What does the climate emergency mean? What is the future of mankind? Do we stand upon the threshold of the destruction for the whole of humanity? That is for men and women to decide. Or do we stand upon the threshold of a new age of unparalleled peace and plenty, the brotherhood of man?
It must not be decided by those in power, the bankers, the industrialists, the politicians, all those who have taken mankind through its worst periods. It must be decided by the great mass of the working people. They must organise and speak out with one voice: We demand life under socialism before death under capitalism overtakes us all!
Capitalists are the most class-conscious people in the world. The capitalist class of America is no exception in this respect. Despite their family quarrels over how to divide the wealth that is produced by labour and appropriated by capital, the capitalists all stand shoulder to shoulder when they sense any danger to their system of robbery. One question finds all capitalists standing united, regardless of race or creed. That is the defence of their “sacred” system of “private property,” the system of capitalist exploitation. We socialists have always contended that capitalism should be abolished because it mismanaged the means of production so that a very few – those who own the means of production – reaped great profits while the masses of the people were deprived of a secure standard of living. We would often prove this assertion by demonstrating the tremendous capacities which the modern technology has; how it could satisfy the needs of everyone if it were run for that purpose; and how capitalism, instead, ran the industrial machine for profits.
Often large portions of the world’s industrial capacity lie idle because the capitalists could not sell their products for a sufficiently attractive profit; despite the need for these products. Look, we socialists say, if only the people could run these industries themselves, they could produce enough to satisfy everyone’s needs. After the 2007/8 recession prosperity has returned for the global bankers, the mammoth corporations, the stock exchange speculators and sharks: Quatitative Easing has rescued their investments and restored their profits. But the people continue to suffer. Wages rose but a fraction as the cost of living rose. The capitalist parties are as rotten and bankrupt as the system they uphold. They can maintain themselves and the system today only piles additional burdens and austerity upon the people. They offer continued insecurity.
It remains the great and tragic paradox of our age – poverty in the midst of plenty. But now it is underlined by the situation which the war has brought about. We do not refer to the general paradox of a social system which cannot satisfy the most elementary needs of the people, while it squanders billions of dollars for war: That is the greatest indictment of world capitalism. Capitalism is a wasteful and inefficient system. It cannot plan on either a national or an international scale. It deprives the mass of the people of products.
Socialism could plan better, provide the people with all necessities. There would be no shortages or priorities unemployment created by the greed of a few owners of the means of production, because the people would own the means of production. Even more important, in a socialist world, that crowning and most damnable instance of capitalist greed and inefficiency – war – would be a thing of the past.
Socialism could take the vast resources which are available and use them for constructive purposes. the inefficiency and economic inequality due to the impossibility of constructive economic planning under capitalism – all would be things of the past. In their place could arise the new society of peace and plenty. That is why socialism is the burning need of the hour.
The fight for socialism has become the fight for the very existence of mankind. For world socialism we summon the workers of city and country – all who are oppressed by capitalism.
Only a socialist world can give us peace and plenty. Look how the capitalist world totters on the brink of destruction. The myriad evils of capitalism will disappear only with the destruction of capitalism and the building of socialism. The Socialist Party dedicates itself to socialism. The only road is the socialist road. Today it is the ballot that we use against capitalism. Vote, then, for socialism. Vote for the Socialist Party, the only party that keeps the revolutionary red banner unfurled.
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