We can overcome

 

Every worker, embittered, disappointed, confused, bewildered by the capitalist chaos around him or her can find confidence and clear knowledge that comes from the political and economic understanding conveyed by the Socialist Party. 

The readers of our journal or visitors to our web pages are not deceived or disappointed as we present the world socialist revolution as our answer as the way out of all the misery inflicted upon us.

  Socialism, above all, is a call for sharing and caring, and a product of mutual solidarity and collective cooperation. Scarcity and privation need not be the future. There is a better way for humanity–to go forward together to re-establish the democratic common ownership of the means of producing life’s necessities. We accept that our fellow workers are not yet ready for this, blinded by all-too-commonplace prejudices. The difficulties of our socialist cause arise chiefly from the conservatism of the human mind and to that conservatism are added the effects of centuries of degradation in which the labouring masses have been kept by a deliberate policy of the ruling classes. It is exceedingly hard for the majority of people to shake themselves free from old ideas, and deeply-entrenched authorities, and it is those mental factors that largely control our outlook. 

It is nationalism and racism that can divide the workers so that the workers of one nationality are struggling against the workers of another nationality or colour for a few illusory crumbs the rulers throw out exactly for that purpose. It is nationalism and racism that can pit groups of workers against each other. Such beliefs imply that certain people are better than all others and are “superior.”  Considering all those drawbacks there is still reason to rejoice at the progress we are making rather than to be disheartened by the particular difficulties we encounter. We will eventually flourish across racial and national lines as liberated humanity.

Socialists differ from left-wing liberal progressives in a fundamental way. Leftists seek to reform the system while socialists try to abolish it. The progressives hold that problems are only a matter of government policy. But the governing group is only the executive committee of the ruling class, as Marx pointed out years ago, and inevitably responds to its class interests. Socialists believe that the problem is not one of the symptoms but of fundamental causes; that the many social ills grow out of the very nature of capitalism as a system of exploitation and oppression; that poverty and inequality are endemic to capitalism; that it is in the very nature of the profit system, of the endless, ruthless, relentless struggle for profits that hunger and disease exist and that wars under capitalism are inevitable with periods of peace, even long and protracted ones, are merely intervals for the preparation of a new war.

The source of the inequality lies in which class owns the means of production. A small group of millionaires and billionaires owns over 90% of the wealth — the stocks, bonds, factories, real estate, natural resources.

The polarisation of poverty and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few is a tendency inherent in all capitalist societies. It does not give way in times of recession or prosperity. Some capitalists may fall by the wayside but the capitalist class remains the owners. Nobody really knows who owns what corporation, what oligarch or family dynasty controls this or that part of the economy.  There's an ever-continuing tendency to amalgamate, dissolve and sell outright giant businesses, close plants, and shift capital from one country to another. But the end result is the same. The billionaire element extends its power throughout the face of the globe amid the growing misery of working people.

Socialists, however, are not fatalists. We think that the people can overturn the system.