This is Socialism

Our age is one of continuous discovery, yet the problems of humanity seem to be  insurmountable. Our age is full of contradictions. We could send men to the moon, yet many on this world have not enough to eat.  Science serves the ends of the capitalist system. It serves the military, not the community. The scientists are fettered by the prejudices of private property and refuse to recognise that the cause of the many social problems is capitalism itself. The drive for greater technical efficiency is basic to capitalism's insatiable thirst for profits; humanity's real needs are not considered.

Capitalism has engulfed the whole world. Every nation is involved in world trade and cannot escape its influence. Capitalism spreads it its own ideology and culture. Globalisation destroys diverse communities with their rich traditions. Today we all live very similar lives with same social ills. We are all cogs in the machinery of capitalism, and are exploited in the same way. Dress, diet and dialect may vary, but the workers day-to-day worries are essentially the same. Apart from socialism, nothing can stop capitalism. It subjugating greater numbers of people to wage slavery. Under capitalism the privileges of class ownership of wealth dominate community requirements, the needs of the majority take second place. World capitalism as the dominating system of production and distribution can never be rationally organised in such a way that it serves the needs of the community. Private ownership, economic exploitation and the distribution of commodities through a marketing system with a view to making profit from the barriers that prevent man from making the fullest possible use of his labour, technology and natural resources. This is the nature of the problem of poverty. Any attempt to deal with world poverty within the framework of capitalist society is bound to fail, since it accepts all the pre-conditions of the problem. The priorities of capitalist society are privileged property rights and the pursuit of profits. We must constantly draw attention to the contradiction inherent within capitalist society. The problem of hunger cannot be isolated from world poverty maintained year after year by the economic barriers of capitalism. This is not a technical problem: it is not a problem of overpopulation. It is a question of the kind of social priorities that people choose to accept. If it is to be capitalism, it will be production and distribution geared to the private accumulation of wealth by a privileged minority. It will mean economic recessions, unemployment, the curtailment of production at a time when humanity desperately needs more wealth. It will mean that technology will be stifled by the limitations of investment programmes. It will mean that the price mechanism and the market will sometimes result in the stockpiling or destruction of food whilst people are starving. It will mean the waste involved in war and commerce.

Socialism will mean the free application of human labour to the earth's resources with the most efficient utilisation and further development of technology. It will mean a productive system built up on relations of social equality and adjusted to the idea that man matters most. The object of socialism is to unite humanity and to solve social problems by building a society which can satisfy the universal need for co-operation and material security.  Socialism is the form of society most compatible with the needs of man. Its necessity springs from the enduring problems, the economic contradictions and social conflicts of present-day society. Socialist society must be based upon the common ownership and democratic control by the whole community of the means of life.Life will be based on human relationships of equality and co-operation. Through these relationships, man will produce useful things, construct amenities and establish desirable institutions.

Socialism will resolve the conflicts which at present divide man from man. Regardless of ethnic or cultural differences, the whole world community will share a common interest. The building of socialism requires a social reorganisation where the earth's resources and the apparatus of production are held in common by the whole community. Instead of serving sectional interests, they are made freely accessible to society as a whole. Production will be organized at world level with co-ordination of its differing parts down to local levels. In socialism there will be no market, trade or barter. In the absence of a system of exchange, money will have no function to perform. Individuals will participate freely in production and take what they need from what is produced. The fact that socialism will be based on common ownership does not mean that an individual will have no call on personal effects. It means essentially that no minority will have control over or possession of natural resources or means of production. Individuals will stand in relation to each other not as economic categories, not as employers and employees or buyers and sellers, but simply as human beings producing and consuming the necessary things of life. Socialist society will minimise waste and set free an immense amount of human labour. Armies and armament industries with their squandering of men and materials will be swept away. These will disappear together with all the wasteful appendages of trade and commerce.

In socialism there will be a common interest in the planning and smooth operation of production. Work will be a part of human co-operation in dealing with practical problems. Work will be one aspect of the varied yet integrated life of the community. With the change in the object of society, that is human welfare instead of profit, man will freely develop agriculture and housing, produce useful things and maintain services. As well as material production, man will freely develop desirable institutions such as libraries, education facilities, centres of art and crafts and centres of research in science and technology. It will be a problem of social planning, statistics and research to ascertain the requirements of the community. Although these techniques are used for different ends, there is already wide experience of them. With experience of Socialist production, these planning techniques will gain in accuracy. Once produced, goods will be transported to centres of distribution where all will have the same right of access to what is available according to individual need. It will be a simple matter of collecting what is required. As well as tradition and geography, it will be a matter of organization and practicality as to which things will require a complex world division of labour for their production and which things will be produced regionally.

Socialism will establish a community of interests. The development of the individual will enhance the lives of other men. Equality will manifest attitudes of co-operation. The individual will enjoy the security of being integrated with society at large. The establishment of socialism does not call for the complete destruction and reconstruction of society. Techniques of production and some of the machinery of administration which can be transformed already exist. The task is to allow their free use and development by and for the community. With the change in the object of society from profit to human welfare will come a change in the function of social institutions Socialism will continue those institutions necessary to its own organisation. For example, the Food and Agricultural Organization and World Health Organisation could be expanded to submit plans and execute decisions concerning world food production and global healthcare

The schools and universities will no longer be concerned with the training of wage and salary workers for the needs of trade and commerce. Education will be a social amenity for life, providing teachers and a storehouse of all accumulated knowledge and skill. Education will not be rigidly separated from other aspects of life. The provision of education facilities will call for some permanent specialists, but knowledge and skill will to a much greater extent be passed on by those actively engaged in their practical application. Education will be tied more closely to the whole process of living.

Socialism will end national barriers. The human family will have freedom of movement over the entire earth. Socialism would facilitate universal human contact but at the same time would take care to preserve diversity. Variety in language, music, handicrafts, art forms and diet etc will add to all human experience. Socialism will be democratic. World policies will be subject to the control of the world community. The most complete information relevant to all issues under discussion will be made fully available. Elected delegates will carry local viewpoints to a world congress where the broad decisions on all aspects of social policy will be made. From that point, the social machinery would be implemented to carry out these decisions, subject to democratic control through both local and world bodies. Decisions affecting only local interests would be made democratically by the local community. The elimination of vested interests will mean that men will have no ulterior motives influencing their decisions.

Within present capitalist society, people and resources serve profit. On all sides it can be seen that commerce and trade – the exchange economy - are preventing mankind from expanding production on a scale necessary to serve the community’s needs. Socialism will provide a social framework that will enable humanity to get on with the job. The initial task of producing enough goods for the whole human family will be a huge one. We do not underestimate the problems of organization and production involved, but to eliminate world poverty must be one of the first tasks of socialist society. It is the glaring contradiction of our times that wealth is socially produced but possessed by a minority. Whereas in science, technology and in the development of the means of production man has brilliantly asserted his genius, in his relationships man suffers an abiding failure. It is this failure which is expressed in war, nationalism, racism, world hunger and poverty, unemployment, industrial chaos and social disunity. In all history, man has never suffered such universal frustration whilst having so close at hand the means of building a better world.