The Freedom of Socialism

No social movement can mature without a cause and a vision. That vision is a vision of a world free forever from economic exploitation and want, from race and national hatred and from sexual oppression. That vision is a vision of a world where the material needs of the people are satisfied by an ever-expanding technology that has freed humanity from toil. The vision is one of peace and social harmony. Today, the level and development of the means of production makes this cause possible. We no longer have to work long hours just to eke out a miserable existence for our families. The new technology makes a world of material abundance and cultural development for all possible. Yet it is the capitalists who have reaped unprecedented profits from new technology. But relative poverty is growing worldwide. With little hope of a decent future we, wage-slaves, represent a threat to the capitalists. Increasingly, the ruling class is making its intentions clear. It is unable to solve the problem of growing poverty. Therefore, it is moving to tightly control the tens of millions of workers who will not suffer in silence.  The ruling class aim is to divide the poor.  

Socialism is — on the face of it at least — attractive to many: the apparent principles of “fairness”, or looking after everyone in the community (rather just number one) have broad appeal of course. But that is often insufficient to outweigh what many consider to be the main downsides to socialism. Prime amongst the perceived disadvantages of a socialist society is the idea that socialism is an inefficient way to produce wealth. In contrast, the market system portrays itself as a dynamic, productive and creative mechanism. By incentivising the inventors, the entrepreneurs and the risk-takers (so the fairy-tale goes) capitalism liberates human beings to work harder and smarter, producing more wealth and more choice. The only problem with this superficially-appealing narrative is that capitalism is not in fact geared to the production of wealth per se, but rather is tailored to the production of profit, a very different thing. The reason is that inside a market-based system of buying and selling, wealth is not produced to meet human needs of the entire population, but instead to meet the profit expectations of the minority who monopolise ownership and control of the means of producing wealth.  Capitalism liberates nothing. The market system itself creates nothing beyond profit and misery, and will routinely stifle or sacrifice productivity for profitability. The ideological claims for capitalism as being an efficient system just don’t stand up to any sort of examination, with endemic inefficiency and wastage inherent. And attempts of governments to “correct” or regulate the market are usually cosmetic, partial and powerless in the face of the iron law of profitability. 

Many people still believe that hunger is caused today by over-population and that if there were fewer people in the world, then, and only then, could they be adequately fed. This is not so. In the first place, the resources and technology exist now to feed the world’s population many times over. Second, even if the population did decrease substantially, there would still be a hunger problem, since hunger like homelessness is essentially an economic problem, a poverty problem. People can buy food if they have money, but hungry people do not have money. The hungry have no money to buy food at existing prices, so they do not constitute a market. Under capitalism, food is a commodity and commodities are only produced when there is an effective economic demand. People feeling hungry is not the same thing as “economic demand for food”. Capitalism has developed all the productive techniques necessary for production for abundance. But the capitalist economic system can only produce in response to economic demand and the prospect of a profit is a sine qua non, in farming as in every other sphere of capitalist production. The farmers must have “incentives” — and Oxfam pictures of starving children do not amount to an incentive. The begging bowl is not just a symbol of the charities: it is a symbol of the misery and want in many forms endured by the poor. It is the hallmark of the most productive economic system mankind has ever developed. The stark contrast between the starving millions on the one hand and the enormous potential for food production, on the other hand, emphasizes the need to end commodity production. We have developed social production, with global cooperation we can make use of the techniques for increasing food output. Socialism can make this possible: only Socialism can release our productive potential and make the begging bowl a museum curiosity. 

The Socialist Party's foremost task is to agitate and campaign around the cause of the working-class movement. Our vision is one of peace and social harmony. To teach the ideas of revolution, our classroom has to be the streets, the factories, and wherever there are injustice and oppression. They are few; we are many. Socialism will allow more personal freedom because it will permit individuals to develop their identities more fully in the absence of capitalist pressures. The social evils that infest and corrupt our life, and that men and women must uproot and eliminate before general happiness becomes possible is poverty, a life-long struggle to obtain food, shelter, and clothing.