Dysfunctional Capitalism

Capitalism is at war with life on earth.  - Naomi Klein

  Our species is capable of great compassion, kindness and tolerance; it is also capable of cruelty, selfishness and hate.  Capitalism's market forces act blindly and indiscriminately and its goal is limitless growth – no matter what the human or environmental costs may be. The global consequences of capitalism are great, long-term and far-reaching. The prospects for the planet and humanity are bleak. The profit-motive is the life-blood of capitalism. It is overwhelmingly responsible for global crises, and yet despite repeated warnings, little of substance has been done and it’s getting worse. All around the world people are suffering. Leaving behind this unjust economic system would create the possibility of progress. The capitalist class is a useless, dangerous, parasitic minority that can be dispensed with. In a society in which private ownership of the means of production has existed for thousands of years, the exploiting class through their rule have built up great power in all fields and have grabbed everything under the sun. Their long rule has given rise to backwardness, ignorance, selfishness, mutual suspicion and deception, mutual injury and slaughter in human society. It has exerted a most pernicious influence on the exploited. This is the inevitable result of the efforts of the ruling class to preserve their class interests and control. For they cannot maintain their ruling position unless they keep the masses backward, unorganised and divided.

 Surely, every thinking man or woman realises the capitalist system fails to supply the needs of the vast majority of the human race, and that it must be overthrown before people can have freedom. Capitalism's short-sighted hunt for profit has nothing to offer the majority but economic uncertainty for tomorrow, environmental disasters, poverty, disease and war. It is time for the workers of the world to learn their own power and use it for their own benefit. Socialist production will be planned on the basis of what serves society, not what yields the most profit. The producers themselves, the workers, will decide what to produce and how – not “the market”. The class-free society is the goal for socialists and the state will have ceased to exist, and people have attained full and unlimited freedom where the principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is fully realised. Those things which are necessary for the production of the people’s needs shall be owned in common by all the people.


 Standing in the way of social progress is the capitalist class. Some day in the near future that the hungry millions will turn against the overfed few and a fearful retribution will be enacted on the capitalist class as a class. Can you imagine the power of free, unconditional sharing, mulitplied by millions and billions of people? What kind of world would that be? No exchange. No barter. Just everyone sharing their skills. Can you imagine the problems we could solve if we didn't need to buy and sell and trade in order to survive? Can you imagine if the only thing that governed people's behaviour was not the money they had nor the laws they obeyed, but rather the knowledge, respect and appreciation they had for each other and their environment? Soon we will build enough trust and confidence in the idea of world socialism, that we can begin to truly re-organise our society for the mutual benefit of all. We must understand that socialism is the greatest cause in human history, which will eliminate exploitation and classes once and for all, emancipate mankind and bring humanity into a world of happiness, radiating with beauty, such as it has never known before. But we must also understand that it wull be the most arduous undertaking in all history and only through protracted, bitter and torturous struggle will we be able to defeat the exploiting class. Beyond all doubt the socialist's cause will continue to develop and advance, and will win final and complete victory to deliver humanity from the nightmare of religion.


 The 'dictatorship of the proletariat' is a much misused phrase; when socialism is in being there will be no proletariat, as we understand the term today, and no dictatorship. There should be no compulsion; some people may say: “What the majority decide is good enough for me.” Others will say: “I like to have a voice in it.” As a rule, when things affecting a group of people who are working together come up for decision everyone of the group will join in and give his or her opinion, and generally the thing will be decided by mutual agreement. The 'dictatorship', so far as it is genuine and defensible, is the suppression of capitalism and any attempt to re-establish it.  Compulsion of any kind is repugnant to the socialist. No-one may make a wage-slave of another; no-one may hoard up goods for him or herself that he or she does not require and cannot use; but the only way to prevent such practices is not by making them punishable; it is by creating a society in which no-one needs to become a wage-slave, and no-one cares to be cumbered with a private hoard of goods when all that they need is readily supplied as they need it from the common storehouse.