Capitalism rests on the basic fact of the exploitation of man by man. of the working class by the capitalist class. Rent, interest and profit, all forms of income from property ownership, are the proceeds of the “legalised robbery" of the wage and salary earning class that produces the wealth of the world for others to own. Fellow workers, capitalism is world-embracing. Whether you choose to stay in this country or to migrate, basically your position will remain unchanged, exploited in order that others may live in idle, parasitic comfort continually threatened with economic crises and war, directly resulting from the competitive system which is held in such esteem by capitalism's apologists. We must build a common-sense economy purposed to benefit the vast majority and not a tiny minority. It is a global fight against injustice and inequality. Capitalism is destroying our planet and our future. More and more of us are likely to be in the most precarious employment, with low wages an little security. We need to develop a sustainable economy for both people and the planet's well-being.
The Socialist Party vision is one of the workers building a society where prosperity is available to all and class divisions would dissolve. The nature of socialism cannot be separated from the means to achieve it — the conscious. political action of a majority of the working class. By working class we mean the vast majority of the population (perhaps 90 per cent in Britain) who do not own the means of production — land, industries, transport. communications and so on — and therefore need to sell their mental and physical energies (labour power) to an employer. Without wages or salaries they do not have access to the fruits of their work. The capitalist class, on the other hand, through its class ownership (or monopoly) of the means of production, has access to wealth without the need to work. It employs the majority class to do every kind of work and. after wages and all of the other costs of running a complex system have been paid, there remains for the capitalist class a privileged life-style.
Socialism will mean the end of the profit motive, to be replaced by production solely for use, arising from the common ownership and democratic control of the earth's bountiful natural and industrial resources. In a socialist society, there will be no market. no buying and selling, no money, no prices. Defenders of capitalism's chaos claim that without the present economic mechanisms production would be inefficient. But. from the angle of the working class, who produce all wealth and suffer all deprivation, the waste and anarchy of the profit system are far from efficient. Only when the sole criterion of production is the usefulness of the product will we be able to speak meaningfully about the efficient allocation of resources. And only when we have got rid of world capitalism and established socialism will such a condition exist.
Not competition but co-operation. We will then cease to be wage slaves, mere hired (and fired) hands, but free and equal human beings. Our world is not short of new technologies that have transformed our world in ways we could never have imagined. Mobile phones have opened up the world to billions, not just bringing instant communication but offering inventive means of receiving information and exercising decision-making. Yet all too often, new technology remains wedded to capitalism which belongs to the past. Technology is not the problem - it is what it is used for. Technology can serve all of humanity, not only the owners of capital and technology. Far from rejecting globalisation, we need even more world-wide cooperation and coordination, and communicate with each other everywhere.
On a basis of socialist understanding, this world is within our reach. What are we waiting for? The only answer to our many problems is the democratic overthrow of the capitalist system itself — nothing less will do. For it is capitalism alone which is responsible for them. The world socialist movement continues to exist and to struggle for the society of communal ownership to eliminate the problems which now afflict the world's people.
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