The Old World is Ours for the Taking - The New World is Ours for the Making

The revolutionary vision that is alive and kicking in so many peoples hearts. Instead of an economy driven by profit, a rational economic system would be based on fulfilling human needs.  Socialists believe that for humanity to truly thrive we must establish democratic control of every aspect of the economy. Once democracy is established on the most basic levels, workplaces and entire industries can federate upward to plan for the larger economy.  Socialism means the abolition of wage labour, property, the state, the commodity form, and exchange. Everything would be held in common, rather than public or worker ownership, and everything would be free, given without anything in exchange and without any expectation of any reciprocity from the particular individuals involved. We see a different organisation of society where everybody plays their part in deciding what is going to be done. People will work and live together locally, regionally and internationally

Socialism has got nothing to do with state control of the economy (as Leninists suggest) nor for that matter with workers owning their own factories and exchanging products with other workers (as advocated by some anarchists). Communism, as the authors of this book make clear, is the abolition of all forms of the state, exchange (buying and selling) and property- including "public property". In short, it is a money-free, class-free, state-free world community.There will be no more class system, just people. I In a socialist society all the world’s resources will be for the free and common use of everybody to satisfy their needs - like air today. This is incompatible with the existence of any form of money because for things to be bought, sold or bartered, they have to belong to one part of society alone (individual, company, workers collective, state, etc.). We are against all forms of capitalist exploitation whether private, state or self-managed (cooperatives). We wish to live according to the ideals of solidarity, mutual aid and free association in a wage-free society. We organise to build class unity and build a unified working class movement for the abolition of classes altogether. It is only through building common struggle and class organization that we will succeed. We see the function of our organisation as facilitating this process. To this end, we aim to present socialist critiques of class society, capitalism, and the wage system. We have examined the unequal, divisive and miserable nature of capitalism, the State and the kind of society that they produce. We have examined ways of building for and achieving a revolution: a genuine revolution involving a complete change about in society. We seek to do away with artificial boundaries and borders. The world will not be divided into countries or States by lines drawn on a map by capitalists to mark out their property. We will ignore these borders just as we will tear down the fences and walls surrounding the palaces of the rich.

Instead of being forced to work in competition against each other for the benefit of the bosses, our actions in the community and at work will not be viewed through the blinkered eyes, but in terms the benefit of all. We believe the benefits, either real or potential, that the new world presents to our class are so great that movement towards it, with help from organisations such as ours, will sooner or later become unstoppable. This idea that there are loads of people who wouldn't accept a good thing when they saw it, we don't agree with. We don't have a set of smart answers as to how exactly the new world will operate nor do we want to. Unlike the ruling class, and those who aspire to be on the Left, we do not underestimate the imagination, ingenuity, common sense,  and courage of our class. We, in the Socialist Party, will encourage knowledge, understanding, self-management, and solidarity. By doing so our class will provide the means of making a world human community.  We see no transitional Worker's State as the Left does for we have learned the lessons of history.

The Socialist Party has never said that the establishment of Socialism involves just a few million X’s on ballot papers for socialism followed by a parliamentary resolution. We have always said that socialism can only be established by a conscious, participating working class organised not only politically to capture and destroy the State machine but also outside parliament ready to take over and run industry and society generally.