Society must change

 

Each new day demonstrates that capitalism is damaging humanity and the planet. We need a different society, which produces to satisfy the living needs of the majority and not to satisfy the economic profits of a small minority.

Capitalism thrives on exploitation. Its logic is that of profit. Its morality is that of self-interest. Socialism, on the other hand, stresses the cooperative rather than the selfish behaviour of human beings by eliminating the conditions that promote the self-centred lust for property. The primary contradiction of any capitalist order is between the social character of production and the private appropriation of surplus. Socialism resolves this contradiction through the socialisation of the ownership of the means of production.

Since private ownership of property produces inequality and feeds on the exploitation of the majority, a socialist society must be based on the common ownership of the means of productive property, the operation of which required collective labour-power. Hence, under the regime of private ownership, it serves as a means for exploiting others. This concept may also be extended to land and natural resources, the private appropriation of which deprive others of their means to live. Common ownership of the means of social production does not mean absolutely no form of personal possessions or having to borrow each other’s toothbrushes. Objects of consumption properly belong to the personal and private sphere. Also, tools of production which are not used to exploit or deprive others, are retained as individual possessions. Personal property is respected, but not ownership of property that is used to exploit others and to create wealth only for personal consumption. There will therefore be no confiscation of personal property in a socialist society. In the process of building a socialist society, a large amount of redistribution will have to be undertaken. This includes, for example, the redistribution of private property that has been used, not for personal enjoyment, but for the oppression and exploitation of the majority. The goal of socialism is to enable everyone to have access to more personal property such as food, housing, clothing, books and leisure. But to accomplish this, the ownership and control by a few over the means of production must be eliminated. Poverty has been the lot of the majority in capitalism. They cannot be any poorer.

Socialism means the creation of a society where the people, not a few property owners, own and manage the affairs of the community. In such a society, production would be basically oriented to need, not to market demand. This can only be accomplished through rational social planning. A planned economy requires the identification of basic needs that must be met and an efficient distribution system. These can only be achieved through the effective participation of people in the determination of national goals. It is crucial, therefore, that a planned economy be the result of decisions popularly participated in by all sectors of society. This is the only way through which real needs can be arrived at, people motivated to act collectively and sacrifices made based on rational choices. A planned economy must also ensure a wide and even dispersal of industries in the countryside in order to create work opportunities for a vast number of people and avoid centralization of development only in selected areas. Democratic social planning is thus in complete contrast to the anarchy of capitalism where surplus is expropriated from those who produce by the social classes who own the means of production.

Our aim is a world cooperative commonwealth without the State and without classes, in which the workers shall administer the means of production and distribution for the shared benefit of all. Yet everywhere the capitalists cry: “More production! More production!'’ In other words, the workers must do more work for fewer wages, so that their blood and sweat may fix the debts of the ruined capitalist world. In order to accomplish this, the workers must no longer have the right to strike; they must be forbidden to organise so that they may be able to negotiate concessions from the bosses. At all costs, the labour movement must be halted and broken. To save the old system of exploitation the capitalists unite and chain the workers to the new technologies of industry. The capitalists will do this unless the workers declare war on the whole capitalist system, overthrow the capitalists and make all wealth the property of all the workers in common. It is the ONLY way for the workers to free themselves from industrial slavery, and to make over the world so that the workers shall get all they produce and nobody shall be able to make money out of the labour of working men and women. Reforms wouldn’t solve the problem, even if they could be achieved. So long as the capitalist system exists a few will be making money out of the labour of the many. All reforms of the current system merely fool workers into believing that they are not being robbed as much as previously.

The State is used to defend and strengthen the power of the capitalists and to oppress the workers. Constitutions and laws are framed with the deliberate purpose of protecting the owning class interests against the majority of the people. So-called socialists believe that they can gradually gain this political power by using the political machinery of the capitalist State to win reforms, and when they have elected a majority of the members of the legislatures, they can proceed to use the State power to legislate capitalism peacefully out and the industrial commonwealth in. Supposed socialists preach all sorts of reforms of the capitalist system, drawing to their ranks small capitalists and political adventurers of all kinds, that finally causes them to make deals and compromises with the capitalist class. 

The Socialist Party candidates elected to Parliament have as their function to campaign ceaselessly to expose the real nature of the capitalist State, to obstruct the operations of capitalist government and show their class character, to explain the futility of all capitalist reform measures, etc. At the various national assemblies, socialists can show up capitalist hypocrisy and outright brutality.