Scottish Racism has Not Gone Away

At least a quarter of those surveyed said they feel discrimination in Scotland has become more prevalent. 

Of those who have experienced prejudice, 25% felt it had happened when applying for a job, 18% said it had affected promotion chances, and another 18% believed it impacted attempts to seek equal pay. 

More than one third - 35% - reported experiencing discrimination while using transport services and 20% when accessing healthcare. 

A significant majority - 89% - felt this was because of their perceived ethnicity, while 66% felt it was also based on their perceived religion.

Some 37% with a black African Caribbean heritage said they have experienced prejudice in Scotland in the past two years, compared with 35% of those of Asian heritage, and 24% for mixed heritage respondents. 

Instances of prejudice may include name-calling, the use of inappropriate language, incidents on public transport and prejudice in the workplace. Discrimination at work could include unfair assumptions about an employee's ability in relation to promotion, or employers not wanting a particular racial profile to become the public face of an organisation. 

Lead researcher Professor Nasar Meer, of the University of Edinburgh's School of Social and Political Science, said: "This survey builds on others in previous years and points to a persistent trend of racial discrimination of black and ethnic minority Scots.” 

Ending racism will take much more than moral appeals to people's tolerance or the passing of anti-discrimination laws. Such approaches leave untouched the root causes of racial division. Recent events has shown how vulnerable and temporary reforms are regards equality are under capitalism. The underlying forces of the profit system, which make poverty, urban decay and unemployment permanent problems, continually overwhelm patchwork efforts to improve the status of minorities within the working class. The concept of "inferior" and "superior" races that had been fostered by capitalists has persisted. It will take the successful outcome of yet another struggle -- the class struggle -- before workers of all backgrounds will have the power to collectively enforce their claim to justice for all.

People, Planet, and Peace Not Profits!

Socialists! Some have been remembered. Many have been forgotten. Most have never been heard of. Socialists are people who want revolutionary change. Socialists are people who have promoted a new society with some success, with little success, and with no success. Socialists long for justice and fairness. Socialist knowledge leads to understanding. The more social change is discussed, the more the overthrow of private property is seen as a real possibility for the movement.

Socialism as a money-free, wage-free, state-free society, with the free distribution of goods and services, existing on a world scale. Socialism means a class-free society. It therefore presupposes not only the end of private property of the means of production, henceforth managed in a planned way by the associate producers of society.themselves, but it also calls for a level of development of the productive forces which makes possible the withering away of commodity production; of money, and of the state. The Socialist Party has only one purpose, that is to establish a socialist system

Under capitalism, the productive resources, land, machinery, materials and so on are owned and controlled by a minority of the population. The overwhelming majority of people are propertyless and can only get access to the necessities of life by working for the minority as wage and salaried employees. This is the latest and by far the most efficient form of the master and slave relationship. Workers fending for themselves on wages and free to roam the earth in search of employment are far more productive than their predecessors were as serfs or chattel slaves. Capitalism is run from top to bottom by the hired labour of the working class. It is a society torn by antagonism, the most important being that of the class struggle between capitalist and worker.

The capitalist class continue to dominate society by having control of political power and so having at their disposal the power of the armed forces, police, judiciary and so on. Political parties are at present returned to power by a majority of the electorate to run capitalism. So that capitalism with its rich and poor, production for sale and profit, its strife and warfare keeps going because the majority of people who are exploited by it accept it as being the best of all possible worlds. Socialism, where production will be solely for use, where strife arising from a multitude of social divisions will have given way to peace based on social unity; can only be established once a majority understand it and are organised politically to get it.

The source of all wealth is the application of human labour power to materials found in nature. As William Petty put it, Labour is the father and Nature the mother of wealth. Production is a vast co-operative effort, involving the world-wide division of labour. Production is carried out by process workers, managers, technicians, clerks and cleaners — all of whom are equally necessary to production. Yet despite this co-operative effort, the products belong to a section only of society.

The change the Socialist Party advocate is this: The means and instruments of labour should cease to be the monopoly of a few and should become the property of the whole community. The community, organised on a democratic basis, could then use them as it thought fit to meet the needs of its members, individually and collectively.

In such a society buying and selling, prices and money would be superfluous. These are features only of a private property society in which wealth is individually or sectionally owned. In a socialist society the wealth, produced by social labour, will belong to society as soon as it is produced. After setting aside wealth to renew and build up the instruments of production, the rest can enter directly into the consumption-fund of society. The problem of distribution will be the technical one of how to move the wealth to where it is needed. The productive resources of the world, with the most modern productive techniques, are quite capable of providing enough for all. Society can go over to free distribution just as soon as there is production for use on the basis of the common ownership of the means and instruments of wealth-production. With free distribution people will want more, and certainly better goods. But, once the barrier of profit has been removed, these demands can be met. Capitalism has had its day and it is time to change to give us a new society and a new style of living.

We need socialism

In Socialism there will be no market, trade or barter. In the absence of a system of exchange, money will have no function to perform. Individuals will participate freely in production and take what they need from what is produced. The fact that Socialism will be based on common ownership does not mean that an individual will have no call on personal effects. It means essentially that no minority will have control over or possession of natural resources or means of production. Individuals will stand in relation to each other not as economic categories, not as employers and employees or buyers and sellers, but simply as human beings producing and consuming the necessary things of life. In Socialism there will be a common interest in the planning and smooth operation of production. Work will be a part of human co-operation in dealing with practical problems. Work will be one aspect of the varied yet integrated life of the community. 

With the change in the object of society, that is human welfare instead of profit, man will freely develop agriculture and housing, produce useful things and maintain services. As well as material production, man will freely develop desirable institutions such as libraries, education facilities, centres of art and crafts and centres of research in science and technology. Once produced, goods will be transported to centres of distribution where all will have the same right of access to what is available according to individual need. It will be a simple matter of collecting what is required. As well as tradition and geography, it will be a matter of organisation and practicality as to which things will require a complex world division of labour for their production and which things will be produced regionally. 

The insecurities of our present acquisitive society drive men and women into ruthlessly selfish attitudes and actions which frustrate the human need for co-operation. With success in this competitive race goes a hollow pride; with failure there goes guilt and stigma. Against this background the failure is general because where the individual is isolated, co-operation breaks down. 

Socialism will establish a community of interests. The development of the individual will enhance the lives of other men and women. Equality will manifest attitudes of co-operation. The individual will enjoy the security of being integrated with society at large. Socialism will end national barriers. The human family will have freedom of movement over the entire earth. Socialism would facilitate universal human contact but at the same time would take care to preserve diversity. Variety in language, music, handicrafts, art forms and diet etc will add to all human experience.

 Socialism will eliminate alienation because its relationships and organisation will be centred on human needs and not on economic forces external to human needs. The whole community will relate on equal terms about the means of production and the earth's resources and co-operate to produce goods, services and amenities solely for use. This will be an association of men and women in conscious control of their own lives, living for themselves with the freedom to decide upon social projects and to organise resources to complete those projects. Socialism places people themselves at the centre of social organisation. Equality, co-operation and democratic participation will bring productive efficiency in response to human needs. But more than that, it will do so in circumstances in which the self-directed individual will live positively, integrating his own life with the development of the whole community.

Socialism will combine different methods of production where this might be considered necessary by the community. It will deploy all its resources more freely according to practicality and desirability regardless of possibly different rates of working efficiency.

Socialism will enjoy more people available for the production of useful wealth; without the limits of market capacity it will enjoy greater use of production methods; without price competition it will enjoy wider selection of production methods; with the ending of national barriers it will enjoy a more rational deployment of world resources; and without capital investment it will enjoy greater adaptability of social production. 

Socialism will combine all these practical advantages with all the criteria for the selection of production methods according to need, such as material necessity, the enjoyment of work, safety, care of the environment, conservation. 

Socialist Standard No. 1382 October 2019

October 2019 PDF Version

• Editorial: Neither Brexit nor EU but World Socialism
  
• Pathfinders: Capitalism’s Holy Grail
  
• Letters
  
• Cooking the Books I: Who Are the Working Class?
  
• Wood for the Trees: The Myth of Parliament
  
• Material World: Indonesia: From Anti-Imperialism to Imperialism
  
• Extinction Rebellion: New Label Old Idealism
  
• Inequality: Yachts and Diseases
  
• Animal Farms: Wildlife Trafficking
  
• No Deal Brexit: Parasitical Fisticuffs
  
• Law and Order: Reactionary Fantasies
  
• Marx, Engels and Science
  
• Cooking the Books II: Not applying technology
  
• Proper Gander
  
• Reviews
  
• 50 Years Ago: The Failure of Civil Rights
  
• Meetings
  
• Rear View
  
• Free Lunch
  

A Party of Vision

It is either socialism or capitalism — complete freedom or total slavery.  

1. The abolition of the private or state ownership of the means of production.
2. Elimination of competition and production for exchange value and its replacement by democratic production for use.
3. Workers’ and people’s management of the economy and society.
4. The abolition of wage labour. 
5. The elimination of classes. 
6. The disappearance of the state. 
7.  From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.

Capitalism is a system of commodity production (that is, the production of goods for sale and not for direct use by the producer) which is distinguished by the fact that labour power itself becomes a commodity. The major means of production and exchange which make up the capital of society are owned privately by a small minority, the capitalist class (the bourgeoisie), while the great majority of the population consists of proletarians. capitalism is a system of exploitation of the working class (the proletariat) by the capitalist class.

Marx defined capitalism as a mode of production based on generalised commodity production. All products and elements in the labour process are commodities. Goods and services are produced for exchange on the market, rather than for their use by the population. The result is that capitalist production is production for surplus value (commodities in relation to exchange value represent more value than that advanced for their production in the form of commodities and money).

Generalised commodity production and surplus values can only exist when regulated by a market economy and competition between capitalist enterprises. As Marx put it:

“By definition competition is the internal nature of capital. Its essential characteristic is to appear as the reciprocal action of all capital: it is an internal tendency appearing as imposed from outside. Capitalism does not and cannot exist except divided into innumerable capitals: for this it is conditioned by the action and reaction of one upon the others.” (Marx – Grundrisse)

The fact that modern monopoly capitalism necessitates state intervention, planning (and even nationalisation) to survive and function efficiently is not in itself enough to change the system. For such planning is done precisely to ensure the survival of capitalism within a competitive market structure.

What socialism is all about in the last analysis is the conquest of human freedom for the greatest possible number to decide their own fate in all key sectors of life. This is, in the first place, true for all wage earners, who are under the economic compulsion to sell their labour power. Socialism will be accepted only if it is considered radically emancipatory on a world scale without exception. That is to fight against any condition in which human beings are despised, alienated, exploited, oppressed or denied basic human dignity. There is no better way to be a good human being in this world than to dedicate your life to this great cause. That’s why the future is with socialism. Understand that you cannot be happier than if you dedicate your life to the defence of the exploited, the oppressed, the downtrodden, the despised.

Arouse, ye slaves! Declare war on the capitalist system. We are educating, we are agitating, we are organising, that is to say we are preparing for when socialists will be the majority, declaring for the common ownership of the means of production and distribution and when for a’ that and a’ that, man to man the world o’er, shall brothers be for a’ that.

All power to the workers!

Working people are rightly discontented with things as they were and things as they are and things as they appear likely to be. But they must reject the lure of the populist and reactionary demagogues on both the Left and Right. Our fellow-workers will also reject the socialist alternative if socialists fall to their knees, to beg and whine for reform. The people will not support a socialist movement if it confines itself to some relatively minor demands for this trifling improvement or that, for this trifling right or that. The people will not support the socialist movement merely because it is composed of honourable men and women who are well-meaning and good intentioned yet go to the masters cap in hand to plead for concessions and palliatives.

A juicy carrot is dangled just in front of the donkey but always just out of reach, in order to keep it going with the heavy load on his back. Any politician readily makes promises of the good things of life for the future. Whoever tells the workers that they must accept their burden today because of the economic crisis, will tell them to accept a heavier one tomorrow because of the another economic crisis.

We are living under a system which is more and more clearly revealed as the enemy of humanity and the planet. The destructive threat of capitalism is so acute that humanity cannot afford the luxury of a lengthy process of gradual reforms and half-measure palliatives. The present system of capitalism is directly the cause of the many evils which now prey upon society

Capitalism has vast productive potential but only means poverty for the masses. It brings deprivation to the working people. Capitalism is responsible for the destruction of the environment. The root cause of all this is capitalism’s the quest for profit, which takes precedence over everything. The only solution is to destroy it and build a new social system. Capitalism cannot be reformed. Mankind has undergone many changes in its history, but these have simply meant finding new ways to exploit the labouring people.

The Socialist Party reaffirms its adherence to the principles of international socialism. We believe that the only manner in which the workers may permanently better their condition is through a working class party organised and controlled by the workers. The Socialist Party proposes the organisation of the workers as a class, the overthrow of capitalist rule, and the conquest of political power by the workers. 

We declare the Socialist Party to be the party of the working class with intentions of socialising the means of production. The workers shall own and control land, factories, mills, mines, transportation systems, and financial institutions. The workers to be economically independent and able to provide for themselves must collectively own and operate the means of production under a democratic administration of industry. The substitution of cooperation and democratic methods of production and distribution would remove these evils by lifting the workers to a higher plane both physically and mentally. 

Our vision is of a party which does not claim a monopoly of correct ideas but which brings together all the correct initiatives which exist in society and builds them into a coherent whole. Our task is to abolish capitalism and bring about a socialist society. Let us stand as the representatives of the clearest-cut opposition to capitalism the world has ever seen; let us stand in the forefront of the revolutionary movement. Worldwide, an upsurge of socialism is bound to come. It is more and more apparent that profit is an absurd principle by which to organise the world’s resources.

 The socialist society of the future will draw its strength from the new organisational forms thrown up by the mass movement that arise to establish it. Democracy is not something invented by the capitalists, its roots go back to the earliest struggles of working people against structures of class, racial and gender oppression. The new society of the future will carry this to fruition.

Red Dawn

The impressive demonstrations for climate justice continue and we of the Socialist Party are proud of its impact. Not because we invented the environmentalist movement, not because we lead this movement – but because its triumph is our triumph, as it is that of all people who cherish freedom, democracy, and human equality. Every achievement in this fight is, as we see it, a milestone on the road to that complete socialist democracy which is our political goal. Maybe we are not so badly off as it seems.

Our pride is that today and tomorrow, as from the beginning, we have been supporters, firm and without reservation, of a sustainable ecologically balanced and benign society. Without any partisan motives, the Socialist Party never sought to issue “instructions and “directives” to the environment movement. We shun such a leadership role, in the first place. And in the second place, we have little criticism to make of a movement that has achieved the success in mobilising literally millions, in protests all over the world. Millions shared our greatest of all dreams, the dream of a brotherhood of all men and women marching for a planet without hunger, without ignorance, without war. Our hearts are lifted by the thought of so many participating in a fight for this goal. But we have to ask: What next?

We socialists are obliged to be true to ourselves. We are a political organisation. It is our justification for existence. Political action is our means, not direct action. Socialists are seeking a better world founded on common ownership, equality and democracy. Egalitarian ideals have animated the great fighters for human progress throughout the ages, that led men and women to lay down their lives to resist repression and oppression. We continue to hold such ideals and they motivate the members of our party. We are engaged in a struggle for the final abolition of all forms of human slavery. We invite our fellow-workers to participate in that struggle. Socialism, real socialism, is the only alternative to capitalism; and it is worth fighting for.

There is an enormous confusion in the use of the term “socialism.” It is highly suspect yet so respectable that even those ruling parties claim to be “socialist” which do not ever intend to transform corporate property. The former Eastern Europe was labeled “socialist” although the means of production are there nationalised and turned into state property rather than really socialised. Workers remain wage-labourers. They have no say about the organisation and planning; they do not decide about the distribution of the results of their work. 

Their social emancipation requires, therefore, the abolition of both private and state ownership of the means of work; these must be socialised. The socialisation of the means of production is the transformation of private property into common social property. To be common social property means to belong to the society as a whole without anybody’s right to sell it. The fact is there is not much discussion by the Left about "withering away” of the state. Lenin had neither the time nor the inclination to put his ideas from State and Revolution into practice.

Opponents of socialism frequently say as an objection that there are different kinds of socialists and different kinds of socialism. Let them use the following statement as ammunition if they can. There are as many different kinds of "socialists" as there are different socialists. There are also varying expressions of the details of socialism, but they all rest on one fundamental principle, the common ownership and democratic administration of the social tools of production and distribution of wealth. State ownership for instance, is therefore not considered as collectively owned and certainly not democratically administered. 

The co-operative commonwealth - the reorganisation of society

The socialist revolution that will put an end to capitalist exploitation and all the forms of oppression that inevitably accompany it. Since human communities have become class-divided communities through the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a minority of people who constitute themselves as the ruling class, class struggle has been the motor of history, and it will remain so as long as the class division of society has not been abolished. Capitalism to-day must answer to the charge of blocking the wheels of progress.

The Materialist Conception of History is one of the fundamental principles of socialism. It is the view of history which ascribes the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all events in the history to the economic development of society, to the changes in production, distribution and exchange, to the resulting division of society into classes and to the struggles between these classes. This generalisation was first formulated by Karl Marx. Also Lewis Morgan, an independent inquirer, arrived at the same conclusion. Marx’s interpretation does not imply that only economic motives and no others have any weight. There can be no fundamental change in the living conditions of the people while a minority holds economic power in the natural resources and in the right to exploit the majority for individual advantages. 

The Socialist Party insist that the basis of exploitation — the use of men and women for personal profits and power — lie in the capitalist system. Reforms do not remove the villain of the piece from the scene of action while he holds economic power the people. The Socialist Party does not want any bloody revolution. Revolution means change. There have been social revolutions in art, industry and social relations which have not caused bloodshed. There can be no real democracy while wealth weighs the scales against the interests of the people.

We often speak of the individual employer as a “robber.” No single employer can lessen exploitation and continue to exist. It is the system as a whole that must be judged. Private property for the labourer is but a farce, since the class that preaches most of the virtues of private property is the one that takes from the producing class all that it produces except a scanty subsistence. The socialist sees that he can further his or her own interest only by working for that of his or her class. While a social organisation depends on the existence of two classes, one following its self-interest, the other a code of morals serving to maintain it in subservience, there can be no reconciliation of the interests of all the individuals composing society with the interests of the social whole. This is conceivable only in a society of individuals to whom equal economic opportunity is assured. The ruling class has followed as a motive its self-interest, restrained only by the fear of rebellion on the part of the class of slaves, serfs or wage-earners. The subservient class, on the other hand, has been lulled into acquiescence in its enslavement through the persistent inculcation of the “virtues” of self-sacrifice, humility, reverence, docility, frugality and patriotism. The blindness of class antagonisms, will be solved by the abolition of these antagonisms in the co-operative commonwealth, the reorganisation of society on the basis of ownership by the working people of the land, mines, factories, means of transport, as well as the health, educational and cultural services required to fulfill their needs. 

The Socialist Party believes that the fundamental basis of a true socialist society must be change from a capitalist system of ownership, exploitation and control to one of ownership, administration and control of the affairs of a nation by the men and women who produce its wealth.

It's up to us.

Socialism will not come as a “gift,” from humanitarian saviours nor “automatically” from the bitter class struggles. The ideas and outlook of the capitalists have become deeply entrenched and is promote the so-called “theory of human nature,” which says that people are basically selfish and greedy and aggressive and those traits are inborn and will never change, so socialism is bound to fail and is a hopeless Utopia. This “theory” is garbage. There is no such thing as “human nature.” People ask, can there be such a thing as a secure and happy future for all, or must the rat race continue? Is it inevitable that a small number of rich people should cream off most of the benefits of modern industry and technology, while the rest spend their days at heavy and often boring work, whether in mines, factory, offices or in the home? Are things arranged like this for always because of faults of “human nature”, “man’s natural greed”, and the like? It is not “human nature” that is the cause of the problems people face today. It is the way society is organised, with a minority of people owning and controlling the wealth, the industry of our country, and excluding the vast majority of the people from any real say in the running of society. This is what lies at the root of the problems that working people face. It is this system of capitalism,

In the slave system, it was considered “natural” for one group of people, the slaveowners, to own other people, the slaves. In capitalist society, this idea is regarded as absurd, because there is no longer the need for slaves as private property. But today's system has every need for wage-slaves. So it presents as “natural” the kind of society where a small group, the capitalists, own the means of production and on that basis force the great majority of society to toil to enrich them. The slaveowners and the capitalists have one fundamental thing in common–they are both exploiters, and they both regard it as the correct and perfect order of things for a small group of parasites to live off the majority of labouring people. They differ only in the form in which they exploit and therefore in their view of how society should be organised to ensure this exploitation. When humanity has achieved socialism, society as a whole will consciously reject the idea that any one group should privately own the means of production. Then wage-slavery, based on the ownership of capital as private property, will be seen as just absurd as chattel slavery, based on the ownership of other people as private property. The working class, has no interest in promoting private gain at the expense of others and every interest in promoting cooperation. For only in this way can it emancipate itself and all humanity.

Many people know that life can be improved to make it better for all. The Socialist Party believes that within the way our society is ordered today, there are already forces growing that can change it for a better one. This conviction comes from our study of life as it really is, and from the lessons learnt from the experience of fighting for a better future. It comes from the study of what life was like in the past, how it has changed and what made it change.

Starting from the understanding that socialism is not won by propaganda speeches, some have come to elevate the day-to-day struggles to the exclusion of the fight to win the battle of ideas for the minds of our fellow-workers. Certainly, socialism will not come by converting people to by educational lectures and party-paper propaganda. But we do suggest that it is urgent that we break with the outlook which sees these struggles as ends in themselves. It is necessary to resist in every way the suffering brought upon the workers by the introduction of automation: but it is also necessary to explain the new perspectives opened to a socialist society by automation.

The Socialist Party hope to participate in achieving socialism, that is, the ownership of the means of production by the working people, the extension of the socialised process of production into socialised ownership. Capitalism suppresses new means of production to protect vested interests or where profits are threatened. Working people who have produced all the wealth around us must come into ownership and control of what is their own by right, so that they can then build the society and produce the things they want. The vast majority of the people gain nothing from capitalism and would lose nothing with its passing. Even today, although they do not own or control the industry, they in fact are turning the wheels that keep all industry going.

 The Socialist Party is concerned more with people and change than with anything else. Our daily experience still confirms the truth of our way of looking at human society. Everything created and valued by men and women, all wealth, has been produced as a result of human labour being applied to the materials supplied by nature. Under capitalism, a minority still controls the wealth of the nation (the raw materials, the factories and the land) and the majority work with machines in the factories that they do not own. As in previous societies that are divided into classes, under capitalism, the interests of the opposing classes cannot be reconciled. There is class struggle between the employers on the one hand, and the workers on the other. Class struggle, or “strife”, as some would call it, is built into capitalist society, because it is not possible to satisfy the capitalists’ aspirations and those of the workers at the same time. 

The workers fight for better wages and conditions, and the capitalist lives to make the maximum profit out of the labour of the workers. Profits can only come from the value created by the workers. Hence the conflict. The capitalist is interested in organising the production of those goods alone which will make him a profit, while the worker is interested not in profit, but in being able to buy what he wants and needs. The higher the wages paid to the worker, the greater the threat to the capitalist’s profits. Socialism will enable us to overcome the brakes on progress of capitalism. It will release the creative energies of the people. Different conflicting classes will cease to exist, as all people make their contribution to the productive life of society. The oppressive functions of the state as we know them will become redundant, and will wither away as they fall out of use. What will remain will be only a democratic administration of production in the hands of the people.

Mankind will be able to develop its talents to the full. With the harnessing of science and technology to industry, boring and repetitive work will be eliminated. Work for all will become as it is today for only a very small minority—interesting and satisfying. The essential difference between town and country will be ended, as housing, travel and cultural facilities become available to all people. The boundaries between mental and physical labour will be removed as all people receive the freedom and means by which to exercise their potential, their talents and abilities. 

But things do not stop there. There will never be a time when mankind has solved all problems and then sits down to live like a cabbage. What happens is that the problems change. They become more worthy of our time and attention. Life for all will be plentiful, secure, happy and interesting.

The building of this new society is the aim of the Socialist Party.

THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE FUTURE

The Socialist Party demands social ownership of the tools and machinery of labour only; it does not concern itself with the part of property that is devoted to personal and private uses. The introduction of socialist production not require the expropriation of non-productive wealth. Co-operative production requires also common ownership in the means of production. Private property in the means of production is irreconcilable with co-operative work. The aim of socialism is to place the worker in possession of the necessary means of production. It is the capitalists who expropriate the producing class. Socialist society puts an end to this expropriation. Socialism will not put an end to development. On the contrary, it is the only means to ensure progress. Capitalist society is based on the robbery of the working class. The capitalists themselves are the greatest criminals and murderers of all time. Socialist society will eliminate the criminal capitalist class.

Socialist communities will have inherited from capitalism its “division of labour”–division between mental and manual workers, between workers in industry and working people in agriculture, between the city and the countryside, and between workers in different branches of the economy. They will break down these divisions and step by step eliminate all aspects of commodity production (production for exchange controlled by private individuals, or groups of individuals, rather than production for use controlled by society as a whole), which contains within it the core of the separation of society into classes, based on private ownership of means of production. The working class must also overcome the inequalities that capitalism fosters between men and women, between black and white, between young and old. When all of society has been transformed, the ulcers left over from capitalism have been eliminated, and the community of workers has been established, then a completely class-free society will have been achieved, and humanity will enter a whole new stage of history. There will no longer be the need for the state, since there will no longer be any class to suppress, and the state will be replaced with common administration by all of society. Socialism eliminates the anarchy of capitalism and its crises, by common ownership of the means of production and democratic planning of the economy. This removes the tremendous barriers to production that capitalist relations have erected. 

Unemployment will be ended, because socialism will be able to make full use of the labour of everyone in society, while at the same time developing and introducing new technology and scientific methods to increase output. As machines replace workers, workers will not be thrown into the streets, but transferred to other jobs, reducing working hours for all workers. The nature of work itself will change completely, because the labour of the workers will no longer go to enrich capital to further enslave the working class, but to improve life today, while providing for the future, according to the conscious plan of the working class itself. The pride that workers have in their work will be unhindered by any sense that they are working themselves, or someone else, out of a job, or that they are being driven to produce for the private benefit of some moneybags, under the orders of his foremen and the constant threat of being fired. Automation and robotics will no longer be weapons in the hands of the capitalists to grind down the working class, and workers will no longer be a mere extension of the machine, as they are under capitalism. Instead machinery will become weapons in the hands of the working class in its own struggle to revolutionise society and overcome scarcity. 

All this will release the stored-up knowledge of the working class, based on its direct experience in production, and inspire workers to make new breakthroughs in improving production. Work itself will become a joy and enrichment of the worker’s life, instead of a miserable means to sustain existence, as it is under capitalism. Socialism will make possible the building of well-constructed housing for the masses of people. Under capitalism, it is more profitable to speculate in land, maintain slum housing and put capital into buildings for big business than to build decent housing. The slums, shanty towns, and ghettoes will be ripped down, and in their place new homes a will be built. More than that, housing construction will be part of an overall plan, in a rational way, so that homes are built near work-places, with easy access to schools, medical clinics, parks and other social services. Health care under capitalism is a nightmare for the people and big business for the drug companies, hospital corporations and others who make billions from the butchery of the people. Under socialism health care and hospitals will no longer be a means to make profit, but a means for the working class to prevent disease and to preserve the health of the people.

Education in class society reflects and promotes the interests of the ruling class and instills in the youth the values and outlook of this class. Under capitalism this means that education is geared to maintain the division of society into classes, the conditions of capitalist exploitation and the rule of the capitalists over the working class and masses of people. Capitalist education prepares the great majority of youth only for existence as wage-slaves and as a key part of perpetuating the capitalist system of wage-slavery distorts history to make it revolve around the “brilliant ideas” and individual heroism of great “geniuses,” Kings, Emperors, Presidents, bankers, industrialists and other representatives of the exploiting classes throughout history. Children are taught to compete against each other and that competition is what “makes this country great.” Reality is stood on its head, so that it seems that capital, not labour, is the source of all progress and that the workers live by the grace of the capitalists.

Education in socialism will serve the interests of society.

In capitalist society many workers and other oppressed people are drawn to religion because it represents their hopes and aspirations for a better life–projected, however, into the future and into another realm completely beyond man’s ability to understand. Since life is miserable on this Earth, the answer is to hope for a paradise in the hereafter. Religion serves capitalism by telling people that they are basically helpless before the forces of nature-and the rulers of society –and they should put their faith not in the ability of the masses of people to change the world, but in a supreme, supernatural being, or beings. And if that isn’t enough, religion can call up the image of fire and brimstone to threaten people. More, those who control major organised religions make huge fortunes from collecting large sums from their members, investing much of these sums and exploiting labour. While telling the people to wait for “pie in the sky,” these hypocritical leeches live like kings, right here and now, from the sweat and blood, hopes and fears, of the people. At the same time, in every community, hustlers of all kinds–calling themselves “men of god, prophets,” etc.– prey on workers and other poor people, promising them all kinds of miracles to ease their misery – for a nice fee (donation), of course.

The reorganisation of society is the Socialist Party case. Every political party defends the interest of one class or another in society. On all questions, in every battle, the Socialist Party defends the interests of the working class, and works to prepare its victory over the capitalists. It is made up those men and women who are most conscious of the need to fight, the most determined to fight for the liberation of their whole class and of all the oppressed people. The Party’s role is to educate, organise and mobilise the working class. The Party is the organisation that can orient the struggle of the entire class. It can bring an overall perspective to each branch of the workers’ movement and unite all the isolated battles into one powerful revolutionary storm. The Socialist Party can raise the discontent of the workers to the level of conscious political struggle to put an end to this criminal system of capitalism. We have fought the good fight, and will fight it again and again until at last the co-operative commonwealth shall be established and the red flag shall fly over all lands

Peace between the peoples - War against the exploiters