The Challenge for Socialists

The world is in terrible shape. The politicians can’t do anything about it. The economists haven’t helped. All of the people who have dedicated their time or donated to worthy causes haven’t really made much of a difference. The problems even seem to be getting worse, not better. Many people seem to think that there are shortcuts that will solve the problems one by one. Over the last hundred years, the short-cuts have failed to eliminate a single major problem. Poverty, war, starvation, and more remain. Wouldn’t it be better to work for a long-term solution that will succeed, rather than taking short-cuts that don’t? Besides, if everyone working for the short-cuts went to work on a real solution, the long-term would get a lot closer a lot faster. The short-cut approach only allows the problems to get worse. We don’t have time for any more short-cuts. We need a solution. Socialism is the real solution and has never been tried.

The fact is the profit system can never be reformed so as to work in the interest of the majority of the population. It can only work as a profit system, by giving priority to making profits over all other considerations. Workers are thrown out of jobs because they cannot be exploited for profit. Society does not provide for all now simply because its economy (the way it produces things) is geared not to producing what people need but to producing profitably what they can afford.

What we need is a peaceful, democratic social revolution to replace the profit system.  Then we can produce to meet our needs, not for profits. And society can accomplish its true aim: serving the welfare of its members by ensuring that we have no worries over satisfying our material needs. In a socialist society ownership and control of the means of production will be in the hands of the community as a whole. This will enable production to be directed in the interest of all on the basis of what we need. With modern methods of demand research, stock control, statistics, and electronic computing, the means by which the needs of society can be determined are already available. The first step to gaining that control is to work for a world of common ownership, democratic control, co-operation and production directly for the needs of all people. These are the only means by which we can end the economic nightmare of capitalism.  You will never be free until the Earth is free, and the Earth will never be free while it is held in private hands. Capitalism makes us trespassers in a world that should belong to us all in common, let’s organise to take it back. Achieving this new society democratically requires the majority of people to express their desire for it. The immense task is telling the majority of people about it. That’s why we need a socialist party, to campaign for socialism and nothing but.

The reformers, including the politicians of the left with their endless schemes to sanitise the present system, have told us for over a hundred wasted years that all we need to do is elect them to parliament and a decent future for ourselves and our children will be possible? Do not believe those who tell you that there is any worthwhile future under capitalism. The capitalist system means production for sale with a view to profit. No profit, then to hell with needs. The role of the vast majority of us under capitalism is to make profits for the rich and privileged few. We are the raw material of their success. Our poverty is the basis for their luxury. Socialists say that the world should belong to all of us. Only when it does will all of us benefit from the rich abundance of the earth’s resources. For too long we have lived cramped existences so that a minority can live life to the full. We have sacrificed our lives to the profit system and now they ask us to sacrifice the future of our children.

We have only have one life: this one. There is no after-life, nor does reincarnation exist. This life is the only life we have, and the only way we humans can improve it is by our own collective action. No Messiah or other Saviour is going to come and lead us to a better life. We are on our own. The things we need to live and enjoy life are produced today only if there’s a financial profit in it for the private firms, state concerns and rich individuals who own and control the world's productive resources. It is this that causes the economic and military rivalry and the neglect of human needs we see all around us. And these will go on as long as sectional (private or nation-state) ownership and production for profit continue. The collective human action that is needed to improve human life on Earth is democratic action to make the resources of the world the common heritage of all humanity. It is only on this basis that we humans can freely direct production towards the satisfaction of our needs and so ensure that every man. woman and child on this planet have adequate access to food, clothes, housing and all the other things needed to live an enjoyable life.

The situation is not hopeless (unless you expect others to fix everything for you.) The solution has four parts and you are a major component of all four.

• Understand that the problems cannot be solved one by one, they are interconnected. Attempts to solve one problem usually come at the expense of other, equally severe, problems. For example, more money for day care means less money for rape crisis. More money to fight poverty means less money to counter racism. Less money for war means fewer jobs and lower wages.
• Recognise that the underlying interconnecting cause is the profit system.
• Educate others.
• Eliminate the cause. Once the cause is gone, solving the remaining problems will be relatively easy.