Reaching A Definition

 

James Burnham in  ’The Managerial Revolution’ claims that the totalitarian state is not capitalism at all, but a new kind of social arrangement in which the power of the capitalist class has been broken and the control of society passed into the hands of “the managerial class,” managers, supervisors, highly paid technicians, etc. This view owes its origin to an American doctrine known as “Technocracy.” His fundamental error was to assume that capitalism in every country must have identical features, political and economic, forgetting that in each case exists a different historical background which is bound to give varying twists and turns to each country’s evolution. 

Socialism, which can only exist the whole world over when the majority of Earth’s population first understands class and capitalism, comprehend and desire socialism and vote it peacefully, legally and democratically into existence, means the solution to ending all wars, poverty and starvation takes 10 years instead of 1000 but this does not happen unless you, the vast majority of you, understand, desire and vote for socialism, a system of society based upon common ownership of the means and instruments for production and distribution by and in the interests of society as a whole.

The Socialist Party says that the world has enough for everyone but to get to that world of enough, we need better ways to organise society such that the economics of profit isn’t driving social, economic, and political decision-making. We say we could have enough for everyone without radically reducing the size of the human population.

 Do we need population reduction as a solution to the environmental crises we face? Is the feasibility of technological solutions to support a large population possible? Can we get to a sustainable world without giving up modern lifestyles? There is nothing wrong with supporting lower birth rates. Population goes down as women have more power and people’s lives have some stability. If those arguing for a reduction in birth rates” focused on policies that encouraged migration from the global south to the global north to balance labour needs, their ideas might be met with less scepticism. There is a near consensus among the scientists who study the subject that there are pathways to a world where 10 billion people can live well and stay within the sustainable limits of the planet’s environmental systems. What is slowing our progress toward the crucial goal of a sustainable society is the economic and political systems of capitalism. Those of us active in the climate movement who are silent on the question of the population are not silent because we are afraid to mention the elephant in the room. We are silent because population control is not the place to look for solutions.

To the members of the reformist parties of this country who urge the putting in order of our own "house” before attempting that of others we reply: Put this "house” in order by all means, and by that we mean not a new layer of paint, but the demolition of the structure so that the new can be built. In other words: we have constantly stressed the fact that reforming the capitalist system will not remove the causes of society's inequality that are the foundation of that system. Only the replacement of the capitalist system by socialism will do that, and it is for that reason we seek to throw light upon the activities of the capitalist class in other countries.

Socialism, of its very conception, must be international. That is the reason why workers formed the World Socialist Movement striving for socialism and advancing the working class in their struggle for emancipation. We ask those people who are attempting to alleviate the lot of the workers to examine the Socialist Party’s case, and agree that the next step must be the formation of a political party whose object is not to reform the capitalist system, but to establish a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of society as a whole.