy into the dead-end of tinkering with the system, trying to fix it. But capitalism isn’t broken; this is how it functions. We have to junk it, not fix it. It needs to be replaced with socialism. The two systems are mutually antagonistic, and the struggle between them can’t be comprised. From the 1950s to the ’70s unions were able to force through higher wages and better working conditions in many industries. Back then capitalists could afford this because the main market for products was the home country, and higher wages stimulated consumption. This Keynesian approach created a bubble of prosperity in North America and Europe that has now burst and can’t come back. The hard-fought gains of those days are being reversed because the world market has become more important than the home country. To compete globally with low-wage countries such as China, India, and Brazil, corporations here have to slash their labor costs. The pressure of international competition is being shifted onto us, the workers. These conditions will inevitably intensify; capitalism needs ever more profits to keep growing. It finances its expansion through bonds and bank loans, so it needs increasingly more money to pay the interest charges. And it must invest more in plant and equipment to stay competitive. Its rate of profit is always under pressure. And if it stops growing, it dies. The rival capitalist blocs are fighting among themselves in a dog-eat-dog struggle for survival. To lower costs and hold on to its markets — to remain top dog — the elite are pursuing repression at home and war abroad.

The Socialist Party is opposed to capitalism. The economic system based on private property and production for a profit literally creates poverty by depriving the poor of the means of subsistence. The poor are then exploited by the rich as a source of cheap labor. As long as there is capitalism, there will be poverty, misery and exploitation. We are opposed to borders. Borders are artificial barriers that divide us and facilitate our exploitation. They allow the rich and their investments to pass easily while impeding the free movement of people. Borders are the inhuman laws that allow humans to be labeled “illegal” and exploited as cheap labour. We want economic equality and industrial democracy. We want the land and the means of production and distribution held in common. We want a state-free society—a society without rulers and ruled. We want political institutions created out of free association and not coercion. We want autonomy and self-government for all peoples and for all people. We want a class-free society, where people are free to define themselves and interact as equals. We want local, regional and global solidarity and mutual aid. Those who profit off of misery will do everything in their power to maintain the world as it is. Only through struggle on the part of the poor and exploited, against their exploiters can we ever hope to bring about an end to exploitation. A global socialist organisation is our link to the future. It gives us assurance that knowledgeable and committed people will be there to make it happen: to overthrow capitalism and build socialism, in which the resources of the world are used to meet human needs rather than to generate profits for a few owners.

It may already be too late. Much environmental and social harm has already been inflicted.