Our forebears wore brass collars to let all and sundry know that they were the property of some master. Now we are labelled and numbered and coded and filed to a nicety. How old are you? Where were you born? Who was your father and mother? How many children do you have? How long have you been working or out of work? Astonishingly some working men and women believe they are free.
The rich are getting policies that serve their interests at the expense of working families and the environment. Quite simply, in the United States today, a handful of billionaires and the corporations they run exercise extraordinary power over our economic, political, and social life. It is a global issue as oligarchs and authoritarianism spread from country to country. The world to-day is in the hands of billionaires-owners of the biggest corporations, the biggest banks, the biggest transport companies; in short, owners or controllers of Big Business. Nearly everything we use or need provides profits to them. These billionaire capitalists, not only own or control the chief means whereby we work and live, but, in fact, control the whole governing machine. They pull the strings. And they use their power to make themselves richer and richer—at our expense. They hire workers to make profit out of their labour; their capitalist production is for profit, not for use: and to get more profit they slash wages, carry through speed-up and worsen conditions. Poverty, insecurity, and malnutrition are making their inroads in the homes of millions.
In Russia, it is Vladimir Putin and his cronies who rule. In China, President Xi Jinping steadily consolidates power around himself and his inner circle. In Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern monarchies, a handful of multibillionaire despotic sheiks exerts enormous power. And across Europe we are once again seeing the rise of demagogues like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. America's Trump, therefore, should not be seen in isolation. He is part of a global trend and represents a symptom of a much broader problem: a small number of extraordinarily wealthy people, motivated by greed and power, who see the planet as their plaything.
These forces have proved adept at taking advantage of the very many real concerns that hundreds of millions of people face throughout the world. People rightly feel that the establishment and status quo has failed them. They are struggling financially, fear for their children’s future, and are grappling with the loss of social and economic status. Rather than address these grievances, however, demagogues create scapegoats and pit one group against another.
In socialism solidarity will be the basis of society. Everything is ripe for a bold and independent policy on the part of the workers. It will not happen until the workers decide to take their own future into their own hands. It is a sign of the times that more and more people are discussing the meaning of socialism in practice. They are not content with the reiteration of the socialist classics. Simple answers, set formulas or self-declarations can no longer be substituted for hard analyse. Socialism seeks to eradicate the basic causes for war, unemployment, poverty, hunger and disease, which it knows are the products of capitalism. We are for world socialism as the only way to abolish all the evils of modern class society. How can the workers end capitalism? The answer is that a socialist revolution can do it. Without breaking the power of the capitalists it is impossible to get rid of capitalism or to build socialism. The, workers have the power to overthrow capitalism. It is the capitalists who are powerless, powerless to move a single inch towards the essential reconstruction of society. It is the workers who are strong from the very moment that they unite and resist.
The Socialist Party will carry on an independent campaign of education and attack upon the political field, and as a consequence represent the socialist idea in politics. The oppressed and exploited do not need a new reformist party. We need a socialist one. Our numbers in the Socialist Party are small, but our potential is huge. Labour Party is the party of reform par excellence. Nothing it has said or done, nothing it has promised could arouse much enthusiasm in anyone looking for more appreciable easement within capitalism than he was getting anyway, let alone anyone wanting an end to the system. That is why we stand for socialism. The nature of capitalist cannot be changed. The yearning of the peoples of the world for lasting peace on earth and good will among men can be fulfilled only through a social system based on human needs. That is socialism. World socialism is the goal of humanity. It is the only way to have peace and security. Building a class-free socialist society involves a gigantic process of remoulding all aspects of social life. It involves a constant change in the relations of production, in the mode of distribution, in the labour process, in the forms of administration of the economy and society, and in the customs, habits, and ways of thinking of the great majority of people. It involves the fundamental reconstruction of all living conditions: reconstruction of cities, a complete revolution in the education system, restoration and protection of the ecological equilibrium, technological innovations to conserve scarce natural resources, etc. All these endeavours, for which humanity possesses no blueprints, will give rise to momentous debates from the point of view of the overall interests of the people, as opposed to sectional interest. Only through the final victory of world socialism can the vast stores of available scientific knowledge really be put to work for the full benefit of humanity.
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