What The Socialist Party Wants

The Labour Party and the Left are wrong, and the Socialist Party is right.The problem is not, and was not, one of extending state control and ownership — nor is it one of finding experts and superior brains. There is no lack of able and experienced workers in industry, farming and the civil service to carry on. All that is lacking is a Socialist working class to give orders to its delegates in Parliament and on the local councils for the ending of the private property basis of society. Socialism is still not here, but that is only because the workers are still not socialists. What society needs, now is not intellectual and academic experts to show the capitalists what changes are necessary to keep capitalism going, but a majority who understand socialism and are determined to achieve it through gaining control of the machinery of government.

Our aim is a democratic world community without frontiers — in which the natural and industrial resources of the world have become the heritage of all humanity, and are used in co-operation to produce wealth directly for needs, with free access for all to the available goods and services, according to their own self defined needs.

A money-free, state-free world commonwealth is the only framework within which current social problems can be permanently solved, since it is only on this basis that production can be oriented towards satisfying human needs. This social revolution can only be carried out when once a majority of wage and salary workers throughout the world want it, fully understand its implications, and organise democratically and politically to achieve it.

Socialism is just as relevant today as it always was. The case for socialism rested on the failure of capitalism to meet human needs properly. And capitalism fails to do this today as much as it ever did in the past. The evidence is all around us where hunger and death from preventable disease exist. Even in an industrialised parts of the world people’s basic material needs are not met, let alone the needs that would allow them to lead a comfortable life. 

So why are needs not properly met today? The answer is simple and straightforward. It is because meeting needs is not the purpose of production today. The purpose of production today is to make profits. That is admitted even by supporters of the present economic system, only they see it as an incentive to produce things. Socialists see it as a brake on production. What production for profit means in practice is that before anything is produced those in charge of its production must be convinced that it can be sold profitably. This is a basic economic law of the capitalist economic system. "Can’t Pay, Won’t Produce". "No Profit, No Production".

There are various ways of getting money. You can beg for it. You can steal it. But for most people, you try to work for a living. You go out to the labour market and sell yourself. Well, not exactly yourself but sell a part of you — your mental and physical energies — for a wage. The wages system is the basis of capitalism. What it reflects is the fact that most people don’t own productive resources and therefore have to work for those who do. It reflects the class division of present-day society: between the majority working class and the minority capitalist employing class. Anybody who has to go out and work for a living is a member of the working class. It doesn’t matter what job you do. Whether you are a doctor or a docker, a teacher or a turner, a lecturer or a labourer — if you have to sell you ability to work for a wage or salary, then you are a member of the working class. How much money you get paid depends on the quality of what you have to sell. Because under capitalism your ability to work is a commodity — something that is bought and sold — its price (which is what your wage is) is fixed like that of all other commodities by what it costs to produce. A doctor gets paid more than a docker because it costs more money to train a doctor. An engineer gets paid more than a labourer for the same reason.

Inequality of property ownership is the basis of capitalism and there exists a capitalist class. Capitalism is the system and it works in their interest. Capitalism is the profit system and they are the profit takers. The role of the government is to run this system in their interests, and it doesn’t matter whether it is made up of Tory or Labour politicians. Capitalism can only work by putting ‘Profits before People’. So what is to be done? This is where the original socialist accusation against capitalism comes in — that if fails to meet people’s needs properly. But we can say more than this: capitalism can never be made to serve human needs. It can only work as a profit making system in the interest of those who live off profits. Which isn't us.

There’s no point in trying to reform capitalism or patch it up. It must be abolished altogether and replaced by socialism which is the opposite of capitalism. Capitalism is based on concentration of the ownership of the means of production into the hands of a tiny minority of the population, a small class of rich people who individually own enough wealth to be able to live without having to work for an employer. Socialism will be based on the opposite the common ownership and democratic control of the productive resources by the whole community. This means what it says: that no individual or group of individuals will be able to have property rights, entitling them to draw an unearned income such as rent, interest or profit, from owning land, farms, machinery, mines, warehouses, offices or any other means for producing and distributing wealth. They will simply be there, to be used under the democratic control of those who work in them.

Naturally, this means they will be used to serve the common good by turning out the things people need. So. while capitalism means production of profit, socialism means production for use. Whereas the basic economic laws of capitalism is "No Profit, No Production", the basic rule of socialism will be "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs".

We are talking about a society in which everyone can satisfy, not just their basic needs but all their reasonable needs, as a matter of right — just because they are human beings. Why not? Why should we have to pay for food, clothing, services and the other things we need? These should be available for us to take and use, free of charge, as and when we need them. This is what Socialism involves. It would mean no poverty, no bad housing, no collapsing health-service. How could social problems like these exist in a society that was geared to serving human interests? Enough food to feed everybody would be produced. Enough decent houses to house everybody would be built and kept in good repair. Enough hospitals, schools, parks and other services would be provided.

Socialism cannot be established by the handful of socialists who exist today. It can only be established when the majority of workers understand and want it. That’s our purpose as an organised body of socialists holding meetings, contesting elections, bringing out this paper: to spread socialist ideas and to get more and more workers to join in building up a socialist movement to end capitalism and usher in socialism. The people’s well-being will only ever be safe in the hands of the people themselves.