The
world today is a place of stark and bewildering contradictions.
Possessing the greatest industrial and agricultural resources in
history, it cannot feed, clothe and provide a decent livelihood for
millions. People toil relentlessly away just to barely to survive.
Poverty exists alongside opulence. This is an irrational and unjust
system. But life does not have to be this way.
The
Socialist Party strives for political and economic democracy
throughout the world. Our conclusion is abolish profits and take
production out of the hands of those who are governed only by
considerations of profit. What we mean is not taking over of a single
industry by nationalisation, but of expropriating from the ruling
class each and every factory, office and farm in every branch of
production. It means the wresting ownership and control from the
capitalist class and transferring the social wealth to the producers
of that wealth, the workers, replacing economic dictatorship with
economic democracy. The Socialist Party argues that all
reconciliations and palliatives are temporary, and that this is a
class struggle to be fought out to a finish. The system is to be
preserved or the system is destroyed. High wages and full employment
are desirable things but the amelioration of working conditions under
the capitalist system is limited by the necessities of capitalist
production. You have to accept the economic laws of capitalist
production, or abolish the system. The stock market gamblers may be
swilling down their champagne, but these exploiters will discover
that, for them, the party will soon be and the fruits of labour will
belong not to the few but to the entire human race.
Private
ownership of the means of production, exchange, communication, far
from being diluted by popular share ownership, is undergoing an
unprecedented concentration. There is no “trickle-down” effect.
Capitalism has failed miserably to provide the basic necessities of
life for hundreds of millions of workers around the world. .Older
workers are discarded like garbage when they no longer have value to
the boss-class. Only world-wide socialism offers people an
alternative to the misery of capitalism. We can eliminate
exploitation and capitalist injustice, by overturning the monopoly
capitalist system. We can replace capitalism with a rational and
humane system – socialism. Socialism is a social system where
social wealth is genuinely controlled by society and for the benefit
of society; where the common good, not profits, becomes the chief
concern; where the everyday working people become the rightful
masters of society. A radical solution is what it will take to end
the miseries of capitalism. The socialist revolution has become a
historical necessity and possibility. There is no other choice today
but for the working people to organise to struggle and, one day, win
socialism.
Today
we must look ahead to the future where socialism will be built on the
powerful productive potential now stifled by capitalism. Socialism
will qualitatively improve the lives of working people. Each person
is faced with the choice of either enduring the suffering of poverty,
war and environmental destruction or joining with others who are
dissatisfied and know that a better society is possible. Women and
men, young and old, and people of all nationalities must unite to
survive, to be able to work, eat and live as decent human beings. If
working people, and not the capitalists, controlled the resources of
our society, we could improve all our lives and guarantee a decent
standard of living for all.
These
are the hopes and aspirations of socialists, fundamentally changing
the social system. We cannot be distracted by cynical condemnations
that today's ills are because of “human nature” or just the “way
things are.” Capitalism, the social system under which we live, is
responsible.
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