These are the hopes and dreams of socialism

Your vote does not merely help elect the candidate of your choice. It registers the things you are interested in, the things you want. It registers the way in which you expect to get these things. What are the things that you want? Everywhere society is in chaos and ferment. Hunger, poverty, environment crises and war are shaking up the thinking of millions, impelling them on the road of struggle against the system which oppresses them. Working people are groping for a solution to the problem of existence. Socialism is our only hope. Socialism is the science of human society.

We want peace, instead of bloodshed and violence and destruction. We want security, instead of insecurity. We want to be sure that we will be able to raise our families in decent homes and good schools. We want comfort and prosperity, instead of low living standards, slums, child and sweated labour, unemployment and hunger. We want democracy and freedom, not racial and religious and national conflict. These are the simple things which we all long for. But we don’t have them. We do not have security, prosperity or peace.

 We live in a modern civilisation where we have huge industries all over the world. We have the raw materials and the natural resources. We have all the necessary talent in trained and skilled workers. It is the social system that stands in the way, the system of capitalism. Under that system, a handful of capitalist control all the wealth and power . This handful owns industry, banking, mining, transportation. It owns our jobs. Whoever owns all these things, controls our lives. That is what capitalism offers you. We can have security, peace and freedom, if we establish socialism. We want to take over the industries built by us – by us and nobody else. We want to take over the wealth produced by us – by us and nobody else. We want to, and we can, run industry to produce for peace, not for war. To produce for us, for the needs and comforts of the people, and not for the swollen profits of the capitalists. Without capitalist profit, we can put an end to poverty and wars. We can provide plenty for all.

The capitalist class is not concerned with the security and prosperity of the workers. They are concerned with one thing and one thing only: their profits, bigger profits and still bigger profits. Bosses want to cut down the living standards of the workers. It is the road to security and prosperity for them. The lower the wages, the higher the profits. The weaker the unions, the stronger the employers. All of them understand this. That’s why they all react the same way to the simple demands of the workers.

The Socialist Party champions social change as the basic solution of the problems and conflicts of society today. As socialists we set ourselves to achieve plenty for all, peace, brotherhood, security, freedom. The Socialist Party is the party of socialism. All reforms that stop short of overthrowing the capitalist system become co-opted by that system and turned to its advantage (but not necessarily to the advantage of any particular capitalists). If the system isn’t overthrown it continues to function. Those are the things we all want. They are the things socialism stands for. They are the things that we, the Socialist Party, stand for.

A revolution is coming. It is coming from the changes in production brought about by replacing workers with robots. It is coming despite the capitalists who use them to increase his profits. The Socialist Party does not create the social revolution. We recognise and embrace it. The role of the Socialist Party is to try and set it into motion, to give it direction to enthuse it, to unleash it. Our task is to convince. This cannot be done without passing on a vision of a different and better world. We visualise a world where robotics, automation and artificial intelligence make possible the material conditions and the leisure time to complete the transition to full and happy human beings.