All over the world, we feel that there is something deeply wrong with the way we live. Capitalism mindlessly consumes resources, exhausts our soil, deplete fish stocks, pollutes the rivers and seas, and poisons the air. Human labour is just one more resource to be consumed and then discarded. Globalised capitalism is vampire-like web, parasitically sucking the blood and life-force of the planet’s peoples. The Socialist Party's mission is to cast some light on the darker side of capitalism. Our vision is of an abundant, peaceful, sustainable and cooperative society that to some may seem impossible. The socialist solution appears 'utopian' and not practical and for many the efforts to realize this vision should be abandoned in favour of more short term, pragmatic but insufficient remedies. But this is the goal we must aspire to if we seek a sustainable economic system because the one we have now is no longer viable. The mainstream media are doing everything they can to convince us that the solution to our social and environmental problems is going to be found in the very same policies that have created them in the first place. Their T.I.N.A. [There is No Alternative] narrative continues to dominate the debate and the result is that it is infecting people with cynicism and apathy. Rather than accept present day logic the Socialist Party seeks to navigate societal life away from the destructiveness of constant economic growth.
Murray Bookchin possessed a vision of democracy and majority voting, which he considered as the only equitable way for a large number of people to make decisions. According to him consensus, in which a single person can veto every decision, presents a danger for society to be dismantled. However, all members of society possess knowledge and memory, and thus the social collectivity does not have an interest in depriving “minorities” of their rights. For him, the views of a minority are a potential source of new insights and nascent truths, which are great sources of creativity and progress for society as a whole. Through the electoral processes, Bookchin strives at “liberating” the people from politics, and no longer leaving it in the hands of professional “representatives”. Although the system enables people to vote for their representatives, we don't have to look far to see that election campaigns are funded by wealthy elites, that elections only partially or superficially address important issues, and that politicians consistently abandon campaign promises. Politicians are professionals whose careers depend on obtaining power. Regardless of the intentions of the politician, he or she soon learns that for their career to remain and prosper they must serve economic interests, rather than the people who they are supposed to represent. Representative governments and the bureaucracies that sustain them are fundamentally opposed to popular democratic power. Whatever power the State gains is at the expense of popular power, and any power that people gain is done at the expense of the State. It is thus futile to turn to the State with major appeals for change, for these appeals would only be subverted by the State in an attempt to strengthen its own power. To be sure, there are reforms that are necessary and valuable. But if we only work for the completion of these minor reforms, then the root causes of social and environmental problems will persist, and worse, grow and intensify. As long as we live under the State’s power, we cannot expect to have full control over our lives, to fulfill all of our needs, and to be free from oppression altogether. No decision is democratically legitimate unless it has been proposed, discussed, and decided upon by people in a face-to-face assembly. Professional politicians cannot handle social decision any better than “amateurs” everyday people, who reflect a range of perspectives and possess detailed knowledge of the experiences of daily life.
Unlike the widespread current acceptance of nature as a commodity, as something separated from society, Bookchin viewed it in direct link with social life, relationships, and values. His essential premise is that all environmental problems are rooted in social problems. He supports Peter Kropotkin's argument that mutualism is as essential, if not greater, a component of evolution than what is commonly referred to as competition, that a participatory and cooperative outlook focused than a “struggle for existence”. Capitalism is an economic system that necessitates continuous expansion, exploitation, and the concentrated ownership of wealth. The driving force of capitalism is the competitive market. The market economy's essential purpose is to sell commodities for profit. Profit has to be realized, regardless of the broader effects the commodity has on the environment or society at large, or the capitalist will go bankrupt. In order to gain a competitive advantage over other businesses, the capitalist is compelled to eliminate all social constraints on the exploitation of labor, and to reinvest a large portion of accumulated profits into technologies that will increase productive capacity, thereby lowering the cost of production through its economy of scale. A slow process of cannibalization occurs in which businesses must fail thereby causing wealth to be concentrated into the fewer hands of those who succeed. Due to the “grow or die” imperative imposed by the market, economic growth cannot be contained by moral persuasion, it must continue to expand without any regard for human needs or environmental impact.
Thus, capitalism should be seen for what it is, a malignant cancer. It will continue to grow. The rich never have enough. The more they get, the more they want. Under capitalism, people get rewarded according to their profitability, and economic decisions are put into the individual hands of those who control land, money, machinery, and technical knowledge. Each actor must do what it takes to keep their sales going or else face bankruptcy or unemployment. Due to the market imperative to sell, every aspect of life is eventually assigned a price tag. Not only is this system undemocratic, it is also dehumanizing. Community relationships and the whole orientation of society are reduced to business relationships while individuals are fixated on egotism and conspicuous consumption. Capitalism also has a destructive effect on the urban environment. Instead of humanly communities, industrial capitalism has created mega-cities and urban sprawls. People have become anonymous in their environs.
History has shown that there is ever growing potential in what we can achieve. The socialist concept of freedom is twofold, freedom from exploitation and the freedom to realise one's own individual potential as a human being. A socialist society would seek to minimize anyone's suffering while enabling everyone to fulfill their creative potentials. Socialism is a society of empowered individuals freed from an exploitative market and freed to participate in an economy based on the common-good. Socialists maintain that there are no technical impediments to achieving a “post-scarcity” society of relative abundance. Modern technology, for instance, holds the potential of producing a sufficiency of goods for all people, while reducing the hardships of human labour. The fact that robotics and automation can be used to provide for everyone's needs gives people a choice of what extent to utilize such techniques. What is important is that these technologies can be decentralized and placed under the direct control of a community. Today, capitalism creates an artificial scarcity of goods, while the mass media is used to generate artificial needs in our minds. A post-scarcity society is made possible by rejecting the notion of limitless needs, and replacing it with a commitment to enhance the welfare of all individuals and our environment.
The move from our current society to the free society necessarily involves convincing a majority of the population to support these ideals. To do this, we must build a movement that is organised around the socialist vision. The Socialist Party’s electoral attempts are never be engaged for the purpose of gaining a large following. Losing by a large margin is desirable if people are not yet educated on the ideas being promoted. If a socialist campaign ever surrenders its far-reaching goals to gain a large following, it will inevitably become ineffective, demoralized, and corrupted. It is desired that educated individuals, not propagandized voters, come to accept and join the socialist movement. A different kind of society is truly possible for us to achieve together. Let us begin to take the steps necessary for collectively freeing ourselves from the irrational system that enslaves us.
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