No politician can help you. They all say they are going to have to make you worse off because of the crisis. In other words, to make you poorer to protect the wealth of the 1% who own the world. It’s their system of making goods and services to sell for profit that led directly to the crisis. So long as we have this production for profit, we’ll have periodic crises and politicians wringing their hands over them.
The only way out is to change the rules of the game: to change the system by putting an end to minority ownership by replacing it with the democracy of common ownership by and for everybody. Enough resources, know-how and skills exist already to provide comfort for everyone. It’s the profit system that prevents this. We need to do away with it and instead produce and access goods for needs.
At the moment so many people think that there’s no alternative that they are shrugging their shoulders and hoping for the best. If a few of us stand up and say “we will not put up with this, we want something better” then the idea that resources should be owned in common and used to satisfy people’s needs can get on the agenda as the only genuine alternative to capitalism and austerity.
We need to organise to bring about a world where the Earth’s resources have become the common heritage of all and where every man, woman and child on the planet can have free access to what they need to lead a decent and satisfying life.
The Socialist Party is a political party — we have an object which can only be achieved through political means. Political power is controlled, of course, through Parliament but local councils play an important part in applying many of the laws which are made in parliament and they can make by-laws. Councils, in other words, are part of the machinery of political power which the working class must take over to establish socialism.
The social change from capitalism to socialism can only be brought about by democratic means. The vote is not a mere scrap of paper. It can be the means to bring about this change when once a majority of the working class wants it. For, until a majority want socialism it is out of the question.
Everyone is familiar by now with what the other political parties promise — an answer to the housing problem, more roads, more hospitals, and better schooling. We also know the results of these promises.
The housing situation is as desperate as ever; housing shortages are forming faster than new houses are being built, there are thousands of homeless and many councils have closed their housing lists. One fact that no other party makes clear, however, is that housing is a problem which only affects the working class; it is part of their poverty. Rich people simply do not know what it is to plead for a home, nor to live in the inferior, shoe-boxes which are considered fit for most members of the working class.
The roads are becoming increasingly congested and motor car continues to encroach upon our environment.
Hospitals are still inadequate, many of them in ancient buildings run by overworked staff. No wonder the waiting list is so long, with so little hope of it ever being broken down. Here again, the rich person does not have the same problem; money can easily buy prompt and expert medical attention, in a private ward and with privileged treatment.
It is a similar story to education. Working-class children are taught enough for them to take their place in the factory or the office or in the laboratory. They often get their schooling in overcrowded classrooms under an overworked teacher. The children of the rich are educated in expensive private schools where they are given every chance to develop their abilities.
The other parties fail to solve these problems, not through any lack of sincerity. They are pledged to support capitalism, which has its own system of priorities. Roads and schools and houses and hospitals may be very desirable but capitalism produces primarily for profit, which means that human interests come a long way down the queue.
Socialism will end this. It will be a world of common ownership where human interests take first place, where wealth is made for people to enjoy it. It will be a world where goods and services will be in a common pool from which everyone will be able to draw freely to satisfy their needs without the intervention of money or any other means of exchange. Socialism will end the poverty which degrades people today and which restricts the majority to live in insecurity. It will end the economic rivalries which cause modern war. It will be a world with one people co-operating to run a society fit for human beings to live in.
Many blame working-class problems on the presence of immigrants and asylum seekers. In fact, there was a shortage of housing, hospitals and so on before the immigrants came; these social problems have their roots in capitalist society and exist all over the world, whether a country loses people as emigrants or accepts them as immigrants. The pseudo-scientific nonsense that some parties use to support their racist arguments has no evidence in their favour. Finally, racism is an insidious trap for the working class; the problems of capitalism are international and can be solved only by all workers, whatever their colour, co-operating to abolish capitalism and replace it with socialism.
Socialism can be a reality if, and only if, you want it. The Socialist Party makes no promises; we do not offer ourselves as leaders; we do not claim to be able to do anything for you. Nor do we cadge for your vote. Let us be clear on this: Only when the working class understand what socialism is, will capitalism be abolished. So vote for the socialist candidates only if you understand and want socialism.
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