Socialism for Survival

The problems that make living so difficult today -- problems of poverty, slums, unemployment, crime, either droughts or floods, CO2 emissions, air and water pollution and many more -- have been with us for a long time, a very long time. These problems exist in varying degrees in every nation. Every politician who has run for office has promised to do something to alleviate or eliminate these evils. Despite these promises, and despite the reform efforts these problems have defied solution. We all know this is so. Whatever the problem is, it is worse now than it was. And if we keep electing politicians to office on the basis of their promises, it will get even worse in the years still to come. Surely, at one time or another, you have asked yourself why are things rapidly going from bad to worse, in spite of all the so-called expert counsel.

The reason is simply that the politicians at all levels of government persist in dealing with effects and ignoring the cause. The cause must be something that exists everywhere. After all, the politicians who hold office in our government do not administer the affairs of the other nation. Yet they share the same problems we have. The basic cause of our problems is the capitalist system under which we live. Capitalism today is an outmoded decadent social system. It has been so for a long time, and history fully justifies this conclusion. Consequently, the solution to our problems is not to be found in men, but in a whole new concept of society - a society for which the material basis exists right now. Technological development clearly dictates the course that must be taken. Modern industry is thoroughly socialised in its organisation and operation. It has outgrown private ownership of industry and production for sale and the profit of the owning few. We are now at a point where we can produce an abundance for everyone. By establishing a new society we can prevent worsening crises and ultimate catastrophe toward which our present society is taking us. What we are saying is that we can and must establish a socialist society.

When private and State ownership have been eliminated, there will be no way for social parasites, capitalistic or bureaucratic, to exist. In the nature of things, it will be impossible for any individual or group to acquire economic power and use it to exploit or suppress another human being. Nor will those elected to the socialist administrative bodies possess, or be able to acquire, economic power. There will be no material basis on which a bureaucracy could establish and perpetuate itself. No one will be able to hand out offices or appoint lackeys. All who will serve in the administration, in whatever capacity, will be elected by the rank and file and subject at all times to re-call and popular control. In short, we, the workers, shall be in complete control of the source of all power, the economic resources of the land. We have all the material requirements for producing an abundance. It is common knowledge that we have developed the most productive machine in the world's history. In Socialist society there can be no poverty or involuntary unemployment. The more producers, the better for all.

Technological improvements (automation, for example) will be a further blessing. The greater the number of workers, the better the tools, the more modern the methods, the greater and more varied will be the wealth we can produce; and the shorter the hours each of us will have to work. So great is our capacity to produce abundance that we can easily insure that our youth will be educated, the aged provided for, and the sick and disable given the finest care possible. All this will be done without depriving anyone of a more than adequate share. It will not be charity but the rightful share of every human being in the affluent socialist society. In the socialist climate of abundance and cooperation, we shall achieve the highest standards of mental health and physical well-being. We shall enjoy great material well-being individually and collectively, but it will not be at any one else's expense. We shall be secure, healthy, happy human beings living in peace, harmony and freedom, in marked contrast to the capitalist jungle of strife, misery and insecurity in which we live today.

Mankind's survival is being threatened from a number of directions. There is the dread of a pending possibility of the climate crisis, a potential nuclear show-down and a sharpening conflict of commercial interests in a trade war. There is the peril of a Doomsday.

Unite politically to vote down capitalist ownership of industry. Unite industrially to take social possession of economy. In socialist society, the citizens will have a voice and vote where they work and will thereby retain constant control over those they choose to plan and manage the nation's economic activities. Workers of the world, use your vote to abolish capitalism and establish socialism.