SOCIALISM
MEANS common ownership by all the people of the factories, mills,
mines, railroads, land and all the other instruments of
wealth-production. Socialism means production of things to satisfy
human needs, and not, as under capitalism, for sale and profit.
Socialism means free access to and democratic management of the
industries by the workers.
FOR YOU, as an individual, socialism means
a full, happy and useful life. It means the opportunity to develop
all your faculties and latent talents. It means that, instead of
being a mere wage-slave bought and sold in the labour market, an
appendage to a machine, an automaton, a producer of wealth for the
ruling class, you will take your place as a human being in a free
society of human beings. As a wage worker, under capitalism your
price is determined by what your labour power, as a commodity, will
bring in the market. By and large, taking into account the ebb and
flow of the labour market, you receive a living wage -- the minimum
amount necessary to feed, clothe and house you and your family. What
you produce over and above your wages is appropriated by your
employer who divides it with the banker, landlord, politician and
sundry capitalist hangers-on.
YOUR
JOB under socialism will not be dependent on the caprices either of a
private employer or the capitalist market. When things are produced
to satisfy human needs, instead of primarily for sale and profit,
involuntary idleness will be an impossibility. The "demand,"
instead of being limited to what people can buy, will be limited only
to what people can use. Nor will technological unemployment be
possible under socialism. Improved technology, especially automation,
has greatly increased the productivity of workers. And while, under
capitalism, the workers are denied the fruits of technology, under
socialism it will insure material well-being for all beyond the
dreams of avarice. Taking all the factors into consideration, the
elimination of waste, of capitalist parasitism, and the removal of
all restrictions to improved techniques, it is safe to say that,
under socialism.
YOUR
HOURS of work under socialism will be the minimum necessary to
fulfil society's needs. Work is not the end and aim of man's
existence; it is the means to an end. We do not live to work; we work
to live. Socialism will, therefore, strive in every way to lighten
the labour of man and give him the leisure to develop his faculties
and live a happy, healthful, useful life. It is estimated that, with
the facilities we now have, by the elimination of capitalist waste
and duplication, and by opening jobs at useful work to all who are
now deprived of them, we could produce an abundance for all by
working four hours a day, four days a week, and forty weeks a year.
These are a few of the direct and elementary benefits that you
will derive from Socialism. To them may be added a multitude of
benefits. Patchwork palliative
measures generally are schemes to keep you mentally imprisoned in the
vicious circle of capitalist thought. Break this thralldom of the
mind! Instead of illusory "welfare and social security"
under capitalism, proclaim as your goal the goal of the working
class: Socialism
YOU
ARE NEEDED to help bring to fulfilment the promise of abundance and
human happiness that this age offers. You are needed to help avert
capitalist tragedy -- of mass wars and an even more catastrophic
climate change.
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