Monday, May 06, 2019

Onwards to World Socialism

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.

For economic security and permanent peace – World Socialism.


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