Human liberation is our destiny

The Socialist Party refuses to be taken in by the assertions that capitalism is not only the most viable economic system possible but that it also represents continuous progress. After all, the evidence to the contrary is everywhere — inner-city nightmarish conditions, beggars in the streets, homelessness, increasing violence and drug abuse.  The social system we live under is capitalism, the profit system. It is a world-wide system. Having undertaken the running of the capitalist system, Labour Party Governments find that it has got to do it in the only way it can be done. Capitalism will only work if the capitalists can see the prospect of making a profit, so, in disregard of years of vaguely anti-capitalist propaganda, the Labour Party has had to come out in support of the "profit motive". Production under capitalism is primarily undertaken with a view to making a profit for the capitalist class, which means that items are produced and goods provided only when someone decides more money can be clawed back than was originally invested. The capitalist class, though, do not keep all of the profits they make. Much is reinvested in order that more profits can accumulate.

More often than not, too much is produced. When this happens the profits of the capitalist class are threatened. The result is that millions of tons of food are destroyed every year on purpose, to keep prices high in the shops. In addition, when no profits are to be made, workers are sacked or made redundant. Unemployment engulfs a vast mass of the working class, whilst the movement for increased production (which in effect means both a lowering of wages and a lowering in the number of wage receivers) promises to further increase the workless army.

Looking at the matter casually, today it would appear that the main objective of the capitalist is increased production. A closer examination of the matter will easily dispose of this false idea. What are the elements required to produce wealth today? Raw materials, machinery, and labour-power of various degrees of skill. Is there any shortage of raw material? The earth is teeming with raw material, and the untapped resources are as relatively unlimited as the development of human ingenuity. Is there a shortage of machinery? There are numerous first-class manufactures of all classes of machinery working short-time for want of orders to execute. Is there a shortage of labour-power? The hundreds of thousands of unemployed of all degrees of skill searching anxiously, and so often, unavailingly for work can provide a complete answer to this question. Finally, the slowing down of production owing to overstocked markets is the overwhelming contradiction to the claims of the increased productionists.

The mere increase of production is not the objective of the capitalist; his main objective is the lowering of the cost of production. The capitalist in competing for markets endeavours to undersell competitors by reducing the labour-time spent upon articles to a minimum (reducing the value of an article) and at the same time to obtain the maximum of surplus value by increasing the difference between what the worker receives and what he produces—increasing the amount of wealth a worker can produce and reduce the amount he receives, in other words, increasing the exploitation of the worker.

 Marx and Engels developed what is usually termed their Materialist Conception of History, an analytical tool which has since been used by socialists to explain historical events and social changes. 'The basis of Marx and Engels’ contention—derived from an investigation of past social changes and the forces that motivated them—was that society is not basically a static entity, changing only superficially, but is periodically subject to dynamic change and development. These changes are characterised chiefly by alterations in the way in which humans organise themselves to get what they need to live—food, clothing, housing, entertainment and so on. Using Marx’s analysis, socialists contend that the motive force for such changes in society is the material forces of production. These chiefly consist of the instruments of production themselves (tools, machines, etc.) and the productive skills and knowledge at society’s disposal. In the last analysis, it is the technological change which periodically revolutionises the productive skills and tools of society as humankind attempts to increase its power over production. But it is important to stress that this theory is not mere technological determinism—while technological change does tend to ultimately lead to major social change, it does not do so automatically since humans make history. Any wider social change made necessary by technological development will only come about when struggled for by a group of humans—usually a new social class with a unique relationship to the means of living. Indeed, it is precisely the social grouping which comes to play the key organising role for the new production methods as these methods are transformed by technological development, that will tend to emerge as the new dominant class in society. This grouping will not achieve dominance automatically and will have to struggle for this position by becoming conscious of its own interests and by then capturing political power from the old dominant class. We argue that it is this scenario which broadly explains historical change through various social epochs. It explains, for instance, the demise of feudalism and the rise of the capitalist class and capitalist relations of production, and similarly, it can be used to chart the decline of capitalism and the rise of the forces in society that have a class interest in its abolition and in the establishment of socialism.

Socialism does not exist and has never existed. It can not be established in a single country but only on a world-wide basis. In socialism, the earth’s resources, along with the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, will be commonly owned and democratically controlled by the world’s peoples. There will be no minority élite and no owners because society will be classless. With the disappearance of money and the wages system, society's productive potential will be released from the artificial constraints of profit. Goods and services will be provided because society needs them, not because they generate profit. With the barriers of the money system removed, the only questions needed to be asked is what is required and where—questions that will be answered according to the availability of resources. Technology and communications will be freed from the constraints of profit and used to their utmost to serve the world’s peoples. Again, alternative sources of fuel and energy will be sought, both to best serve humans and show the environment the respect it deserves. People will give according to their ability and take from the stockpile of communal wealth according to their own self-defined needs, with work being based on voluntary co-operation. For the first time ever, people will have control over their own lives, with all monetary worries and fears of crime and war ended. For the first time ever, the people of planet Earth will have an equal share in planet Earth.

Capitalism is solely responsible for world hunger, just as it is the root cause of war, diseases that are returning to haunt humanity, homelessness, unemployment and a thousand other social ills. And we call them "social ills" because all of these problems are rooted in the way society is at present organised for production—production for profit, not social need.

Marx saw the socialist revolution as a great act of human liberation, one that would precisely free humanity from the sway of economic and historical forces which had a social origin in the way they were organised to meet their needs but which they could not control and had to submit to. In freeing humans from the sway of these forces, socialism would allow them to control their own collective destiny, to act as rational beings consciously creating the life they freely chose.