Even though science and technology have made great advances, bringing new marvels the outcome is the threat of mass unemployment, environmental destruction and the ever-present menace of war. Science and technology have no power independent of the social groups who invented them, apply them, and bend them to their interests as they see them. The key problem is to subject science and technology to conscious social control in the democratically established interests of the great majority of human beings. To free them from submission to special interests, which abuse them regardless of the long-term interests of the human race. For that purpose, the organisation and structure of society itself must be subjected to democratically determined, conscious control.
The mass media broadcast news reports of famine and war around the globe, presenting the idea that there is nothing to be done about it, that the present social system is the only one possible, and what Marx called "a free association of producers" - socialism - is incompatible with human nature.
The threat to the environment, a direct result of capitalism's uncontrolled expansion, can be answered only by the collective action of humanity as a whole. The activists in the Green movement has done important work in drawing attention to environmental issues yet many avoid the conclusion of often their own logic, how we change the system an change it into what. The real choice today is not "socialism or barbarism", but more ominous "socialism or extinction of humanity."
New technology is not the enemy, but its perversion by the power of capitalists. Class society implies the systematic manipulation of "public opinion" as an instrument of class rule. The specific interests of the ruling class must be made to appear as the general interest. Capitalism abandons the satisfaction of the material needs of mankind. The fear of unemployment from automation among those who have jobs has weakened the working class and facilitated the worldwide capitalist offensive aimed at increasing the rate of profit through pushing down real wages and cutting social and infrastructural costs. The unions have capitulated before this capitalist offensive, and have accepted austerity policies, no matter how reluctant they have been in doing so. This has disoriented the working class and, made it more difficult for workers to undertake defensive struggles. Increasingly we see workers circumventing the need for action through the unions. This has contributed to the failure of the overall socialist objective, the absence of a conviction of the overthrow of capitalism and the advent of a class-free society without exploitation, oppression, and injustice. We have to face the reality that this is indeed a crisis of the credibility of socialism which must be overcome. The principal task of the Socialist Party is to restore the credibility of socialism in the consciousness of millions of men and women
We have to reiterate that socialism is:
- no more classes or state, so no more private property.
- no opposition between town and country, humanity is spread harmoniously over the earth's surface.
- disappearance of the division between manual and intellectual labour, a reflection of the class struggle. Social man uses the productive machine to create a social product.
- dissolution of the opposition between private and public life. Social man has nothing to do with politics, since there are no men to be governed. There is the administration of things.
We must restate that socialism will:
feed the hungry;
clothe the naked;
house the homeless;
provide proper medical care;
offer a dignified decent life to everyone.
Consequently, there are no further antagonisms between social man (a human being) and the species. Humanity has rediscovered its organic unity; no more dualism between leaders and masses. What socialism is all about in the last analysis is for the greatest possible number to decide their own fate in all key sectors of life. Socialism is a society in which these masses decide their own fate in a free way with democratically organised self-activity. None of this is dogmatic or utopian.
Until a socialist revolution is successful, the most important result of any struggle is the building of working-class self-confidence and organisation. Workers have no confidence whatsoever in the current political parties, left or right.
Means inevitably condition the ends and if we are aiming for a society guided by the working class, only self-emancipatory means would be effective in leading to it. Socialism simply put is post-capitalism, an economy that disallows private property of the means of production and has no social divisions.
The task of the Socialist Party is socialist education and propaganda. Humankind cannot be saved without substituting for this present society a fundamentally different society. You can call it anything you want to, the label makes no difference, but its contents have to be specified, the contents of socialism as it will be accepted by the masses. After the disastrous experiences of the Labour Party and Soviet state capitalism, the image of socialism can only be one of radical emancipation and defence of the environment. Socialism will be accepted only if it is considered emancipatory on a world scale without exception, reunifying socialism with freedom. Whoever commits crimes against human rights under whatever pretext in whatever country should be condemned by socialists. That is the precondition to restoring confidence among the people in the socialist movement. Once that confidence is restored we gain the moral high-ground. We make no predictions about the future. There is no better way to be a decent person in this world than to dedicate your life to the great cause, defending the exploited, the oppressed, the downtrodden, and the despised.
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