The future is up to us

If humanity is to survive a totally new vision of the way society runs is required. At the root of many, if not all, of the social ills, is our socio-economic - capitalism. The raison d’être of the capitalists is to maximise market share and generate profits, irrespective of the harm to people or damage to the environment.  Capitalists actively work to curtail democracy and deny the establishment of a just economic system; they steer and direct government policy and consistently obstruct anti-business legislation.

Socialism is a shift of an unjust and unsustainable economic model to an equitable and egalitarian participatory way of living. Sharing and solidarity are at the heart of socialism. The Socialist Party is to bring about real change and alter social relationships and express positive democratic ideals, such as social justice, tolerance, and compassion. Sharing of resources, knowledge, skills, ideas that shape our lives is real meaningful participation.  The Socialist Party looks beyond nationalism and seeks a movement forming throughout the world.

Socialists are not overly obssessed solely with the standard of living of the working class and increased their share of income. Our opposition to capitalism strikes at the very root of the working class condition: the need to sell our ability to work to those who own and control the means of production and distribution. The only way to ensure that the interests of the working class are fulfilled is through the abolition of the working class itself. Indeed, the working class is a class whose interests are destined never to be fulfilled. This does not mean that it must give up the struggle to improve its conditions. That would be a disastrous course of action. What it does mean, however, is that in the struggle to improve its conditions, the working class will come up against the limitations of what can be achieved under capitalism. They will necessarily confront the conditions of their existence as a class. This leaves two courses of action open to the working class. First, it can work within the limitations of capitalism to obtain what it can. But the history of the working class shows that this is precious little, and there is no reason to believe that the future will hold anything different. Or it can take the second course of action: to confront the class limitations with the determination to break them down. To abolish the condition which creates and recreates the working class: the ownership of the means of production and distribution by the capitalist class.

A reformist accommodation to capitalism’s problems, disguised as an embattled militancy, not only puts off the time when capitalism will be replaced by socialism but also postpones the discussion of why only socialism is the solution to the problems confronting the working class. But the reformist argues that something has to be done now! If this or that problem can at least be ameliorated, then this is a worthwhile goal; they cannot wait for socialism to provide a solution. When challenged to give an example of a solution to a working-class problem, the reformists will be at a loss. They will even go so far as to agree with the socialist that capitalism has no solutions. But, they will retort, at least a reform will ensure that fewer people are suffering from this or that problem: something is better than nothing, isn’t it? There is a gaping hole in this argument. The justification for supporting reformist proposals is the comparison of the position before and after the reform. Before the reform, there are, say, 60,000 people living in stinking, rotten houses, whereas after the reform there are hoped to be a mere 40,000. How could the socialist deny support for the reform? Not to support it would condemn 20,000 more people to live in stinking, rotten houses than need be.

But socialists, in not supporting the reformist programme, are not advocating that nothing be done. Far from it. We are calling for the working class to unite to introduce socialism now. In comparison with living conditions possible in a socialist society, the reformist changes are a bloody disaster for the working class. The choice for the working class is not between "Reform or Nothing". It is "Reform or Revolution."