This
society, based upon artificial scarcity, in which there exists the
capacity to produce for all has reached a point where we cannot be
expected to tolerate it any longer. According to the food experts,
there are 800,000,000 people between now and next harvest, who face
malnutrition or actual starvation. The food shortage will, as always,
hit the poorest the hardest. There are several reasons for this
critical scarcity of food, and varied as are these reasons they are
all the fault of the capitalist system, with its wars and its profit
motivation. For the uncontrolled floods that ruined the crops, for
the drought that blighted crops world capitalism must also be blamed,
if its science and technology served a system dedicated to human
needs and not to power and profits. Hungry people are the tribute we
pay for continuing the capitalist system, the price for allowing the
ascendancy of the power of money over the needs of man. What must be
done? Feeding profits to the capitalists is hardly the way to feed
people. Let working people send food to their sisters and brothers.
But not through the medium of the capitalist government and the
profiteers, while human lives hang in the balance. Let's organise
send food to the stricken abroad, on the basis of humanity according
to the plan and guidance of a socialist society. On this planet there
is not room for both the capitalist system and the solidarity of
mankind. Economic security under capitalism is impossible. One
or the other must go. Let us end the profit system.
Capitalism
has reaped fabulous profits yet the benefits have not accrued
to workers who have not gained in an era of prosperity on the
stock-markets of the world. Scarcity amid abundance is as striking a
fact. Employed workers have
fared little better than those on benefits. The process of lowering
the wages of workers has been an accomplishment for employers.
Strikes have either been prevented or, once under way, emasculated by
legal injunctions.
The
world we are living in is shaken by heavy convulsions from end to
end. There is the struggle of the people to make ends meet with
frozen wages and rising prices. There is the shortage of decent
homes, of doctors and hospitals, of teachers and schools. There is a
new crisis of capitalism. The gravity of the environmental crisis
afflicting all humanity is frightening many people and confirms how
deep the transformation humanity has to carry out. Socialists oppose
capitalism, period. We oppose capitalism with socialism. The
continued survival of capitalism is contingent solely on our
fellow-workers to permit it.
How
is a socialist movement to be built? The bloggers
at Socialist Courier
do
not pretend to have a formula but do believe that certain steps can
and should be taken. Although the defeatism of recent years must be
replaced by increased confidence there is no point in making
pronouncements of invincibility at a time when few see a real
possibility of victory. We need to stress the advantages that
socialists have today. The capitalist class and its governments are
having increasing difficulty coping with climate change and new
opposition is appearing to provide opportunities to win large numbers
to socialism. It is now clear to all, there is an awakening of
resistance.
Marx
formulated his theories not merely as a contribution to analysing the
capitalism of his day but they were intended to provide the evidence
for revolutionary replacement of the system. Marx was firmly
convinced that capitalism would inevitably lead to increasing
exploitation and relative impoverishment of the working class, that
economic crises of growing frequency and severity would disrupt the
reproduction cycle. By virtue of their economic status, workers would
undoubtedly acquire revolutionary consciousness until, with
circumstances revealing inexorably the obsolete and senseless face of
capitalism, they would rise in revolt. These conclusions were
premature but remain relevant for a long time to come. The capitalist
system spells deprivation and misery for wide sections of the
population, providing fertile soil for revolutionary ideas.
The
struggle between master and servant seems never to end. As long as
such excruciating social contradictions as those that are rending
capitalism asunder can be found all over the globe, as long as there
are such extremes between abundant wealth and the misery of millions,
all sorts of solutions are going to be put forth. The workers show
their best qualities in struggle, the bourgeoisie their worst.
Socialists are appealing to the democratic, egalitarian and
intelligent side of people, and not to the herd-like attitudes that
have been greatly encouraged by the media and educational systems.
Socialism may be possible, and even necessary to eliminate the evils
of capitalism, but it is not inevitable. the future will be what we
shall make it with greater participation, more activity, and more
militancy. The next stage in history is socialism. This is a
system which eliminates recessions, hunger and wars because it
operates in a different way than capitalism. It operates them
directly for the benefit of the people. It produces for use and not
for profit. To be real socialists we should understand why capitalism
is dying, and why socialism will inevitably be born.
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