Build Socialism Today

Despite the promises made by politicians in their speeches, COP26 will be nothing short of a disappointing failure.

Their realpolitik and Machiavellian statecraft can never be a successful strategy

Our future will be bleak unless we make changes but it is not because of the frailties of our “human nature.”

Socialists, however, are not so easily duped by shallow pledges from the capitalist class.

We are not unique in this scepticism.

It is not automatic that every environmentalist will end up demoralised or disillusioned by COP26.

Others hold doubts in capitalist solutions expressed by the banners and placards that read “System Change, not Climate Change”.

Some understand that a system geared towards accumulating capital can only lead to catastrophe.

It is the capitalist system itself that is the cause. The capitalists sacrifice the environment for the sake of plunder.

The Socialist Party understands the stark reality that the capitalist market cannot end the climate emergencies.

We say the capitalist system’s insatiable rapacious need to increase profits cannot be reformed away.

Sustainable development is unachievable under capitalism because it means obstructing the profit motive and halting the economic expansion which drives production.

Our task ahead is to build a vision that spreads across every sector of citizens and national borders. Love of country, in the form of "patriotism," is a relatively late creation. When we were all serfs we were bound to the baron’s estate but we had no "country". Wars were dynastic between rival kings, princes and dukes and an array of other aristocrats.

Today nor has capital any "country" even though capitalism is the precondition for building a "nation," and advocates "nationalism," and protects  "national market." But we describe business as being part of the “international finance.” Capita expands and pursues the global market, using its own "nationalism" as a springboard. Simply put, nationalism is anything but natural; it is an ideology of capitalism, which serves to produce the conditions for capitalist accumulation and gives it legitimacy. In other words, it is not some kind of natural human phenomenon. It is a social and political construct. Once the country has been created as a sovereign nation-state, patriotism provides the glue by which it maintains itself.  It is an ideology, which requires an identity with, and loyalty to, the nation, which, in turn, gives rise to the "national interest" and political duty and civic obligations it demands from its citizens.

No matter how utopian the quest for world solidarity may appear in today’s world of conflict, no other path is open to escape fratricidal struggles and to attain a rational world society. Socialism will rise again as a global movement or not at all and on the basis of past experience, those interested in the promotion of socialism must stress its internationalism most of all.

While it is impossible for socialists to become a nationalist, we are, nevertheless, anti-colonialist and anti-imperialists. However, being against colonialism does not imply adherence to the principle of national self-determination, but expresses our desire for a non-exploitative socialist society without borders. Socialists cannot identify themselves with national struggles, yet as socialists, we shall oppose both nationalism and imperialism. The World Socialist Movement is indifferent to the national interests of any particular country, including the one we were born in. The thing to which we are not indifferent to is the principles of socialism.

 We advocate a socialist transformation that will be absolutely necessary for the survival of some sort of recognisable civilisation.

Our aim is to overcome and overthrow capitalism, to cease growth for the sake of production for profit and instead create new bonds with the environment we all live in.

All aspects of society are involved in the relation to nature. All struggles have an ecological dimension. Sustainable society and a socialist society are inseparable.

The answer cannot be cutting and curtailing the living standards of the already poor in a sacrifice to save the planet.

We’re talking about universal access to quality food, decent housing and adequate healthcare.

Billions of people in the world to live fulfilling lives require secure food and water, better transportation and medical services. 

If people have no means to live by, they will survive as best they can by using what means are available to them, which tends to be ecologically destructive. 

Poverty is a major part of the reason why is so much deforestation. 

Many of the lifestyle changes environmentalists point towards as necessary will occur, but as part of a social process of liberation, not as a forced imposition. 

The question is this: will you stand by and protect the profit system rather than protect the planet?

The Socialist Party presents a pragmatic and practical vision of world socialism because it’s the only answer.

We are for a class-free society. But such emancipation presupposes the abolition of private property, of the elimination of commodity production and of the end of the exchange economy.