The Road To The Future

Under a rational economic system, the resources and productive capacity of world industry would be capable of assuring abundance for all. If used for the benefit of the people this world’s resources is capable of feeding, clothing and housing billions. Too often socialism has unfortunately been presentedas a system not of abundance but of scarcity, as a system not of increased leisure and comfort, but of self-sacrifice and sweated toil. This is an era when for the first time in history, humankind can produce such abundance that society can be free of hunger, homelessness and backbreaking labour. The only thing standing in the way is this capitalist system of exploitation and injustice. Behind all the fog of confusion and official lies, the processes of capitalism grind inexorably on. They recognise no morality and the only issue they are interested in is a healthy balance sheet.

The Socialist Party holds a vision of a world of plenty. New technology provides better products with less labour. Society now has the capacity to devote the energies and talents of its people to satisfying the intellectual, emotional and cultural needs of all. The Socialist Party seeks a society organized for the benefit of all. A society built on cooperation and which can reorganize society so that the abundance is distributed according to need. Automation and robotics can be the foundation for a whole new world. Abundance, created by robotics and people working for the common good rather than the profit of the few, will forever end poverty, exploitation, oppression and war. 

Politicians are fond of depicting themselves as men who have capitalism firmly under control. They talk of capitalism as if it were a car, which needs only a touch on the brake or the accelerator to keep it humming smoothly along to prosperity. Capitalism cannot be controlled, no matter how refined and delicately calculated its politicians' policies may be. The system runs the politicians, not vice versa. More people in desperate need of a decent place to live, less houses being built, more building material being stockpiled. An inhuman muddle, but it does make sense in terms of the economics and the priorities of capitalism, whether it is capitalism under a Tory government or Labour. All capitalist political parties are basically the same and, when the occasion demands they have no difficulty in closing ranks with each other. They have little respect for what they profess as principles and for the meaning of the very words they use. All of them are after political power, and will do any sort of deal to get it.

Under capitalism wealth takes the form of capital. Wealth is used to produce more wealth not to satisfy human needs but to make profits. Most of these profits are re-invested and in this way capital accumulates. What forces the capitalist to re-invest his profits (rather than consume them all in riotous living) is competition. Each capitalist competes against other capitalists for a share of the market. This means he must run ever faster to stand still. He must use his profits to buy machinery that will cheapen his costs. This has certain technical effects: it leads to an increase in the size of productive units. This competition between capitalist enterprises is the motive for increasing productivity.

But competition has another result. It tends paradoxically to reduce the number of competitors. As the technical process becomes more complex and more costly, only large enterprises can survive. The weak and inefficient go under and their wealth passes into the hands of those who survive. Thus, industry becomes controlled by fewer and fewer enterprises.

This whole social process makes socialism a practical possibility. Ever-increasing productivity makes a society of abundance possible. Socialised methods of production make the private ownership of socially-produced wealth outdated—and worse, a fetter on production. As control of industry is centralised into fewer and fewer enterprises democratic social control becomes possible. Thus, does capitalism prepare the technical basis for socialism.

Although both Tories and Labourites praise competition and denounce monopoly they have long since ceased to tilt at the windmills on this point when in office. They accept—and even encourage —the concentration and the centralisation of control of industry.