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Saturday, April 13, 2019

Is there a future?


When the Socialist Party points to the continual struggle between employers and workers, and to the accompanying strife and ill-will as evils which are inseparable from a social system in which property is owned by one class and wealth is produced by another, we are often met with the answer that the discord, the strikes and lock-outs, are the result not of the economic organisation, but of the defects of the human beings concerned. Capitalism is systemically and inherently hard-wired not just to exploit labour power and to concentrate wealth and power in ever fewer hands, but also to push a livable planet passed its existential tipping points.

We cannot understand the mental acrobatics of so-called socialists who propose to take office in order to continue capitalism. Not being a class party, the Labour Party cannot obviously be a working class Party. Such an accommodating party can, therefore, find it easy to secure “rich friends” and finances from the only other section of society, apart from the working class—the capitalists. What Labourites, in woeful ignorance, or wilful deceit, calls bits of socialism, are merely state-owned or government controlled departments of capitalism. These the capitalists prefer not to own for their own convenience. 

Socialism means common ownership and democratic control of the means of life by the whole of the people. Such cannot be brought about in bits and pieces by any party or government; it can only be established as a system of society, when there are a greater number seeking socialism than there are opposed or apathetic to it. The Labour Party shows that they are prepared to take office with non-socialist support. The Labour Party must, therefore, if elected without the endorsement for socialist reconstruction, must carry on the present system. Be their intentions the most honest, they are powerless to avert or remove the evil the present system begets, notwithstanding the remedies they propose if elected. When our fellow-workers, through education, become socialist in outlook, they will elect and control socialist delegates. They will cease to be followers and will be leader-free.

We can change it all if we want it all, and surely we do seek everything for everybody. Without bold and focused action, our future is in critical danger. If there is no future for a mass worldwide socialist movement then there can be little chance for humanity in the future. We either transcend the capitalist system by constructing a new society or we face the common ruin of all. Failure to establish the alternative to the profits system will bring what Arundhati Roy has called “the endgame of humanity.” It’s “socialism or barbarism...if we’re lucky” (Ivan Meszaros).

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called capitalism "irredeemable."
"Capitalism is an ideology of capital — the most important thing is the concentration of capital and to seek and maximize profit," she explained, during an interview. "To me, capitalism is irredeemable," she added.

The irony here is that AOC isn’t really a socialist. She is a progressive neo-New Dealer who calls for the reform of capitalism, not its abolition.


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