Most People and Socialism

 

Most people think that whichever government is elected it will make no real difference to their lives. Most people are right.

 

Most people think that political leaders are dishonest careerists. Most people are right.

 

Most people think that the world is in a mess: millions unemployed, homeless and house repossessions, kids on the streets, a collapsing health service, wars, ecological destruction, countless millions starving while farmers are paid to let food rot. Most People are right.

 

Most people think that little can be done to change it. They’re wrong.

 

Society does not have to be like this. We live under a system where:

· Production is for profit, not primarily for need.

· The richest 10 per cent own over half of all personal marketable wealth.

· The richest one per cent own three times as much as the poorest 50 per cent added together.

· The economy is run to make the rich stay rich at the expense of the poor.

 

The world market can never be run in the interest of the majority of us who produce the wealth but do not possess the major resources. No tinkering with the profit system by any government can ever make it comfortable, secure and happy for the majority of us.

 

All of the politicians in this election are asking you to vote for them so that they can run capitalism—continue the mess—carry on putting profit before needs—piling on the misery. 

It is all very well being against austerity but the cruel fact is that, when capitalism is going through one of its recurring crises, there is no alternative within the system to austerity. It is not the government that is to blame but the capitalist system. In imposing austerity all that governments are doing is what is required by the way capitalism works.

Of course austerity should be resisted to the extent that it can be – that’s what trade unions and such organisations are for – but without illusions. The most that can be achieved is a few mitigations here and there or a different distribution of the cuts, but they cannot be avoided. This is not defeatism. It is realism. The only alternative to the present austerity is neither a change of economic policy nor a change of government. It is a change of system. Socialism is the only realistic alternative to the present austerity. That’s what those who call themselves socialists should be advocating. Whatever job a worker does, and whatever the pay for it, does not change the facts of their class position in capitalist society. Capitalism is divided; on one side are the workers, who sell their abilities for a wage, and on the other the capitalists, who buy those abilities.

The interests of those two groups have always been opposed, and that will stay as long as capitalism lasts. Only a basically different society can bring us social harmony.

 

What we need is a new way of running society based on:

· The common ownership of all resources by the whole community, not just a rich minority.

· Democratic control of the community by everyone, without distinction of age, race or sex, instead of rule by unelected company directors or state bureaucrats.

· Production purely for use, not profit.

· Free and equal access to all goods and services—an end to the market and to money.

 

Only the Socialist Party stands for genuine socialism.

 

Support for  the Socialist Party means that:

· You reject the policies of the profit system.

· You understand and want the real socialist alternative.

· You do not need leaders to do your thinking and run society for you.