Radical Socialism

The working class battle against the capitalists. The capitalist class has never stopped–and will never stop–its efforts to destroy and weaken the workers' movement. We are living under a system which is more and more clearly revealed as the enemy of humanity. It has vast productive potential, but only means poverty and oppression. It brings hunger and war to the working people. It imposes draconian austerity cuts in living standards on the already poor, simply in the interest of still greater profits for the capitalist class. Capitalism is responsible for the thoughtless destruction of the environment. The profit motive is incompatible with safeguarding the world’s resources. So long as it is profitable, environmental destruction is perfectly ’logical’ under capitalism. Humanity’s problem is not limited resources but the waste of resources which is an essential part of the process of capital accumulation. Socialism will provide the opportunity for a society planned for the majority rather than for profit to be able to flourish, a society in tune with land and nature.

Its armaments industry monopolises and directs most of the world’s research and cynically profits from a series of local wars of unparallelled destructiveness. The root cause of all this is capitalism’s guiding principle, the quest for profit, which takes precedence over any human interest. Capitalism undermines the future of humanity. Capitalism brings nothing but misery and exploitation. From the standpoint of the vast majority of the world’s people it is already an obsolete system, and the productive forces and technology it has created will have to be turned to the benefit of humanity as a whole under a new social system. Capitalism cannot be reformed. It has undergone many changes in its history, but these have simply meant finding new ways to exploit the labouring people. The only solution is to destroy it and build a new social system. If the workers are dissatisfied with capitalism but have no faith in themselves or their class and if they seek to be led by saviours they offer themselves up to be puppets of ambitious politicians.

When workers study conditions and get a true understanding of the essential points, they can neither be chloroformed into inactivity nor carried away by half-baked theories. They do their own thinking instead of trusting to politicians or would-be leaders to do it for them. The science of economics gives the key to the understanding of conditions. Economics is the science which has to do with satisfying the material needs of man-with the production and distribution of wealth. Wealth is any form of natural resources adapted by labour to suit the needs of man. All wealth is produced by labour, but it is taken by the capitalists, who give the workers in the form of wages just enough to keep them in working condition and to reproduce their kind. The capitalists own the natural resources and machinery of production. Two percent of the population-the big capitalists-own sixty per cent of the wealth, while sixty-five per cent-the workers-own only five per cent. The capitalists live in luxury and extravagance never before heard of in the history of the world. They control government and all institutions of society by means of their wealth; they get their wealth by means of controlling the job, the source of all wealth; and they control the job because they are organised. Being comparatively few in numbers, it was easier for them to organise than for workers. Consequently they have organised first, and, as long as the workers remain unorganised, there is none able to dispute their power. By controlling industry, they control the means of producing all the necessaries of life-all that satisfies the material needs of man. Their power is economic. In their hands they hold the meal ticket of the world. Economic power is the basis of political, military, and all other forms of social power. As long as the capitalists retain control of industry, nothing can break their power. Governments bow to them, courts hasten to do their bidding, politicians grovel at their feet, media distort facts in their interest. While the capitalists indulge in luxury and in extravagance, the workers are condemned to lives of poverty, ignorance, toil and privation. They lack economic security. Poverty and the fear of poverty render their lives miserable. The average worker is not more than a few weeks removed from a state of dependency. If he should become sick or injured, he would soon become a burden to friends or relatives or to public charity. Thousands are killed annually in the industries. Hundreds of thousands die from occupational diseases. Millions of children are deprived of education and are stunted and dwarfed physically and mentally by slavery in factories and mills. Other millions go hungry to school and suffer from countless diseases brought on by malnutrition. Having no standing before the law, workers are hounded by the police, victimised by the courts and subjected to all kinds of abuse, injustice and tyranny.

It is useless to trim the branches or cut them off, for as long as the root is functioning, new branches will grow. The only way to abolish capitalism is to strike at the root, and thus kill the tree by cutting off the sources of its nourishment. This is radical action and it is the only radical action. The word "radical" is derived from the Latin word "radix," a root. It means "pertaining to a root." Radical action means action that deals with causes instead of tinkering with effects. The workers have a power infinitely greater than that of the capitalists. That is their power to produce wealth-to run industry-to carry on production. They can do this without capitalists, while without workers, capitalists are helpless. But the power of the workers is unorganised and therefore ineffective.