The Simple Things in Life

The term “socialism” has a distinct meaning. It means a future system of society characterised by the fact that capitalism, with its markets, commodities, values, prices, exchange, surplus value, capital, money, competition, etc., is no more. Instead, there is a conscious, planned society where production is for use on such an enormous scale that there will be plenty for all. The State will have withered away, together with religion, recognised as the opium of the people. Socialism is the only way to solve the problems of the people and end the class divisions in society.

Capitalism means either the excruciating suffering or even the threat of total annihilation. Only a small section of the population controls production and it is not answerable to the rest of the community This section is competing within its own ranks and with similar classes abroad. This small capitalist class can hang on to power only because they control the State machine, by the means of mass “persuasion.”

People all over the world want simple things:

We want peace, instead of bloodshed and violence and destruction.

We want democracy and freedom, instead of racial and religious and national conflict.

We want security, instead of insecurity, the terrible business of not knowing today whether or not we will have food on the table or not.

We want to be sure that we will be able to raise our families in decent homes and send our children to good schools.

We want comfort and prosperity, instead of low living standards and unemployment.

These are the simple things which you and all the people everywhere long for, the simple things we have always wanted for ourselves and our children.

But we don’t have them.

We have enormous manufacturing facilities all over the land. We have undreamed of natural resources. We have millions of trained and skilled people. We can produce in one day what once took years to produce.

Yet we do not have prosperity.

It is the capitalist system that stands in the way. Under that system, a handful of capitalist oligarchs control all the wealth and power in the world. This handful owns industry, banking, mining, transportation. It owns our jobs. Whoever owns all these things, controls our lives, the lives of you and me and billions of others. 

Capitalism has completely failed us. Has capitalism provided comfortable housing for all of us to live in? Healthy and wholesome food for us to eat? Decent education for our children? Expert medical facilities? No, none of these things, or at least not to the best of its abilities. Instead, scientific resources are poured into industries that produce the most terrifying means of destroying life, destroying whole peoples and nations; bullets, bombs, tanks, war-planes, battleships, artillery and, finally, capitalism's proudest achievement, its dreaded nuclear arsenal. 

Why couldn’t all these factories be used to produce the good things of life? Capitalism works very well indeed to wage war, to kill and maim, to destroy and devastate. Capitalist efficiency is at its best when it is doing its worst. But it is no good for peace, security and prosperity of the people. That’s the best that capitalism offers you. That’s how practical and realistic capitalism is. Is that what YOU want? That is what capitalism offers you. 

But we of the Socialist Party believe there is an alternative. The alternative to capitalism is socialism. We can have security, peace and freedom. We can take over the industries built by us – by us and nobody else. We want to take over the wealth produced by us – by us and nobody else. We can run industry to produce for peace, not for war. To produce for us, for the needs and comforts of the people, and not for the swollen profits of the capitalist class Without capitalism and capitalist profit, we can put an end to misery and suffering. Our wonderful technology has produced for the terror of war production. We can make it perform to provide plenty for all, homes fit to live in, comforts and prosperity, self-respect and human dignity. Those are the things we all want. They are the things socialism stands for. They are the things that the Socialist Party stands for. We claim for socialism that it is the next summit which has to be attained in mankind’s progress onward and upward. This summit hides from our view all that may lie beyond.