While the Socialist Party support sound trade union action they have to point out, too, that trade unions, though necessary and useful organs of working-class resistance, cannot emancipate the working class from capitalism—that can be done only by a socialist working class politically organised to take control democratically of the machinery of government, for the purpose of abolishing capitalism and introducing socialism. Equipped with sound socialist knowledge, and the will to unite for victory, the working class will achieve its emancipation, in spite of the confusion and disillusion spread by office-seeking political opportunists.
The occasional reference to socialism from the so-called revolutionary left-wing betrays the historical irony that those who now adopt the terminology of socialist revolution are deeply committed to the maxim of the German reformist, Bernstein, that “the goal is nothing, the movement everything”. For them the goal is everything, the movement is never more than a means to it. They care more for movement than for direction; more for growth than for principle; and more for the tactics of a struggle than for the nature of victory.
The Socialist Party refuses to sacrifice our socialist goal for reformist demands and as a result, it is labelled utopian. This universal slur from the left is reserved for those clear-sighted workers who enter the historic battle of the classes because they look forward to the fruits of victory and not the ‘reality’ of repeated defeats.
The Socialist Party aims to establish a system of society based upon common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community. Those who reject that aim are the idealists, stumbling among the chaos of capitalism, searching for new brick walls to bang their heads against.
It would be extreme arrogance for socialists to devise detailed plans for the lives of emancipated humanity after they have carried out the political act to establish socialism. Like Marx, we are not the designers of a Utopia, but we do not fear prediction and speculation regarding life in a socialist society.
In socialism, a baby will not be destined to accept the label of class. Male or female, black or white, mentally and physically normal or abnormal, it can expect the freedom to develop as a social individual in a world based upon the practice of co-operative equality.
The capitalist-style family will not exist if indeed the family is retained in any form. Certainly, there will no longer be imposed sex roles, indoctrination in the name of education, and repression in the name of discipline. Now, a child must learn to become a wage slave — or, if lucky, a supposedly cultured parasite. In socialism, children will learn from experience over which they will have control.
No society can operate without work, and neither will socialism. Not employment, which is simply the capitalist word for slavery, but useful, self-imposed, creative work. Production in a socialist society will be for use, not profit; with each member of society giving according to his or her ability and taking according to self-determined needs. There will be no wages as a price for a worker’s labour power, nor money as a barrier to the world’s wealth. Free access will be the basis of wealth distribution.
Without the compulsion of wage labour, men and women, if they are able to, will contribute to the tasks of production and distribution. Work will be transformed by socialism; no more dull conditions, no more master-slave relationships, no more shoddy production of cheap commodities, no more need to do one job for life. The aim of work will be the production of the best and the satisfaction of the producer. The latter is an important qualification. There will not be a producer-consumer division in socialism, but satisfactory lifestyles both inside and outside the production process.
A Socialist society will be a political and economic democracy. Everyone will own everything' since private property will not exist. Does that mean we shall have the right to take each other’s coats? No: it means that men and women will use what they need, sometimes permanently as in the case of a coat, sometimes temporarily as in the case of a library book. There will be no rights of property. If someone takes another’s coat — either by accident or because they are acting irrationally — then there will be free access to as many new coats as are needed. Economic democracy will mean that decisions about production and distribution will be made socially, either by the whole of society — which would be no problem even today, with current methods of world communication — or by those involved in the processes, if society is prepared to leave the decision to them. We do not aim to replace the present capitalist elite with a new bureaucratic elite. The socialist revolution will be a permanent revolution in the sense that once enacted, people would have to participate in running society.
Free mobility will be available for everyone in a socialist society. Today, workers are born and they die in one country, usually without travelling far out of its borders. No boundaries, nations or provinces will divide socialist society. The world will be one. That is not to say that we aim to create a monolith, devoid of cultural, language and other variations.
Social organisation in socialism will not depend upon governments, leaders or parties. These only exist in a class society, where laws are the expression of the ruling class's interest. When the socialist working class take power, they will use the law to dismantle capitalism and build socialism. Once that has been done, there will be no laws created by one section of society in order to control another.
Just as there will be no secular laws, so there will be no laws of the phoney creation of primitive man - god. Socialist society will have no need for religions and utopias beyond the grave. What if a minority within socialism want to continue their religious lifestyle? Then they shall be free to do so, and those who want to walk across the Red Sea or jump from a high building without a parachute may do so too.
The morals of socialism will be fashioned by common ownership and free access, and by the sovereignty of democratic decisions. Taboos about sex will be as laughable as taboos about witchcraft are today. To those conditioned by the popular prejudices of capitalism, socialism seems amoral. In truth, it will be a society which will reflect human urges — the imagination and the self-interest of humanity.
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