Petty Powerful Capitalist Powers.

On August 10, China sentenced Canadian businessman Michael Spavor to 11 years in a Chinese prison for spying. He will also have to pay a fine and be deported from China, though they did not say when that would be. 

Spavor and another Canadian Michael Kovrig were arrested days apart in 2018, shortly after Canadian authorities arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver, at the request of the U.S. where she is wanted on fraud charges. 

The general feeling is that it is a case of mess with us and we'll mess with you which, if that is the case, shows how petty powerful capitalist powers can be - another area the working class have no stake in.

S.P.C. Members.

Socialism and Economic Freedom

 

The Socialist Party asserts using the language of the American constitution the inalienable right of mankind to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Socialist Party raises the banner of revolt and demands the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class. No reform measures will suffice. Having outlived its social usefulness, capitalism must give way to a new social system. We will put an end to the existing barbarous class society by placing the land and all the means of production, transportation and distribution into the hands of the useful producers as a collective body, and creating the Socialist Cooperative Commonwealth.

Ruling classes have always exploited ruled or subject classes. In the ancient world, chattel slaves were exploited openly by being made to produce more than was needed to feed, clothe and house them. In the feudal era, serfs were forced to turn over part of their product to their feudal master or to toil for him so many days each year. But under capitalism, exploitation is cloaked by the wage system. The capitalist buys the worker's labour-power for a price (wage), and it appears as if a fair bargain had been struck. Actually, the working class produces all social wealth and performs all necessary social services. The wages it receives in return represent but a small fraction of the social wealth it alone produces. The capitalist class, by virtue of its ownership of the tools, appropriates the balance (by far the larger portion) of the social wealth. Thus, the wage system disguises the true nature and extent of capitalist exploitation, which has been well described as the "greatest robbery in history." Under capitalism, production is carried on for sale and profit. As in capitalist society, the great mass of workers receives A BARE LIVING WAGE. A minority of specially trained workers share some of the privileges that dribble down to them as prizes and bonuses

The State is a government based on territory and having special coercive powers (police, army, prisons, etc.) that are beyond democratic control. Historically, the State has always been an engine of ruling classes for holding down the ruled. The ancient State was the State of the slave owners, the feudal State was the State of the feudal lords, and the modern State is the executive committee of the capitalist class.

"Democracy" is not a synonym for "capitalism." In even the most "democratic" of capitalist countries, there is economic despotism. The capitalist is an absolute master. He can replace workers with technology. He can close down until business gets better and force his workers into unemployment. Or he can move his plant to another city or a different country and leave his employees abandoned. The truth is that capitalism is not only an economic despotism -- it is also a foe to political democracy. Wherever worker unrest arises, and the capitalist rule is threatened, the capitalists are quick to jettison political democracy and establish authoritarian rule.

Socialism is the direct opposite of capitalism.  It means completely new administrative institutions through which to direct democratically the social production of our modern age in the interests of all society. Socialism does not now exist, and it never has existed anywhere in the world.

In socialism, the land, factories, mines, and all the other means of social production, distribution and services will be owned, controlled and administered, not by private persons, and not by a State, but shared in common by all the people. There will be no economic classes in the socialist society. With the elimination of private (and State) ownership, the division of society into exSocialism means abolition of the wage system. Instead of wages, the useful producers under Socialism will get back directly and indirectly (indirectly through social services-public health, education, recreation, etc.) all that they produce. Private (and State) property and profit having been eliminated entirely, there will be no way for social parasites, capitalistic or bureaucratic, to exist. In short, it will no longer be possible for any individual or group to secure the economic power that would make possible the exploitation of another human being and exploited classes will end. Everyone will have the same basic material interests.  We shall collectively produce the things we need and want. New techniques and inventions, and the elimination of anarchy and waste in production, will greatly increase the wealth available. And such technological improvements will not result in unwanted surpluses and unemployment -- they will enable us to reduce drastically the hours of work. Socialism will, therefore, give us the leisure time to develop our faculties and live healthy, happy, useful lives. 

In the class-divided world of today the primary consideration is: Does it pay? In world socialism of tomorrow, the chief question will be: Is it needed, desirable and socially beneficial? In short, Socialism means the production of things to satisfy human needs and wants and not, as under capitalism, for sale and profit.

Socialism will be a society wherein we will make the fields yield an abundance without arduous toil; wherein the factories, mines, transport and communication networks, etc., will be the safest, the most modern, the most efficient, the most sustainable possible, and productive beyond our wildest dreams without laborious work; wherein our educational institutions will have the finest facilities and be devoted to developing complete human beings; wherein our medical and social services will concentrate on creating and maintaining the finest health and recreational facilities conceivable; wherein, in short, toil and drudgery, poverty and social misery will be banished forever.

 It will be a democracy solidly based on that PRIMARY freedom which is the foundation of all freedoms -- ECONOMIC FREEDOM.

 

Understanding Change

 

Many people have become convinced that the present system, capitalism - with its basis in competition and expansion doesn’t actually work for everybody that it is as good as it gets because of our 'human nature'. We're told that 'co-operation' is for dreamers, idealists and while it sounds nice, at best it's a utopian fantasy. Yet we intuitively understand that our present path is leading to disaster and that change must happen. The idea that we can actually progress and better our lives is an increasingly difficult argument to make. Too many have grown deeply cynical and disillusioned with politics. While we accept that conditions have much improved, from technology to human rights, we are still convinced that when it comes to real social or economic progress, positive change is impossible.

 In fact, research now supports the fact that our 'human nature' is not 'fixed' or simplistic by any means, and we are as 'hard-wired' to cooperate for our survival as to be competitive. There is the Golden Rule, "do unto others as you would do unto yourself'  as we 'see ourself in others'. Rather than the conviction that greed and aggression are what makes us “tick", we need to be aware that these are behaviours that have been overstated as 'natural' to survival because they supported an 'engine', a class system. Our very survival as a species is now being threatened by too much insistence on individualism and thoughtless disregard for the future.  We have an economic system that is causing tremendous pain, lost hope and lost futures and it is posing a threat to civilisation. We need to create a more constructive and sustainable path. We have very real options, real and achievable. We can make peaceful, profound, positive changes. We still possess the vote.

What is becoming clear is the need to change to an economy based on human wants and needs rather than profit and competition. The only way is to end the tyranny and power of the very few, over the lives of us all. Rather than a system based on division and so much inequity, socialism would become focused on solving social problems, offering the best health, providing education and child-care, creating more leisure time for recreational pursuits, for the community. We -the majority- would make profit, exploitation and wages, private ownership of production, distribution, banking and credit, obsolete. Our system would be based on people, not profit. 

Capitalism is the fundamental cause of our social ills, and that the institutions it rests on must be replaced. We don't want the jobs most of us have now. Bank tellers, bookkeepers and cashiers - all those who handle money: Because we want a world without money: Free access to the necessaries of life. We don't want cops, lawyers and judges and prison guards either. Nor all the rest uphold and enforce the exploitation and poverty of working people. We do want to be useful productive members of society. But first, we must be free. And that means a revolution to Socialism.  It means the end to poverty, war, famine and tyranny: And the beginning of the true brotherhood of man. Can we make a peaceful revolution? We think so. The only real issue is the private ownership of the means of production and distribution. In one word, that issue is capitalism. Our opponents will ignore this basic issue because they hate the idea of a socialist revolution. Instead, they will focus on such diversionary issues as jobs, welfare, taxes, crime and spending. Despite the fact that their legislative programme of reform is causing only more suffering, they persist in opposing the coming socialist revolution.

The despotic system of capitalist economics is the direct opposite of our democratic system of politics, can plainly be traced to the existence of a privileged class. Through the perversion of democracy to the ends of plutocracy, labour is robbed of the wealth which it alone produces, is denied the means of self-employment, and, by compulsory idleness in wage-slavery, is even deprived of the necessaries of life. Human power and natural forces are thus wasted, that the plutocracy may rule. Ignorance and misery with all their concomitant evils are perpetuated, that the people may be kept in bondage. Science and invention are diverted from their humane purpose to the enslavement of men, women and children.

Against such a system the Socialist Party once more reiterates its fundamental declaration that private property in the natural sources of production and in the instruments of labour is the obvious cause of all economic servitude and political dependence. We call upon the people to organise with a view to the substitution of the cooperative commonwealth for the present state of unplanned production and social disorder, a commonwealth in which every person shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his or her faculties.

Socialism the sane alternative to capitalism

 

The Socialist Party has never made a  secret of the fact that we believe that whatever divisions exist between the various sections of the working class will have to be overcome in the struggle for socialism, whether they be ethnic, racial, sexual, sectarian, or anything else. We all need to understand our own class interests and recognise how they differ from the interests of the ruling class. Everywhere, the capitalists invest enormous efforts and resources in convincing us that we have more in common with them, on the basis of factors like race religion and nationality than with our fellow workers. We believe that the only real solution is the organisation of the class as a whole, fighting for its unified interests internationally.

As members of the working class, we produce all of the wealth and we get in return -- a wage. It is just enough to maintain us and enable us to breed replacements, who, in their turn, will surrender their fate and destiny for a wage. So long as capitalism lasts, there is no escape for us from the desperate need to sell ourselves. Our capacity to labour is all we have to sell, and we must sell it to the capitalists. That's how the capitalists make a profit -- by exploiting the working class. That is, the working class produces all the wealth, from which the capitalist ruling class takes the largest portion, in this process of exploitation, and, in return, gives its slaves a wage. 

 

The fact that some workers have an iPhone, a car, and perhaps have paid off their mortgage to own their home does not alter the fact that they are exploited. Indeed, the debts usually connected with such ownership fasten the chains of wage slavery even more securely. Every aspect of capitalist society is misery -- wars for profit and plunder, race hatred dividing the working class, the slums we live in, the ruination of our environment, expensive, poor or nonexistent medical care, inadequate education, the second-class status of women, drug abuse, riots, crime -- in short, every one of those brutal, callous, cruel, and desperate things which go on every hour, every minute, in a capitalist society, grows out of exploitation.

If we want to stop the degradation, we must end exploitation. If we want to free ourselves from wage slavery, we must abolish the profit system. If we want to live decent lives of freedom and fulfilment, we must build a socialist economic democracy. The foundation on which the capitalist system of profit and poverty is built is exploitation, and its utter, final, irrevocable abolition must be our goal. We must never be sidetracked, never be drawn aside by other, seeming more attractive goals. We must never waste ourselves on reforming symptoms. The goal, the abolition of the system of wage slavery, is ALL. Then we can reap the full abundance of our social product, realizing humanity's great dream: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

We want to live in a DEMOCRACY in which we, the people, have real control of all matters that affect our lives.

To accomplish that revolution, we must organise politically and we must use every forum open to us, from the soap box to the ballot box, to spread the idea of revolution. Since the means of operation of the ruling class, its private control over what in effect must be common property will be abolished, our socialist commonwealth will be a class-free society with no elite "Vanguard Party" leading us by the nose into a bureaucratic "Worker's State" so its cadres can climb on our backs like any ruling class, we must be conscious of what we are doing and where we're going, conscious to a degree never before seen in a revolution. Given the consciousness of wage slavery, given the knowledge of how to end it, our second task, organisation, will inevitably follow.

 

Ours is a POLITICAL PARTY with a clear platform advocating fundamental change and an alternative vision, based on grass-roots decision-making where we live and where we work. We can PEACEFULLY VOTE INTO OFFICE OUR CANDIDATES transform our economy and institutions into a true democracy - 'Of, For and By The People'- dedicated to protecting and promoting the health and well-being of all and ESTABLISH A NEW SOCIETY, replacing profit and market competition with cooperation and direct democratic ownership of all the natural resources, industries, distributions, allocations and social services.

Can You resist? The Pressure to Conform.

In its issue of Aug 7, the Toronto Star revealed that Canada's largest airport, Toronto's Pearson, is a surveillance hot-spot. 

Reporters found that faces of millions of travellers were captured using facial recognition technology (FTR).

 If a face matched with a person in a database of 5,000 deportees, the technology would inform Canada's Border Agency officers and direct them to question the individual. 

Many a reasonable person would approve on the premise that they don't want really bad dudes coming into the country, not realizing the day may come when the capitalist class consider the same person a bad dude or dudette. 

Never has there been a time where the pressure to conform has been so great and for the powers-that-be to have control they need through information on all of us.

S.P.C. Members.

The Blessings of Capitalism?

The federal government is planning to spend $321 million on native-Canadian communities and will appoint a ''special-interlocutor'' to propose law and policy changes to better respond to the findings of hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential school sites. 

This comes at a time when Prime Minister Trudeau has called an election in which his government's record on Indigenous matters will be an issue. National Chief Rose Archibald, though welcoming the news said, ''Residential schools were institutions of assimilation and genocide and the Canadian government along with the churches, committed crimes against humanity at those facilities.”

 History shows that the genocide of native people was committed everywhere Europeans brought them the blessings of capitalism.

S.P.C. Members.

Understand the World to change it.

 In order to make the everyday decisions as well as the long-range planning decisions for the economy as a whole, we must have a decision-making system in place. There will need to be town meetings and community assemblies, community. At work, there will be elected management committees and workers’ councils, to coordinate the economy as a whole. It is essential to ensure that a new economic system operates as it's supposed to - to direct human resources to meet human needs, with the least waste and damage to the environment as possible.

Politicians have no useful talents for industrial management, only a socially destructive knack for bamboozling working-class citizens, to help enrich a handful of corporate owners. They are easily done without, as are the capitalists they work for. We can do away with the old system of professional leaders.

The workers' movement must organise politically. Until the majority agrees to change society along these lines, a change cannot take place. A socialist party with a straightforward revolutionary programme will rally the people behind it. Its vote will indicate the level of support reached for their platform, and encourage others to support it. And once it has won a majority of the electorate, the vote will be the legal mandate to transfer ownership of the industries to the people. At that critical point, the socialist party will be in possession of the State and will be in the most strategic position to prevent the political powers - the police and military - from being used against the new government. Political action is thus essential to minimise violence and bloodshed. With the new government secure, and in control of the nation, the old State powers can be dismantled, and, with them, their potential for future mischief.

Most people today discount the possibility of capitalism ever being dethroned. Capitalism, they say, is here to stay. After all, hasn't capitalism already vanquished socialism? The claim of efficiency for capitalism is pure nonsense. Capitalism has given us traffic jams and grid-lock rather than efficient mass-transit systems; a high percentage of potential industrial output standing idle; the incredible waste of planned obsolescence and duplicated effort; dependence on fossil fuels instead of renewable resources; the destruction of our nation's soil and aquifers; depletion of wildlife and fish stocks; the burning of the rainforests; the massive production and use of weapons which destroy wealth rather than create it. The list could be extended almost indefinitely. If some believe capitalism is the best we can do, they should take another look. If they understood capitalism better, they just might learn to hate it more. Many people think that the word capital is just another word for "money" or "wealth." For instance, a person might say something like, "I don't have enough capital to buy a new car. But capital is not just money. In fact, capital doesn't need to be money at all. Capital is wealth that its holder uses to get more wealth. If a company takes a certain amount of its money, its assets, and buys a piece of machinery, has its capital gone down? No. The new machinery has replaced the money as part of its capital. But the machinery is no more capital all by itself than money is. Your car is machinery, but it's not capital. The thing that makes the machinery a company buys into capital is its relation to labour, the workers who operate the machinery. When the workers go to work, they use the machinery to make things. When those things are sold, they are sold for a certain value, all of which has been created by the workers. But the workers don't get all the value their labour adds to the things they make. If they did, there would be no monetary value for the owner of the capital, no profit. It's this social relationship of owners and workers, the relationship that says the workers have to fork over part of the value they produce to the owners as the condition for being allowed to work, that makes wealth into capital.

Capitalism is not a type of government. There are capitalist dictatorships, governed by military strongmen, as well as capitalist republics, governed by elected representativesý of the people. The thing that makes them both capitalist is not the particular form of political machinery each has. What makes them capitalist is the economic relationship between the people who work and the people who own the workplaces. Under capitalism, those are two different groups. With socialism, they are one and the same. Under capitalism, those who do all the work are only allowed access to the workplaces and the chance to earn a living on condition that they fork over most of the value they add during the production process to the people who own the workplace. Thus, a person who adds $30 each hour to the product or service he or she works on may only be paid $10 for each hour she works. The rest goes to capital: the owner of the workplace, his banker, insurance company, marketing consultant, etc. To maintain this cosy state of affairs the capitalist class uses its great wealth to control the electoral process and screens out any political candidates who might interfere too much with the very undemocratic running of the nation's workplaces. Whatever the political government does, it is forbidden to really interfere in the economic relationship between workers and owners, or to do anything, however sorely needed by the vast majority of the population, against the basic interests of the owning capitalists.

 Socialism, on the other hand, the workers collectively are also the owners of the economy. All the goods and services created by the people who work belong to the working people who have a democratic say in the running of those workplaces, which is a major advance for democracy. In fact, democracy is the defining characteristic of true socialism. Socialism cannot be given to the workers by a political or intellectual elite, however sincere it may be. Socialist self-management can only be built by the informed and united action of the workers themselves.

Toronto and Vancouver awash in gun violence

 And it is getting worse.

 The gun-control group PolySeSouvient have their panties in a twist because they think the federal government is not doing enough to implement gun control laws. 

When Bill C-71 was passed in 2018 the feds said it would require sellers to verify the validity of a firearms licence before selling a non-restricted firearm. This was to prevent buyers from using stolen, borrowed or counterfeit licences. 

The problem, they claim, is that there is no obligation on the part of the seller to provide this information to the government. Though Poly-.etc. are mad about it they don't seem to realize that under capitalism everything can be had for a price. 

The feds can pass any law they want, but if someone wants a gun, they'll find a way to get one, hence we have cities like Toronto and Vancouver awash in gun violence and getting worse.

S.PC. Members.

Sky High Cost of Homes in The Toronto Area.

The cost of homes in Canada's major metropolitan areas has gone sky-high. The average price of houses in Vancouver increased 14.5 % to $1,117 million from June 2020 to June 2021. In the second quarter of this year, home prices in the Toronto area rose 18.2 % to a median price of $1.03 million. A June poll by the Vancouver polling firm, Research Co. found in B.C. and Ontario, 19% of respondents said housing issues were their main concern.

For those who cannot afford a house in the city, the choice isn't very nice; they can live out of town and pay fares to commute to work there or pay big city rents, which ain't cheap.

 Boy, what a system we live under.

S.P.C. Members.

Against Sham ‘Socialism’

 

The intellectual apologists and pundits of capitalism assure that socialist ideas are long dead and Marxism is no longer relevant in today's world. What they fail to acknowledge is that the vast part of Marx's writing was not about socialism, but about capitalism, and how this system affects our lives. And what he revealed and explained has not fundamentally changed.

Marx held it necessary for the attainment of socialism were production for people's needs and use, not for sale and profit; abolition of the wage system; and the replacement of the nation-state. Marx showed by historical analysis that the nation-state is founded on private property and private control over the means of life. The state, from its origin in the ancient world to govern slave-labour economies, to feudal and finally to capitalist society, has been an instrument of class rule. The state "is but the executive committee of the ruling class," Marx wrote, and "the existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery." He held that under socialism the political state must die out and some other institution, which he did not describe, would replace it. Whether it is argued that the former Soviet Union or the Scandinavian welfare state had socialism what will be found in Marx's basic principles are absent. There are many reasons why the USSR never achieved socialism, but the most important was that Russia was a feudal society in 1917. It had neither the economic base nor the political experience to organise a socialist society.

Economic democracy requires that we, as a society, gain control over the most important parts of our lives. Production and distribution will be planned to meet the needs of society. This will be a society of cooperating interests rather than conflicting material interests. People's priorities, their attitudes about life and their fellow humans, will change in an atmosphere of cooperation. The needs of the environment and consideration for all forms of life will be paramount. 

Under capitalism, all workers are economically exploited, although this robbery is well-hidden in the phrase, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work." To understand the robbery, you need to study Marx. In our new society, we will receive the full product of our labour. Our compensation will be direct, as individual consumers of food, clothing, shelter, recreation, etc., and indirect, as social consumers of roads, schools, parks, and the repair and replacement of the tools of production that we cooperatively own. Socialism will abolish the wage system and thereby correct the imbalance between production and consumption that creates such catastrophic problems under capitalism. Under capitalism, almost everything that is produced is produced for profit. The needs of humanity, and the needs of all life, are subordinated to the bottom line. As capitalism gained ascendancy in the world, everything was turned into a commodity to be bought and sold.

Marx showed how the introduction of new machinery and labour-saving methods by one capitalist requires industry-wide imitation by others and results in ever-increasing unemployment. He explained the process by which wealth concentrates into the hands of a few and how small capitalists and independent producers lose their property and fall into the ranks of the working class. In Capital, Marx shows us that labour is the source of all social wealth. Capital is wealth that has been stolen at the point of production from previous generations of workers. Capitalists, the biggest recipients of government welfare, are not the slightest interested in laissez-faire capitalism. Major corporations benefit from government-funded research and product development free and gratis. Military spending has provided them with a steady market for years. The only time capitalists promote laissez-faire capitalism is when they are trying to take away social programmes. They are only interested in eliminating the pittance that goes to their worker victims so they can keep more of the wealth they've robbed from us.

Was Marx correct? Today, 90% of us work for someone else, and only 5% own all the means of production. We now talk of the 1%, the 0.1% and even the 0.01% controlling and directing the wealth of the world. Not only is the relative position of the great majority falling as opposed to the tiny mega-rich minority, the absolute real wages of the bottom 80% are falling, resulting in a declining standard of living for the average worker. Anyone wanting to defend capitalism could have made some sort of case if the economic pie were shrinking. But for poverty and homelessness to be growing at a time when we have more real wealth in goods and services than ever before indicts capitalism as a criminal, or at best, a criminally inefficient system.

Claims that CEOs increase operational efficiency and create wealth thus deserving of their privilege and rewards is conflating the creation of wealth with the creation of profit. These increases in productivity are generally made by automating, speeding up, or otherwise reducing the amount of labour time spent on each article produced. Then the company can lower its price to take markets from the competition, forcing the competition to lower its costs in the same way or face going out of business.

 

Building an economic democracy is a major undertaking that will require both political and industrial action. We will need to set up a labour party whose sole platform will be a demand for economic democracy, and at the same time organise a new union movement. We must end the system. We need an economic democracy now!

Against our capitalist enemy

  

"My friends, never put your trust in, and never follow after, men who pretend to be able to manufacture a revolution. A revolution, a rolling away of the whole from evil to good, from wrong to right, from injustice and oppression to righteousness and equal rule, never yet was manufactured, and never will be manufactured..." - Rev. Joseph Rayner Stephens, Chartist  

The objective of socialists is the abolition of man’s exploitation by man. Socialism is as staunchly opposed to the conquest and exploitation, by whatever means, of race by race, nation by nation, or state by state, as it is to the exploitation of man by man.

Socialism is conceived as a society without exploitation, organised democratically for the common good. Socialism would mean the end of economic anxiety and insecurity for all. The ruling class does not like reasoned rational thought; it prefers regimented minds. Capitalism has shown that it cannot advance civilisation, but only drive it further along the road of conflict, human degradation, barbarism and ruin. It simply makes no sense to us when we are told that approaching capitalist barbarism diminishes the prospects of socialism and it is better for us to give up the fight. That is the talk of demoralised wage slaves. It is precisely the fact that capitalism is a growing threat that we should redouble our efforts to bury it. We reiterate our trust in the working people and dedicate our organisation to socialist emancipation.

Economic democracy means the end of the capitalist market, whose only goal is to gain the highest profit through the maximum exploitation of the working class. Labour-power will no longer be a commodity to be bought and sold in the marketplace. Workers will no longer be exploited. Workers will collectively own and run the workplaces. Workers will democratically control all of society. Production will be based on the needs and wants of all working people, taking into account environmental protection, conservation of resources and the needs of workers of other countries. Because we will be working and producing to meet our own needs and not for the profit of others, and because we will own and control the technology and use it to meet real human needs, we will be able to provide everyone with a comfortable and secure livelihood working far less than we do now. The workweek will be reduced and leisure time increased for all workers. We can't know exactly how the revolution will take place. But we do know that without organisation -- both political and economic, it can never take place.

Marx used the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" to mean control by the working class and excluding the property-owning bourgeoisie. He did not mean dictatorship as the word is often used today, as one-man rule or the one-party state.

All social wealth is ultimately the product of labour and labour alone. This includes the factories, technology and all other means of production, which are the product of past labour.

Capitalist development has placed the modern facilities of production under the lock and key of private ownership. As a result, the working class majority suffers from growing privation and all the social ills emanating from that maldistribution.

The only solution is for the working class to organise and establish economic democracy. In doing so, it can reestablish and reclaim possession of the wealth that past generations of workers created.

Since this wealth was created by the collective labour of society, it rightfully belongs to all society. The fact that it today is privately owned by a few is the result of it being "legally" stolen from the working class. Society thus has the right to reclaim the property in the name of human survival, social well-being and progress.

When a majority of society asserts its inalienable right to reorganise the structure of society, it must break the bonds of the old system's precepts. The new society will not "compensate" any capitalist, large or small, for taking over the means of production that rightly belongs to all society. In liberating society from all the constraints and evils imposed by the system of private property. Former capitalists need not lead deprived lives under economic democracy. They will be free to join former members of the working class in the community of free, self-governing producers. Like everyone else, they will be able to enjoy a life of material abundance and security, with a shortened workweek and under improved conditions. They will enjoy all the other numerous social benefits of life under a sane, healthy and peaceful social system and will enjoy the fruits of economic democracy.