Socialism is Liberty and Freedom

 

True liberty does not exist where property is not common property, where working people are wage slaves, where the capitalist has control of our lives and our wealth. Liberty in our society is an empty word, a word without meaning. Where is this liberty of which they boast? When all the wealth of society is freed from the control of the property owners, all the inexhaustible riches of science and human art will be at his disposal. The only care of society will he how to increase the necessity and pleasures of life, to perfect the instruments of labour in order to create for the citizen a proper amount of ease and leisure; Freedom will then cease to be a slogan and will become a reality, an everyday fact the property of all.

 Socialism is possible now. It is possible because it represents the interests of all; because it expresses the common interest of the producing class which forms the immense majority in all countries. The opponents of socialism say that we are not practical, that we are dreamers, Utopians, visionaries. Our critics tell us human nature makes socialism impossible. This same human nature argument has always been used against those who wished to abolish slavery and serfdom, exploitation and despotism. It is a mistake to accept that human nature does not change. Everything changes in nature and in life. Everything is in a process of transformation. Everything evolves. Everything changes. Chattel slavery was replaced by the semi-slavery the serfdom and that give way to our wage-slavery. The wage system will have to give way to socialism which will bring to a final end to the exploitation of man by man and slavery in all its forms. It has also been said that if men and women do not have the spur of hunger and want and the desire to make profit they will become lazy. To argue thus is to forget the necessity for clothing, feeding and sheltering oneself. Who does not work will not eat. It is to forget too, that idleness is not the characteristic of a man in his sane senses. Laziness and idleness are social ills not personal weaknesses. When the producers know that the products of their work will belong to them and their communities they will jettison the  repugnance which forced toil engenders in them. Work well regulated and fairly apportioned will become attractive. It will become a joy and a pleasure, and this is because work is necessary for the physical and mental well-being of mankind. Humanity must choose between the continuation of the capitalist system which leads to destruction and the revolution of international labour founded on the basis of solidarity and reciprocity through the socialisation of the forces of production. Socialism win make of the earth one country single and indivisible and each will by free co-operation work for the common progress and happiness.

Socialism stands for the end of the war and poverty. Socialism existed as a practical system for many centuries among the majority of peoples. They believed that the land was the common property of the family or the tribe. Even up to the present day basic forms of socialism exists among some people in some parts of the world. But “primitive” socialism differs from modern socialism in this way; the former had as its foundations equality in poverty and want. Its means of production were undeveloped and primitive. It was more dependent on the forces of nature than on dominance over them.  Socialism today, on the other hand, presupposes a vast development of the forces of production, mechanical tools, large-scale production and organised class-conscious workers. Modern socialism takes from capitalism its technical basis, its  its administration and supply chains and places them at the service of the community. We cannot go here into the details of socialist organisation, which on its part will have to be adapted to the various and varied social and national conditions. Suffice it to say, large-scale capitalist production offers us data of all the best technical conditions for the new organisation of society. The machinery is all there set up. All that is needed is that we set it in motion for the benefit of all. Production is already structured socially. It is necessary that all benefit be collectively shared, based on need and not on profit. The future alone can tell what will be the precise forms and special methods of organisation. The future comes from the womb of the past and the present just like the child from the mother. Capitalism gives birth to socialism. It bases its practical work on recognition of the class struggle. The working-class is the centre of all action.