World socialism will put an end to the recurring destruction and waste of resources and production and distribution will be redirected to socially useful purposes. Buying and selling will disappear. Money will be dispensed with altogether.
The Socialist Party does not seek to make poor those who today are affluent, in order to put the poor in the place where the rich now are. Our desire is not to displace the present rulers and to replace them with other rulers. We wish to abolish poverty and provide abundance for all. Socialism is not a philosophy of poverty but of abundance. A society built on abundance for all will remain a dream, so long as there are antagonistic classes, that is employers and employees, masters and slaves. The material and technical resources for such a society, unquestionably exist in the world today. No competent study can doubt that everybody could have a comfortable home, nutritious food, good healthcare and decent education, offering security against accident, sickness, and old age; and providing dignity and self-respect that goes with these things. What socialism proposes is the good things in life for everybody. What we actually have, however, is widespread poverty. We suffer want in the midst of plenty.
Our planet has vast areas of the richest and most fertile soil, mineral resources in almost inexhaustible supply, the most productive technology, and millions of educated workers ready to apply their skills to that technology to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child. It is due entirely to the current social system under which we live that ought to be abolished. We have the possibility of immense abundance and fruitful and creative life for all the people of the world. Instead, we are menaced by capitalism’s capacity to destroy mankind.
Socialism will end immediately private ownership and control over natural resources and over the production, distribution and communication. Ownership and control would be vested in society. They say all this is a dream. Yet it is an immediate possibility. By means of the vast technology of this modern world, we can produce enough for all. There is no question at all about this. The only reason it has not happened is that a few people own the technology to make a profit for themselves. The only thing that lies between us and the proverbial promised land of milk and honey is the private ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth. Therefore, what socialism proposes to do, in order to share the wealth for all, is to take possession of the factories, the farms, and the transport and run them for the use of all.
We advocate that people shall come together in a political party and vote the parasites out of power. How are we ever going to get the working people together is a natural question to ask, because we see the workers divided by creed, colour, nationality and gender. And the worst of it is that we don’t seem to see any great changes taking place from day to day. Working people keep repeating the bosses talking points presented by the media and we don’t appear to be getting any smarter. Sometimes a person thinks he or she is not getting much brighter as time goes on. And sometimes wonders how to understand the theory of socialism. Marx and Engels seem like geniuses out of this world. And you can’t even understand their words without a dictionary. At least that’s the way it looks at first. Sometimes a fellow thinks he’s not getting much brighter as time goes on. And sometimes he wonders how he’s ever going to get smart enough to understand the theory of socialism. Karl Marx and Engels seem like geniuses of this world. And you can’t even understand their words without a dictionary. At least that’s the way it looks at first. Some find themselves thinking, “Well, this socialism stuff is all right for college professors. I only work for a living struggle over a tabloid newspaper.” When the class struggle reaches flashpoint, you’re going to find out you weren’t as dumb as you thought.
We all know that employers own all the factories, the mines, and everything we work at. We just own our brawn and our brains and, of course, our debts. We have to give the bosses our muscles so we can pay our debts and feed ourselves now and then.
The whole idea of socialism is we wouldn’t be producing for profit – for sale on the market. That’s the main thing to always bear in mind. What they sell is the product of our labour. And that’s where the bosses get the money to hire more workers, to build more factories. That’s where they get the money to live in mansions. All they return to the employee is enough to scrape along on, a jump ahead of the debt collectors.
The chains of wage-slavery are worse than real chains in a way. You work faster for the boss when iron shackles are not in the way. Only NEED chains us all. Only poverty.
We could manage industry ourselves. When we take over the industries, our class, THE WORKING CLASS, will have real democracy. Working people will be running things in our own interests. When working people take over production, they’ll have some real rights for the first time in history. The first thing to do is to make enough and more than enough goods for all. Work will be easier by using the many inventions that capitalists never implement. And we’ll encourage far more inventions from people who can hold up their heads for the first time and look their machine and the whole factory over from top to bottom. Instead of us all being one regimented by the power of Capital, we’ll BE individuals. The capitalists, and their apologists, may think we’ll get lazy with so much prosperity. They may think that when we can eat as much as we want, we’ll just keep on eating like pigs. And that without any owners over us, we’ll lose all sense of responsibility. In other words, they judge US by THEMSELVES. There’s only one thing we can do. Organise our forces to overthrow the whole rotten system.
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