Imagine for yourself socialism

The Socialist Party is to popularise socialist ideas. Those who want to change the world can’t shape their ideas according to the conventional wisdom about what the public will accept. The Socialist Party challenges the status quo.  For too long, politicians have used the alleged backwardness of the voters to justify their own moderation and gradualism. Unlike other political parties, the Socialist Party does not claim to be able to control interest rates or rents or house prices or council tax. We make no promises on housing or on any other issue because we know that within the framework of private property society there is no solution to the problem. It would be dishonest and foolish of us to pretend otherwise. It is easy to make promises, as the other parties do, but to honour them is another matter. Governments, national and local, do not have the control over capitalist economics that they like to think they have. The wages-system must end. The division of mankind into class compartments must end. There is to-day no relation between the people's needs and what the people are capable of producing; markets and profits stand like mountains, in the way. Markets and profits must end. In other words, capitalism must end if humanity is to survive.

Housing certainly is neglected. But is this really a housing problem? Surely, as far as the production of decent houses for everybody is concerned there is no problem. The building materials exist together with the architects and construction workers. What stands in the way, then? Why, in a world of potential plenty, is a basic human need like shelter so neglected? The answer is simple: most people cannot afford decent housing. And. if people can't afford comfortable houses, then, in accordance with the laws of the market no such accommodation will he built for them. No builder is going to put up houses he can't sell. Instead perhaps the government may step in to provide cheap, utility housing. This problem of how to meet an unprofitable basic need in a society based on profit is one which the other parties have grappled with for decades. Yet still the problem remains. And so do the promises. Our standard of housing, like the whole of our standard of living, is rationed by the size of our wage packet. Our wage is a price and, as such, is fixed by the workings of the market. The price is fixed, roughly, by what it costs to keep us in efficient working order. So we’re in a vicious circle: our standard of housing depends on our income and our income depends on what it costs to keep us alive. This is why in housing, as in everything else, we get only the minimum comforts. This is how it will be, and must be, as long as the means of production are the property of a few for whom the rest of us must work for a wage. A sanely organised human community would give priority to meeting its needs of food, clothing and shelter. If production were carried on solely and directly to meet people's wants then there could be no problem in housing. But production for use is only possible when society controls production. Which demands that the means for producing wealth belong to the whole community. No better definition of socialism can be given in general terms than that it aims at the organisation of the material economic forces of society, and their conscious control by human forces.

Capitalism is a vicious, dirty society which makes human beings act in vicious, dirty ways. Trump claims to represent the opinions of the average worker in America and in the sense that he calls to mind much that is ugly, frightened, bigoted and confused he may be right. Workers feel that way, and take refuge in extreme political ideas, because capitalism is a society of fear, without security; it is a divisive system. The organised workers must take united action. It is not a sectional question. The whole of the workers is involved, and if they remain divided, they will be attacked and beaten, by the employers.

The profound difficulty with socialism is that it cannot be demonstrated. It is a complete system of human society to which a new principle is to be applied. Many enthusiasts with an insufficient knowledge of their subject have endeavoured to found little communities, run as they thought on socialist lines. All have failed, for socialism can only be applied to a highly organised community, and on a large inclusive scale. It is a complete change in the basis of society. It is therefore impossible to show examples of a complete and fundamental change. Socialism and capitalism are mutually exclusive, although, curiously enough, each deals with the same things. Trains would still run, factories still work, power stations still function, the soil still be tilled, under socialism as under capitalism. The great difference would be ownership, and therefore control. Instead of being operated by the whole people, for the private benefit of private owners, they would still be operated by the whole people, but for the public benefit of the communal people. Private owners only employ just so many as they can profitably make use of. Private owners only allow their plant to produce wealth when a profit is to be made. In short, private owners of the means of wealth-making only allow their machine to run for private ends. But with social ownership the outlook is entirely changed. There would be no idlers of any sort, rich or poor, for it would be to the interest of everyone that there should be abundance of everything. There would be no slack times and semi-starvation because too much wealth had been produced, as at present. If, under socialism, too much wealth was to be produced, it would be, first, the signal for a real holiday, and, second, for an enquiry into why the Statistical Department had not properly adjusted supply to public needs. There would be no shoddy clothing, jerry-built houses and adulterated food. The market for trash would go the way of all markets. It would follow poverty and ignorance into the limbo of forgotten capitalism.

But if the workers are waiting to be shown a working model of the proposed new system they are waiting for the impossible. A picture of society under socialism can only be constructed by the imagination aided by an analysis of our present condition and a knowledge of human history. Clever men and women have performed both of these latter tasks, and references to them and their works are frequently given in our columns. Imagination they cannot give you, but they can stimulate it.

If after reading our literature that you decide that socialism is desirable and practicable, do not sit back and wait for something to happen, but do the only logical thing—join our organisation and help get it. What have you to lose? Nothing but your chains. To win? The whole world! You have a world to win. A world to win.