What is needed is socialism

Socialism from ‘above’ always appeals to those who seek a system of domination, hierarchy and exploitation. The “practical” person sneers at socialism as visionary, unattainable, and without any immediate social value, judging the world from the limited horizon which they afford, they fails to perceive that socialism is the only vital economic, political and moral force of modern times. Socialism is practical, in the best sense of the term; a living, vital force of inestimable value to society.

The Socialist Party stands for the self-emancipation of the working class. Thus we are open about our goals with our fellow workers. Socialist society will be state-free. With private property in industry and land abolished (but, of course, not in articles of personal use), with exploitation of the toilers ended, and with the capitalist class finally defeated and all classes liquidated, there will then be no further need for the State, which in its essence, is an organ of class repression. The guiding principle will be: “From each according to ability, to each according to needs.” That is, the distribution of life necessities—food, shelter, education, etc.—will be free, without let or hindrance. Socialist production, carried out upon the most efficient basis and freed from the drains of capitalist exploiters, will provide such an abundance of necessary commodities that there will be plenty for all with a minimum of effort. There will then be no need for penny-pinching measuring and weighing. Mutuaol aid and solidarity will be quite sufficient to prevent possible idlers from taking advantage of this free regime of distribution by either refusing to work or by anti-social waste. Socialism will bring the greatest advance in culture and general well-being of the masses in the history of the human race. Culture, emancipated from class ends, will pass to new and higher levels. Socialism is the guarantee of a new life for the needy and exploited of the earth.

Under capitalism, the capitalists own the means of production. Workers are forced to sell their labor power and the capitalist exploits and oppresses them. With socialism, the main means of production are owned by the community. Thus, the distribution of products and the social surplus created by the producders is in their hands. Socialism properly implies above all things the co-operative control by the workers of the machinery of production. Public ownership by the State is not socialism – it is only state capitalism. We repeat, state ownership and control is not necessarily Socialism – if it were, then the Army, the Navy, the Police, the Judges, the Gaolers, all would all be socialist functionaries, as they are State officials – but the ownership by the State of all the land and materials for labour, combined with the co-operative control by the workers of such land and materials, would be socialism. Schemes of state and municipal ownership are but schemes for the perfectioning of the mechanism of capitalist government-schemes to make the capitalist regime respectable and efficient for the purposes of the capitalist. They represent the class-conscious instinct of the business man who feels that capitalist should not prey upon capitalist, while all may unite to prey upon the workers.

Capitalism has failed to provide a full and happy life for all everywhere throughout the world. Politicians of all shades of political opinion have tried to control capitalism; they have used all kinds of political and economic devices to try and iron out its contradictions and make it function smoothly; they have founded new parties and concepts — they have even tried calling it “socialism” and “communism” — but the system defeats their efforts. We don’t have to call on economic theory to prove capitalism’s innate contradictions and inability to function in the interests of all. The evidence of our contention stands blatantly forth throughout the entire world of capitalism: nowhere has capitalism, despite the fantastic development of its wealth producing techniques, solved any of the basic social problems that afflict humanity and, often, when some slight amelioration of these problems is effected by some puny scheme of social reform new problems are created, often greater than those at which the reform was aimed. The fact is that capitalism is a social system based on the exploitation of the overwhelming majority, the majority in fact that produces all wealth, the working class. This is the nature of the system and no form of political management can make the system run contrary to its nature.

Throughout the world the competition among the working class for their needs in a system of organised scarcity becomes a weapon in the hands of politicians anxious to secure the support of the workers. Group features like religion, colour and ethnic origin are conveniently related to this competition by some politicians who accuse “them” of being responsible for “our” problems while other politicians disguise the real source of the problem by blaming it on the tensions, bigotries and prejudices induced by these bigots or racialists.

There is one group of organisations that does not make the claim that it has the ability, sincerity, wisdom and all the other qualities—claimed, by implication, to be the monopoly of the various contenders for political office—to run capitalism in such a way as to eradicate poverty, slums, unemployment, violence, etc. That organisation is the World Socialist Movement. It explains how capitalism is the cause of the problems wage and salary workers face today and how only socialism will provide the framework within which they can be solved for good. It points out how, in modern political conditions, the way to socialism is through the democratic political action of a majority of convinced socialists using the ballot box and parliament to win political control. It exposes as futile the policy of trying to deal with social problems by means of reforms of capitalism and shows that nationalisation is merely state capitalism. The relatively backward countries present no barrier to the immediate establishment of socialism throughout the world, the WSM explains, because the modern industrial system that now covers the world is quite capable of turning out an abundance of wealth for all the world’s population, wherever they live, to enjoy. And what about human nature? This too is answered by showing that the view that man is born lazy, greedy and aggressive is nonsense. Human behaviour depends on the society human beings live in and nothing anthropologists and other social scientists have found shows that human beings are incapable of co-operating on the basis of common ownership to produce an abundance of wealth from which they can take freely according to their needs.

The WSM. and its companion parties overseas, claim that, no more than all the other political parties could they run the present system to the satisfaction of all. Hence our struggle is not to win a mandate to run capitalism’s production for profit scheme, with or without amendments. Our struggle is to bring to our fellow members of the working class an understanding of the only alternative to capitalism, socialism, and provide a revolutionary party for the use of that knowledge. We do not ask the working class to vote for us to reform capitalism; we ask them to vote with us to abolish it!