Socialism
means a world without classes, without the exploitation master of
wage-slave, without a production system operating for the purpose of
producing profits for a few.
By eliminating private ownership of the means of producing the things of life socialism could end poverty, unemployment and war. The Socialist Party exposes the evils of capitalist society, its murderous exploitation of the workers, its utter hypocrisy, and the impoverishment of the masses and the enrichment of a small class of capitalists. Hired intellectuals of big business, professors and economists of every variety try to explain why capitalism is such a wonderful society and socialism an unattainable utopia. As the capitalist world system heads towards a terrible climate crisis the socialist goal of a new society. The Socialist Party aim for the overthrow of capitalism, and the building up of the socialist co-operative commonwealth.
Present
society is capitalist where the world is divided up into two opposing
camps, the camp of a small handful of capitalists and the camp of the
majority—the workers. The working class toil day and night,
nevertheless they remain poor. The capitalists need not work,
nevertheless they are rich. This is not because workers are
unintelligent and the capitalists are geniuses, but because the
capitalists appropriate the fruits of the labour of their employees,
because the capitalists exploit the labour-power of their workers.
The capitalist system is based on commodity production: here
everything assumes the form of a commodity, everywhere the principle
of buying and selling prevails. Here you can buy not only articles of
consumption, not only food products, but also the labour power of
men, their brains and their muscles and often their consciences. The
capitalists know all this and purchase the labour power of workers,
they hire them. This means that the capitalists become the owners of
the labour power they buy. Workers, however, lose their right to the
labour power which they have sold. That is to say, what is produced
by that labour power no longer belongs to them, it belongs only to
the capitalists and goes into their pockets. The labour power which
you have sold may produce in the course of a day goods to the value
of 100 pounds, but that is not your business, those goods do not
belong to you, it is the business only of the capitalists, and the
goods belong to them—all that you are due to receive is your daily
wage which, perhaps, may be sufficient to satisfy your essential
needs if, of course, you live frugally. Briefly, to sum up the
capitalists buy the labour power of the proletarians, they hire the
proletarians, and this is precisely why the capitalists appropriate
the fruits of the labour of the proletarians, this is precisely why
the capitalists exploit the proletarians and not vice versa.
The
capitalist system is based on the private ownership of the
instruments and means of production. Because the factories, mills,
the land and minerals, the forests, the transport and communications,
machines and other means of technology is the private property of a
small handful of capitalists. Because the proletarians lack all this,
it is why the capitalists can employ the proprtyless and the
dispossessed to keep the factories and mills running—if they did
not do that all their means of production would yield no profit. That
is why the working people sell their labour power to the
capitalists—if they did not, they would suffer deprivation and
misery. Such is the basis of present-day capitalist society. Future
society will be built on an entirely different foundations. The
future will be socialist where there will
be no classes, neither master or slave and, consequently, there will
be no exploitation. In such a society people engaged collectively in
the tasks of providing for the community. This means also that, with
the abolition of exploitative commodity production, buying and
selling will disappear and, there will be no more buyers and sellers
of labour power and the end of wage-labour. There will be only free
producers. It will be accompanied by the complete abolition of the
private ownership of the instruments and means of production and the
creation of common ownership of the wealth and resources of society.
The
main purpose of production in socialism will be to satisfy the needs
of society and not to produce goods for sale in order to increase the
profits of the capitalists. There will be no place for commodity
production, struggle for profits, etc. Production will be
socialistically organised and take into account the needs of society
and will produce as much as society needs. There will be no room
whether for socially wasteful production, competition, economic
crises, or unemployment. Where there are no classes, where there are
neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is no need
either for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the
rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for
the existence of political power.
If
everybody receives according to his needs, we assume that the level
of the productive forces of socialist society will be adequate for
this. We presuppose an adequate
development of productive forces and socialist consciousness among
men and women, their socialist enlightenment. At the present time the
development of productive forces is hindered by the existence of
capitalist property relations, but if we bear in mind that this
capitalist property will not exist in future society, it is
self-evident that the productive forces will increase tenfold. Nor
must it be forgotten that in future society the hundreds of socially
unnecessary jobs, and also the unemployed, will work constructively
and augment the ranks of the working people; and this will greatly
stimulate the development of the productive forces. As regards
human-nature's "savage" sentiments and opinions, these are
not as eternal as some people imagine; there was a time, under
primitive communism, when mankind did not recognise private property;
there came a time, the time of individualistic production, when
private property dominated the hearts and minds of humanity; a new
time is coming, the time of socialist production—will it be
surprising if the hearts and minds of men and women become imbued
with socialist strivings.
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