The only road is the socialist road

Capitalism is the system of production in which capital prevails. Capital essentially is the investment of money in the expectation of making a profit,  money that is invested in order to make more money. Capitalism is and was from the start, a global system but it has different institutional forms in different countries due to their specific historical and political circumstances. Marx did not believe that capitalism would end in some huge economic collapse. It would come to an end only when overthrown by the workers it exploited. It is the task of the Socialist Party to help create that consciousness rather than assume that socialism will come automatically.  As long as profit for the few is the basis of the economic system, that system – capitalism – will continue to go from crisis to crisis, with increasing misery for the people. The bosses have a small army of economists and experts on their payroll, but all their schemes just add up to more exploitation for us.  

What the Socialist Party seeks is primarily a society where people are socially equal, have an equal say in how things are run, and feel, and are, part of a genuine community with a common interest, where equality, democracy, and community exist, arguing that this can only happen on the basis of the common ownership by all of the means for producing wealth. Socialism involves constructing an egalitarian system based on the values of solidarity and co-operation. Such a system is not incompatible with human nature and that it can be brought about by conscious human action.  We in the Socialist Party are convinced that a real socialist society is practicable and will actually solve the problems of mankind 

Is it possible to modify and reform the present system by eliminating its bad features? That is what many reformers have been trying to do for many years without the slightest success. The future is full of uncertainties. The fact is that all of us are compelled to work for some employer in order to make a living. Why should that be? There isn't a single one of us who would not prefer to work for ourselves or with our friends provided, of course, we could make a decent living without working too many hours. Why is it necessary for us to go to a factory belonging to someone else and ask to be employed? It is because we have no machinery and no raw materials. The man to whom we apply for a job has all those, and that is why we are compelled to seek employment from him. He, on the other hand, needs us because we have something without which his machinery and raw material would be valueless: we possess have the brain and the muscle the capacity to work, or in other words, the labour power to set production into motion and to transform the raw material into finished products ready to be sold. the employer is interested in only one thing: profits. The sole reason why any owner of a factory hires workers and produces goods is that he can make a profit by selling the goods that he produces and as soon as he is unable to make a profit he closes the factory and the workers are dismissed. Since the capitalists are in business because they want to make a profit and not because they are charitable people, and since the lower the wages, the higher the profits, it is only natural for the employers to pay as low a wage as they can possibly get away with. Should anyone capitalist be so different as to pay high wages, he would soon find himself in bankruptcy because his business would be taken away by his competitors. The desire for profits plus the keen competition between the capitalists guarantees the lowest possible wage to the workers, as long as the workers do not starve to death and leave the capitalists without anyone to do the work for them.

Fortunately, the workers do not submit passively. If they did, their condition would be a thousand times worse than it is now. They organise themselves into unions so that they can sell the only thing they possess, their labour power, at a higher price and under better conditions than the capitalist is willing to give them of his own will. But history has shown that, although the standard of living of sections of the working class has tended to rise, it has not risen proportionately to the growth of industry. In spite of the unbelievably enormous increase in production the vast majority of the workers still lead an existence that is far from comfortable or secure. So long as the profit system exists, so long will the few people who own the means of production will cream off the profits for themselves and leave the working class in deprivation. 

 The means of production are already socialised in the sense that they can only be operated by social, co-operative labour. This has already been done by capitalism; what socialism will do is to end the class monopoly of these means, to establish social or common ownership as well.  When the means of production are socially owned, wealth will be produced purely and simply to satisfy human needs. Production for the market, or exchange, will disappear and along with this banks and other commercial and financial institutions. 

Socialism is the logical evolutionary successor of capitalism. Many say that there are different sort of socialists and different kinds of socialism. But the idea of socialism rests on one fundamental principle, the collective ownership and democratic administration of the social tools of production and distribution of wealth. A socialist is one who believes that the wage system is slavery; that competition is wasteful; that special privilege of any kind is unsocial. Socialists hold we have found a remedy in the common ownership of the means of production and distribution of wealth.