Imagine a better future

There is great confusion in the world today over the question of what is socialism. When we read the books of the professors on the subject of socialism we are astonished to find how little the so-called experts understand. Our aim is to try to clear some of this up.

A planned socialist economy on a worldwide scale will put an end to environmental destruction and waste of productive resources. Socialism will also remove the enormous duplication of effort - the manufacture of numerous but essentially alike products on the supermarket shelves and in the showrooms. It will put an end to the massive advertising and production of superfluous luxuries for the rich and shoddy goods for the poor. The quality and productivity of labour will greatly increase because the producers will – for the first time – have a direct vested interest in production and be healthier and vastly better educated. socialism will bring about a phenomenal development of the productive forces which will rapidly eclipse all that has been achieved in this sphere in the whole of past history. It is this economic advance which will lay the material basis for a completely class-free society of abundance. Socialism will make it possible to provide sufficient food, decent shelter adequate education and efficient healthcare– the necessities of life – for everyone on the face of the planet. Never again will any person die of malnutrition or of easily preventable disease. This alone would be more than enough to justify socialism. Socialism will offer free distribution according to need and plenty for all. Socialism will unleash the productive forces hitherto constrained and confined by capitalism. Money can be dispensed with altogether. There is nothing unrealistic about it.

We are living in rapidly changing, dangerous times. From the right and from the left, the people are becoming more disgusted with and distrustful of the government. All the elements of a social upheaval are in place. The people are responding to, but do not yet understand the root of the problems they engulfs them. No reform is possible. There is no “golden age” to go back to. Every step the ruling class takes only makes the situation worse. The ruler’s aim is to guarantee that our class does not unite. They use every divisive ideology history has handed them. At the same time, the breadth of inequality and poverty is creating the basis for real class unity. Experiencing increasing misery and mounting despair and the refusal of the politicians to redress their grievances, workers are losing their faith in the government and beginning to distance themselves from the political process. Simply fighting back is no longer enough, and the workers are beginning to advocate policies in their interests. Race is a political not a scientific concept. Identity politics is being used in a manner that suits the political needs of the ruling class.

Working people cannot give up resistance and stay at home. They need jobs, housing, food, healthcare and many other basic necessities of life. Socialism is the people's movement to transfer capitalist property to themselves in order to feed, clothe, house and care for themselves. Fighting back means putting forward a vision of what is possible today. The Socialist Party fights for a cooperative commonwealth that is possible. We attack the system of private property. We point out the necessity of overthrowing private property and transferring these gigantic means of production into common property. The attack against private property cannot succeed without vision. The goal of all of our work today is to give people a vision of what is possible. It is a vision of a world where no one has to compete with another for the daily bread of existence. It is a vision where cooperation and fulfilling the needs of humanity are the guiding principles. It is a vision that satisfies the deepest yearnings of the people for peace and prosperity. The first step is that the American people have to be won over to the reality that private property can be brought to an end.

The workers do not understand they are slaves. The first thing in liberating the slaves is to make them understand wage-slavery. Proposing socialism is the practical solution to the problems the workers face. Socialism is the common ownership of the socially necessary means of production and the distribution of the social product according to need. It an expression of the deepest strivings of the people: independence from the chains of exploitation, the guaranteed ability of every person to contribute to society, freedom from want and an expectation of a better life. Workers have fought for this vision, but have not achieved. Conditions have changed and workers are coming more and more to understand they have to end slavery. It is only through widespread education and persuasion that we can get this vision over. We must bring the message that capitalism can be brought to an end. We must show a cooperative commonwealth is not only possible, but is the only rational solution to the problems they face. What we do today is the basis for what happens tomorrow.

“I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” - abolitionist Harriet Tubman