The working class throughout the world blindly support capitalism. None of them can escape responsibility for the consequences. For the power wielded by the rulers of world capitalism is a reflection of the political ignorance of the working class everywhere. It is absurd to blame one man, when he is only the instrument of a policy supported by millions. As long as workers support this system, so will they be vulnerable to the racial theorists who, on nationalist grounds, gets support. Socialists do not have any bitter personal hatred for these few bloated individuals, who do not and cannot even control their own system. We have a far more ambitious and stimulating aim to work for: the world's resources for the people of the world.
Socialism is the only solution to the problem of poverty in the midst of increasing plenty. It is a form of society where all the natural resources, the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution, are owned and operated by and in the interest of society as a whole, where all forms, of exploitation of man by man disappears, where everybody able to work will give of his or her abilities, and where each and every person able to work or not will receive the highest standard of life society can produce. The vote, when backed by a majority of class-conscious workers, will enable them to capture the machinery of government and turn it from an instrument of oppression into an instrument of liberation. But first we must convince that majority. Political parties which win elections on non-socialist votes are committed irrevocably to the futile task of trying to administer the capitalist system. No matter what evasions and short cuts are sought, the inescapable truth remains that there will be no triumph for socialism until the necessary spadework has first been done of winning over the electors to socialism. While the worker’s immediate interest, under capitalism, can only be with his or her standard of living, there is a further and more far-reaching interest. That is to devote a little time to the study of past and present societies, and to ascertain whether there is not some alternative to the capitalism which provides him or her with poverty, insecurity, worry, unemployment, occasional wars, and a premature old age.
It is impossible to condemn too strongly the terrible brutality of the killing of millions of people. War is caused by the struggles between national capitalist Powers over markets and economic resources. This can only be cured by the abolition of capitalism. The next battlefield may be the last. And yet these conflicts do all have the same common cause, at root. The world-wide capitalist system itself is a daily battle, in which the economic conflict between rival national groups of owners can easily pass from economic to military warfare. And today, capitalism is becoming increasingly one universal battlefield as the distinction between "civilian" and "military" targets continues to be blurred. To remove the cause of this conflict in the world is to get rid of the capitalist system of class division between owners and non-owners.
A great deal of abuse is heaped on the Socialist Party by our opponents. The basic argument is that you can't have socialism — a world money-free society of free access without the market and without prices — because such a society would have no way of allocating what will always be scarce resources. And even "superabundance" would not solve the problem since the possible lines of production are infinite and we cannot do all things at once. We could always be doing something else and only the market can tell us the correct economic thing we should be doing. Therefore, the practicalities of organisation make free access society impossible and what we should go for instead is a free market system operating throughout the world without states and with a single world currency. So, the argument goes on.
The best way to answer it would be to set out a blueprint for socialism showing exactly how resources can be efficiently planned and allocated without the market as an economic calculator. But this we cannot do.
Firstly because it would be quite undemocratic for the small minority we are now to think we can lay down detailed plans for how the majority must organise their democratically established society in the future and secondly we have no way of knowing what the level of technology and expertise at the time of a socialist majority will allow in terms of planning and organisation.
What we can do, however, and what we are doing is to put forward informed suggestions as to how a socialist majority, if it inherited the present level of technology and expertise, might decide to co-operatively organise the world's resources on the basis of production for need. It's probably true that we don't have enough data to do this with any detailed accuracy. However, this is not because the data can never be available but because capitalism, working as it does through the market, does not give the impetus for the large social task of assembling that data to be undertaken. A growing conscious majority anxious for socialism will have the impetus to undertake that task and will certainly make detailed democratic plans ahead of taking political power about how socialist society will be organised.
The speculative work we are doing at present on the details of socialist organisation won't of course satisfy our critics demand for a blueprint. But then it's not meant to be a blueprint. It's meant to be a move towards demonstrating in a practical way that it's well within the skills, the techniques, the intelligence and the powers of organisation of collective humanity to run the planet in its own common interest. It is about establishing a society of common ownership, democratic control and production for use — a genuine socialist society. You owe it to yourselves to consider the case, not for the Labour Party, but for socialism.
It is central to the Socialist Party's position the belief that capitalism cannot be destroyed piecemeal and that reformist campaigns are futile and counter-productive. Many argue, nevertheless, that there are many worthy causes for the Socialist Party to advocate such as the NHS.
The National Health Service does not represent a step towards socialism: the 1944 White Paper proposing such a service was presented by Henry Willinck. a Conservative Minister of Health, because it was necessary to give credibility to the concept of "fighting for a better Britain '; a centrally administered service was more efficient; a fitter workforce was needed for post-war reconstruction; it was feared that workers' agitation would break out again after the war if concessions were not granted.
Although health care is centrally funded the supply of drugs, equipment, provisions and construction have remained in private hands and the state in its role as employer has been just as ruthless in holding down wages as any private business concern.
To suggest that privileges can be given up by abolishing private medicine, without removing the causes of privilege and the exploitation of one person by another, is to invite failure Like all institutions under capitalism health services facilitate business interests which explains their growth when labour is in short supply and needs to be conserved, and the cut-backs imposed when unemployment causes a surplus of labour. "Non-producers" such as the elderly, the young, disabled. mentally handicapped and long-term mentally ill are kept short of resources even in a time of prosperity and expansion because they no longer contribute to the profitability of capitalism which overrides social needs.
The incidence of ill-health and premature deaths are higher for the poor than the wealthy and health services, however sophisticated, can only treat the symptoms of poverty instead of tackling the causes. Therefore, to campaign for better health services while leaving the causes of ill- health intact is to collaborate in the continued, and often unnecessary, ill-health of the workers. The same objections apply the view, that a similar case could be made for the abolition of private education.
Indeed, once on the reformist road a case could be made for campaigning against destroying food; pollution; racism; sexism; nuclear weapons — all of which are doomed to failure or at best only limited success while we have a social system based on profit. Instead of enduring the frustration of trying to change a piece of capitalism we invite our fellow-workers to join with socialists in building a money-free society which puts people first.
For the Socialist Commonwealth, speed the day.
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