While you and your neighbours may be worrying about how to
feed your families a decent meal, capitalists are always telling us that prosperity
is just around the corner for you while they themselves are busy raking in
profits at a terrific rate. We are told employment at an all-time high and the
stock exchange is at an all-time high. But our pockets are empty and we are
borrowing and increasing our debt just to get by. We know much better today
than ever before what the needs of mankind are. The religious preached feeding
the hungry and quenching the thirst of the thirsty, clothing the naked and so
forth. The means to fulfil these needs
for every human being are not only to hand now, but have been to hand for
years. Nevertheless, the poor are still with us, and very little is being done
to comfort them. It’s not because the food isn't or there are shortages of
houses. There is no longer any need for material scarcity whatever. This
reverses the basis of text-book economics — economics was always described as
the science of scarcity. The difficulty is a political-economical difficulty
and not any material difficulty.
Modern wars are part and parcel of the capitalist system.
The capitalist economic system must continually expand or suffer from trade
slumps and recessions. Each capitalist nation is continually driven to seek new
markets, new sources of raw materials and new areas for investment. The
capitalist needs to expand continually makes of each a competitor. It has come
to be regarded as a commonplace among socialists that war is inevitable under
capitalism; that the fundamental class antagonism through which capitalist
exploitation is carried on engenders a whole series of antagonisms, including
that competition for markets for the surplus product, which is the ever
fruitful and inevitable cause of rivalry and war under the capitalist regime.
There can be no end to war without an end to capitalism. Permanent
peace is only possible when planned production for use has taken the place of
competitive production for profits. Planned production for use on an
international scale means a world socialism. Today, the capitalist drive
towards war is assuming irresistible dimensions. The nature of capital
accumulation cannot be changed. There is only one way to prevent war and if it
breaks out to end it, namely, by the overthrow of capitalism, the real root from
which war springs. Around the globe, the World Socialist Movement has always
been fighting for peace between the peoples of other nations. Its energies have
been directed towards the elimination of the causes of war. The interests of
the working class are bound up with the maintenance of peace.
It is a never-ending class war between the owners of the means
to produce wealth, on the one side, and the owners of the labour-power, who can
only earn wages by enabling these owners to produce at a profit, on the other. If
one should ask, who will win the class war? We, the workers, will win! To help
prepare the conditions for that victory and to hasten its advent is the task of
our party. There are no short-cuts to the Social Revolution. The revolts of rage
and impatience only play into the hands of the ruling class, as all experience
has shown. Unorganised wage-earners cannot build the co-operative commonwealth.
State-ownership and control still leaves the wages system being maintained.
Production will not be socialised until the wage-earners themselves are
prepared to undertake administration and distribution, on communal lines, for
the benefit of the entire population. World socialism is the goal of humanity.
It is the only way to have peace and security. The yearning of the peoples of
the world for lasting peace on earth and good will among men can be fulfilled
only through a social system based on human needs.
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