In capitalism, it is money that determines whether or not people's needs are met. This principle applies to the "welfare state" as much as it does to the market for goods. But in the case of the welfare state it is the government which has the power to decide whose needs are to be met (through the allocation of resources) and at what level.
Just as capitalism is a world system of society, so too must socialism be. There never has been, and never can be, socialism in just one country because its material basis is the world-wide and interdependent means of production that capitalism has built up. The bulk of the wealth produced in the world today is produced by the co-operative labour of the millions employed to operate these means of production. What is needed now, to establish socialism, is a conscious political decision on the part of these millions across the world to run society in their own interests.
This will be done by taking the means of production throughout the world into common ownership, with their democratic control by the whole community, and with production solely for use.
Common ownership will be a social relationship of equality between all people with regard to the use of the means of production. No longer will there be classes, governments, and their state machinery, or national frontiers.
Democratic control will involve the whole community in making decisions about the use of the means of production. Instead of government over people, there would be various levels of democratic administration. from the local up to regional and world levels, with responsibility being delegated if necessary to groups and individuals.
Production for use will bring production into direct line with human needs. Without money, wages, buying and selling there will be a world of free access. Everyone will be able to contribute to society by working voluntarily, according to ability. Everyone will be able to take freely from whatever is readily available, according to self-defined needs.
The motivation for this new world comes from the common class interest of those who produce but do not possess. An important part of this motivation comes from the global problems thrown up by capitalism. Global climate change makes a nonsense of the efforts of governments and makes the worldwide co-operation of socialism an urgent necessity. But this does not rule out local democracy. In fact, a democratic system of decision-making would require that the basic unit of social organisation would be the local community. However, the nature of some of the problems we face and the many goods and services presently produced. such as raw materials, energy sources, agricultural products, world transport and communications, need production and distribution to be organised at a world level. Corresponding to this, of course, there would be a need for a democratic world administration, controlled by delegates from the regional and local levels of organisation throughout the world.
The Socialist Party intends to build a world in which there will be neither exploiters nor exploited. The socialist movement expresses the common class interest of the producers. Because political power in capitalism is organised on a territorial basis each socialist party has the task of seeking democratically to gain political power in the country where it operates. If it is suggested that socialist ideas might develop unevenly across the world and that socialists of only a part of the world were in a position to get political control, then the decision about the action to be taken would be one for the whole of the socialist movement in the light of all the circumstances at the time. It would certainly be a folly, however, to base a programme of political action on the assumption that socialist ideas will develop unevenly and that we must, therefore, be prepared to establish “socialism” in one country or even a group of countries like the European Union.
For a start, it is an unreasonable assumption that socialist ideas will develop unevenly. Given the world-wide nature of capitalism and its social relationships, the vast majority of people live under basically similar conditions: and because of the world-wide system of communications and media, there is no reason for socialist ideas to be restricted to one part of the world. Any attempt to establish “socialism” in one country would be bound to fail due to the pressures exerted by the world market on that country's means of production. Recent experience in Russia, China and elsewhere shows conclusively that even capitalist states cannot detach themselves from the requirements of an integrated system of production operated through the world market.
Faced with this explanation of how the world could be organised, many would reject it in favour of something more “realistic", including some who call themselves socialist. They seek to solve social problems within the framework of government policies, the state machine, national frontiers, money, wages, buying, and selling. But if our analysis of capitalism as a world system is correct—and
We must get on with working towards the abolition of this sordid mess
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