We live in a world filled with loving and caring people. We all crave a world of compassion. Yet most of us cannot experience such relationships beyond our own private lives and homes. Why? Because the ethos of the capitalist marketplace places the greatest value on money and power. The truth is that most of the suffering in the world is directly attributable to capitalism. If it were not for the capitalist system, most of the social ills in the world could be eliminated, hunger, ignorance, homelessness, environmental destruction, congestion, warfare, crime, insecurity, waste, boredom, loneliness, and so forth. Capitalists are not merely thieves; they are murderers. Their theft and murder are on a scale never seen before in history. In the capitalist economic marketplace, we are taught to look out for ourselves, maximize our profits, and do what we need to do to get ahead, even at the cost to other people. Even much of the suffering caused by hurricanes, floods, droughts, and earthquakes can be laid at the feet of capitalism because capitalists prevent us from preparing for and responding to these disasters as a community, in an intelligent way. And capitalists are to blame for the increased severity of some of these events due to global warming, which capitalism has caused. The current economic and political system has created an unprecedented environmental crisis that is wreaking havoc on peoples’ lives and has the potential to destroy the life-support system of the planet. As the crisis intensifies and the system shows signs of degrading, the ruling class, rally support for their system by undermining democratic rights and imposing authoritarian rule.
It is now too late to avoid some of the impacts of climate change and the possibilities of worse to come is more than a little troubling. We simply don’t know how bad it will get but capitalism was well warned of the impending catastrophes. But because more and more are becoming aware of an approaching apocalypse there exists a chance for meaningful change. People are beginning to understand that minor tinkering with the current system is not the answer and they are engaged in re-thinking their previous assumptions. The “bottom line” is always of money and power and we are increasingly realising it. People everywhere are recognising that the current system is built on manipulation and deceit and is now obsolete. Everyday more and more people are more and more aware of the human potential. People are beginning to conceptualise something massive on a global scale that envisage new ways of living that will make our modern age like look the Dark Ages.
We have been so conditioned to believe that the world we want is impossible. Popular culture promotes this view and makes it seem true. But the Socialist Party strives to help to create a world in which we see and value each other’s humanity where compassion and kindness can flourish in our communities and our workplaces. Rejecting the “common sense” of capitalist society that human beings are primarily motivated by their narrow material self-interest of greed and selfishness is a central message of the Socialist Party. We envision a new kind of political movement that could actually win majority support for transforming our world, a fundamental reshaping of our economic system, political system, and societal practices.
The socialist revolution is a revolution of revolutions. It does not come top-down from the predetermined theory of one man (despite the contribution of many like Marx) or one party, which creates followers and dogma. Instead, it will come from the awakening political consciousness of each of us, igniting a critical mass of spontaneous transformation. It will come from the very grassroots, affecting all forms of social relations, the political and economic structures and our ecological approach. The purpose of the Socialist Party is to help catalyze this movement’s emergence—to articulate it and help put it into action—by gathering and joining together with others inspired by the same revolutionary spirit of cooperative synergy. Socialism is all about redesigning the decision making of human systems. Socialist ideas empower people. The achievement of workers’ control alone would leave no way for the community as a whole to allocate its resources (e.g., to decide whether to phase out a project or start up a new one), whereas the achievement of community control alone, without simultaneously controlling the means of production, is meaningless, empty.
There are thousands of organisations seeking to resist some aspect or other of what is an unjust or environmentally destructive world. All too often, these groups know what they are against but fail to offer a vision of the world they are for. These movements try to avoid anything that sounds “too ideological” out of fear of splintering the group or losing funding. They believe they will be more successful if they focus on just a specific struggle without trying to educate people about how the global system works or connect the disparate parts. When success inevitably fails to materialize this leads to exhaustion, burnout, and cynicism about any possibility of transformation and they become deeper immersed in the swamp of reforms. The Socialist Party strategy is to show people from all different struggles to see their common interests and the need to work together to build socialism. Without this, we have little chance of heading off the disasters that face humanity in the coming decades. It may take a long time of commitment until we reach a tipping point, but at that point, millions of people will suddenly realise that they would not be alone in acting on their yearning for world socialism based on solidarity. At that point, a non-violent transformation of our world becomes possible. It is the contention of the Socialist Party that every human being is capable of living in harmony with one another and with the planet. This potential is systematically thwarted in a society in which people are encouraged by the dominant culture to focus primarily on their own needs without simultaneously putting equal energy into developing a world which supports the actualization of everyone else’s needs. We can’t be who we need to be without everyone else being able to achieve his or her fullest human capacities. It is the frustration of these needs, as much as the denial of material well-being and political rights that underlies the suffering of much of humanity today.
Some might ask “Why don’t they tell us how we are ever going to achieve all this?” We don’t pretend to have the full step-by-step strategy and tactics all worked out and can offer only a guide-line and sign-posts, not an actual blueprint. Our main point is that our case for socialism is enough of a contribution to help unify and bring together the various strands and organisations of social change, a sufficient vision to the people in the world who have never even heard these kinds of ideas so that they can be taken seriously in the public sphere. We are not about winning this or that election so much as we are about fostering a new way of thinking and winning the battle of ideas. You can help by popularising these ideas. The Socialist Party is a consciousness-raising movement, so our primary task, like that of the other major movements that have had a lasting impact, is to refuse to compromise our ideals for the sake of short-term political gain. We must instead advocate for our fullest vision and insist on why it makes the most sense as the path to heal present-day society. You can never know what is possible till you struggle for what is desirable. The socialist vision, needless to say, is “unrealistic” and “not feasible” in the sense that it does not conform to the assumptions of politicians and the mass media. But we all know inside of us that our well-being depends on the well-being of everyone else on the planet and on the well-being of the planet itself.
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