social solidarity

As 2019 draws to a close, we should remind ourselves of our goal and the reason for the Socialist Party and for us being members of that organisation. 

Socialism existed as a practical system for many centuries among the majority of peoples. They believed that the land was the common property of the family or the tribe just like the sun or the air. Even up to the present day “primitive” socialism exists among some people in some parts of the world. But primitive socialism differs from modern socialism in this way. Modern-day socialism presupposes a vast development of the forces of production, elaborate and complex technologies for large-scale out-puts and a class-conscious population. Socialism takes from capitalism its technical basis, its supply-chains, its knowledge and places them at the service of the  community. Suffice it to say, large-scale capitalist production supplies us with the basis for the new organisation of society. The machinery is all there set up. All that is needed is that we set it in motion for the benefit of all. The workers have at their disposal a thousand means of organising administration, control and division of products – Workers councils, factory committees, trade unions, co-operatives, etc., etc. There is no obstacle that cannot be overcome in a society that is based on labour and not on profit.

Socialism is not government ownership or control of industry, two things that are purely a capitalist expression. Socialism struggles for the abolition of the state, not the enlarging of its functions. Socialism, in the words of Engels, is not the government of persons, but the administration of things. Socialism is a free individual in a free society, the well-being of each assured by the well-being of all. Socialism is not only desirable, it is also possible practically and historically inevitable. Socialism is desirable because only socialism can put an end to the exploitation of man by man and of women by men. Because only socialism can put an end to the struggle for the re-division of the world, for national possessions, which takes place between the different continents, nations and races. Only socialism can put an end to war and poverty and the innumerable injustices which are an everyday feature of our lives.

He who possesses wealth and property possesses power. The working class is a poverty-stricken, propertyless class and without any real political power. But this situation cannot last indefinitely. The working class will come to realise that it is the victim of a system which exists only through its efforts and which heartlessly exploits it. Capitalist society cannot exist without the working-class. The demand of the workers is for social property or, more exactly, common ownership of the means of production – the land, factories, transport, etc. There should be common ownership of what is collectively produced. The working class in possession of the means of production, whether, produced by its own efforts or through the bounty of nature, will cease to be the slave of the capitalist class. Technology will cease to be a rival to the worker and will become a help, an aid, a friend. We will be assured of leisure for the development of all our faculties. From being a slave, a living instrument of production, we will become a self-conscious human being. The working class will abolish forever the exploitation of man by man. It will establish social equality. Present day society is based on a mistaken and blind individualism.
 
The immense majority of the producing class, the workers condemned to routine work which undermines their health – work associated with numerous accidents and illnesses. Enforced unemployment is the lot of the working-class on the onset of each periodic economic crisis. Diseases, the product of poverty decimates the toilers. Alcoholism and drug abuse, through which they seek forgetfulness of their miserable lives, poisons them and helps to bring about their physical and moral degeneration. The life of the worker is twice as short as that of the rich. Capitalist society condemns to poverty, enforced idleness, and starvation those whom it cannot employ for the purpose of enriching the capitalist class!

This is a true picture of society based on an internecine struggle between different classes, races, nations and individuals. Such a society is always in a state of disequilibrium like unto an inverted pyramid standing on its tip with base in the air. Our social system can rightly be described as a house upside down with its pillars where its roof should be. It is not the producing class, the creators of life, who rule but the parasites who dominate and oppress it. Socialism will establish a true equilibrium and put everything in its proper place. Modern science has created all the conditions of well-being and even of luxury. If applied to increase the things of life, our society would become an achievable heaven on earth and not a living hell. Mankind, instead of co-operating in the building of a harmonious sustainable planet, finds itself occupied in a war of each against all and a war with nature. The result has been a waste of resources. Socialism ends the causes of these rivalries and antagonism and forms a new society based on the principles of human solidarity and reciprocity. It will bring to a halt to all the socially unnecessary and unproductive work. Socialism consists not of the interests of some, but for the benefit of all.

Socialism is then from every point of view desirable. Socialism is possible now. It is possible because it corresponds to the interests of all; because it satisfies the goodwill the desire of well being, and the common interest of the producing class which forms the immense majority across the globe. Socialism is possible because men and women are more and more brought into close co-operation in pooling their efforts. All sorts of associations and organisations, political and intellectual, are accustoming humanity to collaborate in work and life. Socialism is possible because the technology available, the forces of production, thanks to automation, robotics and Artificial Intelligence, have reached an unheard of level of development. They only need to be put into motion for the benefit of everyone in order that all members of society may be assured of complete well-being. Rational organisation of production becomes more urgent.

Socialism is an historical necessity. It is the inevitable goal and culminating point of all historical and economical as well as intellectual political and cultural evolution. Organised,  producers can take over control of mass production; everything is ready to be placed in the hands of the workers who produce them. Socialism is the crowning point of social evolution where society works for the benefit of each and every one.

Our opponents say that is not practical, that we are Utopian dreamers. Our critics confront us with human “nature”. They tell us socialism is for saints and angels, not mortal men and women. They accuse men and women of being aggressive, greedy, selfish and evil and those human vices will never change. They advanced much the same arguments when we sought to abolish slavery. In the same way, the barons and lords defended the Divine Right of kings and demanded the peasants accept their station in life without dissent. Slaves were emancipated. Serfs were freed. And human “nature” was not to be fixed and immutable. It is mistaken to believe that human “nature” does not change. Everything changes in Nature and in life. Everything is in a process of transformation. Movement is the cosmic law of everything that exists. Everything evolves. History is a record of perpetual change. If everything changes, how is it possible to hold that the present system of property will always remain the same?

 Chattel slavery became feudalism which gave way to our wage-slavery, the last form of slavery. The wage system will have to give way to socialism which will bring to an end the exploitation of man by man and slavery in all its forms. Everything in our lives has changed. And yet our masters want to maintain society in its old barbaric state of struggle and poverty to preserve their privileges and retain their domination. True freedom does not exist where property is not common property, where men and women are the slave of employers, where the capitalist state has control of our lives. Liberty in our society is a word without meaning. Only a socialist world by placing the land, the factories at the service of all can guarantee real liberty to all. Workers will no longer have any necessity to destroy one another. The state-machine will disappear together with the parasitic class whose privileges it protects. All the natural wealth freed from the control of the property owners, all the inexhaustible riches of science and culture will be at our disposal. The only concern of society will be how to increase the pleasures of life, to perfect the technological tools in order to create the maximum amount of luxury and leisure. Freedom will then cease to be a slogan and will become a reality and the property of all. 

Nor do we forget that idleness is not the characteristic of a mankind. How can men and women work with enthusiasm when they know that their work will go to the enrichment of others? When workers understand that the product of their labour will belong to them, their family, their neighbours and friends, to the community and society at large, they will throw overboard the old repugnance which forced toil engendered in them. Work well regulated and apportioned will become attractive. It will become a joy and a pleasure, and this is because work is necessary for the physical and mental well-being of the individual. Socialism re-establishes the vital necessity for work. Socialism will leave the land with those who cultivate it. Only the huge parasitic land owners will be expropriated, because for these people the land is merely capital which realizes value through the labour of others. Unity between town and countryside will be the salvation of the world. Scientists, engineers and technicians are the “gilded servants” of capital, yet equally exploited and oppressed. Science is given lip service but is in reality the slave of the rich in the everyday practice of life. Socialism stands for scientific production. The more scientifically society is organised the greater benefit for all. In capitalist society machinery is used only when it is of benefit to the capitalists to do so. On the other hand socialist society will always be in need of it. Machinery of destruction is invented with powers that exceed all imagination. In capitalist society science is a servant of death, in socialist society it will be used for the purpose in increasing life and health.

There is no reason whatsoever to despair of human progress. What appears to us impossible today is done tomorrow. Today’s dream is tomorrow’s reality. Humanity must choose between the continuation of the capitalist system which leads to destruction and the organised revolution of international labour founded on the bases of solidarity and reciprocity through the socialisation and globalisation of the forces of production. Socialism win make of the Earth one country, single and indivisible, and taking into consideration its ethnic and linguistic peculiarities will assure the independence of each people by a free co-operative commonwealth for shared progress and happiness. Socialism stands for the end of the war and poverty. The future alone can tell what will be the precise forms and special methods of organisation. As we approach the socialist reality we will be able to foresee the general plan and the decisive direction.

Crime and Socialism

Capitalism has no remedy for crime. Crime is to be explained by the capitalist environment in which we live.

Crime did not flourish in early communistic communities because there was no private property and sex relations were free. It grew with the development of private property.

Crime consists of infringement against the social rules of the time. These rules in turn depend upon, or rise out of, the nature of the human communities. In the early communities these social rules were based upon communism and were formulated freely by the community as a whole. With the growth of private property the owners of private property became the rulers and law makers. Infringement of their laws became “crimes.” For example, to-day sex is a private property institution and sex relations outside of wedlock are regarded as crimes, except in circumstances where it suits the rulers—when the birthrate of prospective workers and fighters is going down, rich appetites have to be met, or the needs of soldiers attended to for the sake of morale.

What constitutes “crime" has varied as communities have developed. Among the Spartans in early Greek times thieving was a virtue because the Spartan ruling class was a small body among a host of subservient, and their wits had to be developed to the highest pitch for the purpose of repression. In Elizabethan times piracy by English sailors was a virtue because it brought maritime wealth to the English ruling class. In the later centuries private property owners stole millions of acres of common land from the people, but this was not regarded as crime because the new laws based upon private property excluded from their influence the land that had no individual owner but was free for the use of all. In our own day millions of men are trained to strangle, drown, blow to pieces, shoot and maim their fellow-men, but this large scale slaughter and destruction is not regarded as criminal because the rulers of a capitalist society justify it on suitable abstract principles.

 If a poor man kills another man no abstract principles will save him from the hangman. If a rich man kills another man he has many avenues to escape from the hangman.

Prostitution, over-drinking, over and under eating, the blind pursuit of wealth and the enslaving of native people, war, and the strain of modern life are all consequences of capitalism, and have a demoralising influence on people. All these things contribute to a weakening of the social instincts. They were present in previous forms of society, but have reached their highest expression and their greatest power for evil in the capitalist system.

Poverty and laborious lives induce a low intellectual condition and a brutalised outlook on life. These together with prostitution and unhealthy sex unions produce degeneracy and insanity.

Crime ratios are misleading. Large numbers of people commit crimes but never appear in criminal courts because they are rich or crafty. The poor prostitute figures in records, the rich rarely. While proof is difficult, it can hardly be doubted that much evasion of tax and similar regulations is carried on by monied men who are in a position to “know the ropes," or who can afford expert legal advice on ways of finding loopholes.

 The rate of crime depends upon the influence of the social factors mentioned above in the countries and among the people in question. What greater volume of crimes have Catholics committed than those committed by Protestants upon native peoples and upon men. women and children in the mines and factory hells of this country during the last century? The opera “Madame Butterfly" is based upon the attitude of Western man towards his Eastern sister, and many of those who go to see it and enjoy the luxury of shedding tears over the tragedy of Madame Butterfly are blind to their own share in similar tragedies.

We would remind fellow-workers that an understanding of the cause of crime requires also an understanding of what crime is.

When wealth becomes commonly owned and each can obtain what he needs, there will be no crimes against property, the intellectual condition of people will rise, and the heritage of degeneracy and insanity will disappear; when woman has no economic need to sell her body, prostitution will disappear; when the relations between the sexes are free and partnerships can be made and unmade according to the emotional requirements of each, sex crimes will disappear. Then at last we shall really live, healthy, happy and crimeless—morals, biology, psychology, religion, race, heredity, and every other ology notwithstanding!

An Open Letter to Those Describing Themselves as Socialists

As the old year draws to a close and a new one approaches perhaps we should make yet another appeal to our fellow-workers and urge them to make 2020 the year they begin the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism.

We state below some of the principles on which, from our point of view, a genuine socialist party must be based and we hope by making a useful contribution to your discussions. We have divided our report into four parts:

I Socialism
II The Path to Socialism
III Futility of Reformism
IV A Model of Socialist Society

I. Socialism

1) The socialist party must first be clear in its socialism, that socialism must be a system of society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments of production and distribution and in the interest of the entire community. Socialism is a global community without borders, where goods are produced only for use. Buying and selling, and with them prices, wages, money, profits and banks will disappear. Instead, everyone will have free access to the common store according to his need. Socialism is a fully democratic society. The coercive state machinery of class society will be replaced by the simple democratic administration of the affairs of society.

2) The government ownership of industry, or nationalisation, is state capitalism. Workers in state industries are still exploited for profit by the wage system and still need to organise into unions and to strike to protect their interests. The nationalised industries are run on capitalist lines to produce for sale. This has absolutely nothing in common with socialism. Socialism and communism are not different systems of society, both describe the same society based on social ownership. For us, the words "socialist state" or "workers' state" are contradictory. Where there is socialism there is no state , and where there is a state then there is no socialism.

II. The Path to Socialism

3) Socialism can be established only by the political majority of the working class who want and understand socialism. To establish socialism, the working class must first gain control of political power and to do so, we must organise a political party.

4) That the majority should want and understand socialism has been a principle that has always distinguished us from all other parties who call themselves socialists. Once the nature of socialism is understood as a free society based on voluntary work and free access to all the fruits of this work, it is clear that socialism can only be established by the conscious action of the majority. The voluntary cooperation and social responsibility that socialism demands cannot be imposed by a minority of leaders. The principle of leadership is anti-socialist.

5) When it is recognised that there must be a majority of socialists who understand and want socialism , a majority with a socialist consciousness, then violence is not necessary, unless the pro-capitalists use it first. The socialist majority will use the popular vote as it is to show they are a majority and also to send its delegates to parliament and local councils, thus gaining control of the state apparatus.

6) We maintain that barricades and street battles are out-moded revolutionary tactics. In the modern political situation - the overwhelming numerical superiority of the working class, universal suffrage, political democracy, an army and civil service recruited among workers - the working class can and must use the elections and the parliament as a way leading to power for socialism. A socialist party should contest as often as possible elections, but only on a socialist programme . Where there are no socialist candidates, the party should advocate blank or spoiled ballot papers but does not engage in anti-election propaganda of the anarchist type.
The idea of an anarcho-syndicalist general strike of industrial unions as a means of overthrowing the capitalist yoke is obviously impractical because it would leave the means to crush such a strike, the state apparatus, in the hands of the capitalists.

III. The Futility of Reformism
7) The party that the working class use as a tool to gain political control must be organised on a democratic basis. The structure of the socialist party will have to reflect the democratic nature of the society it is seeking to establish. Its policies and administration must be entirely in the hands of its members, there should not be leaders and those who are designated to perform different functions must be accountable to members. Full free and frank discussion of party policy should exist. In keeping with the tenet that working class emancipation necessarily excludes the role of political leadership, the SPGB is a leader-free political party where its executive committee is solely for housekeeping admin duties and cannot determine policy or even submit resolutions to conference (EC meetings are public and the EC minutes are available for public scrutiny on the web as proof of our commitment to openness and democracy). All conference decisions have to be ratified by a referendum of the whole membership. The General Secretary has no position of power or authority over any other member. This is the basis of the SPGB party structure.
At a certain level of development of the socialist movement in each country, socialists should organise themselves into a party, with its own democratic rules, rather than remain discussion or study or reader groups that may have been previously more convenient and appropriate. A political party can only be what its members are. If a socialist party wants to remain as such, it must recruit only the socialists in its ranks. This is particularly necessary in a democratic party where all members have equal votes on policy decisions. Passing a test on basic knowledge of socialism must be a condition of admission to the ranks of the party of socialism.

8) Moreover, to remain socialist, the party must seek support solely on the basis of a socialist programme. Inevitably, in the present circumstances, the result will be that the party will be comparatively small in number, but there is no other logical way to build a genuine socialist party. History showed us the fate of the social democratic parties, which despite a formal commitment to socialism as an "ultimate goal", admitted the non-socialist to their ranks and sought non-socialist support for a reform programme of capitalism rather than a socialist programme. In order to maintain their non-socialist support, they were themselves forced to drop all talk of socialism and become even more openly reformist. Today the social democratic parties are firmly committed to capitalism in theory and in practice. We say that this was the inevitable result of the admission of non-socialists and advocating reforms of capitalism. That is why we have always advocated socialism and never called for the reform of capitalism. We are not saying that all reforms are anti-working class, but as a socialist party advocating reforms, it would be its first step towards its transformation into a reformist party. Regardless of why or how the reforms are advocated, the result is the same: confusion in the minds of the working class instead of growth of socialist consciousness.

9) The preservation of the environment is a social problem which requires humanity to establish a viable and stable relationship with the rest of nature. In practice this implies a society which uses, as far as possible, renewable raw materials and energy and practise the recycling of non-renewable resources; a society which, once an appropriate balance with nature has been formed, will tend towards a stable level of production, indeed towards “zero growth”. This does not mean that changes are to be excluded on principle, but that any change will have to respect the environment by taking place at a pace to which nature can adapt. But the employment by capitalism of destructive methods of production has, over two centuries, upset the balance of nature.
It is not “Humanity” but the capitalist economic system itself which is responsible for ecological problems. It is only after having placed the means of society’s existence under the control of the community that we will be able to ensure their management, no longer in the selfish interest of the capitalist class, but in the general interest.
Most environmentalists accept the economic dictatorship of the owning minority since they don’t understand the link that exists between the destruction of the environment and the private/state ownership of the means of production. Because by definition capitalism can only function in the interest of the capitalists, no palliative can (nor ever will be able to) subordinate capitalist private property to the general interest. For this reason only the threat of a socialist movement setting down as the only realistic and immediate aim the establishment of social property of society’s means of existence so as to ensure their management by and in the interest of the whole community, would be able to force the capitalists to concede reforms favourable to the workers for fear of losing the whole cake. Yet more reason to advance the maximum programme of socialism.

10) As the trade union movement stands to-day it is still craft and sectarian in outlook, still mainly pro-capitalist.The struggle on the economic field has to be, and is, carried on by socialists and non-socialists alike. The ideal trade-union, from a socialist point of view, would be one that recognised the irreconcilable conflict of interest between workers and employers, that had no leaders but was organised democratically and controlled by its members, that sought to organise all workers irrespective of nationality, colour, religious or political views, first by industry then into One Big Union, and which struggled not just for higher wages but also for the abolition of the wages system. This cannot become a full reality until large numbers of workers are socialists. We cannot have a union organised on entirely socialist principles without a socialist membership. The small number of workers who really understand the meaning of socialism is such that any attempt to form a separate socialist economic organisation at present would be futile, for the very nature of the workers' economic struggle under capitalism would compel such an organisation to associate in a common cause with the non-socialist unions during strikes and all the other activities of the class struggle. A socialist party, therefore, urges that the existing unions provide the medium through which the workers should continue their efforts to obtain the best conditions they can get from the master class in the sale of their labour-power.

11) A socialist party must oppose nationalism in all its forms. The interests of working people are the same in all countries and they should never be enemies of each other. Anti-imperialist nationalism is the ideology of an actual or aspiring capitalist class that seeks the way to its own independent state ; they are striving to carve out a place for themselves within the existing system, not to overthrow it. The logic of such movements is to subordinate the interests of workers to those of the capitalist leadership. Socialists have always said clearly that workers have no country.

IV A Model of Socialist Society
Socialists caution against the creation of blueprints. There is no point in drawing up in advance the sort of detailed blueprint of industrial organisation. For a small group of socialists, as we are now, to do so would be undemocratic. We also recognise that there may not be one single way of doing things, and precise details and ways of doing things might vary from one part of the world to another, even between neighbouring communities.
Socialists cannot determine what the conditions will be when socialism is established. As the socialist majority grows, when socialism is within the grasp of the working class, that will then be the proper time for making such important decisions. It is imprudent for today’s socialist minority to be telling people how to administer a socialist society. When a majority of people understand what socialism means, the suggestions for socialist administration will solidify into an appropriate plan. It will be based upon the conditions existing at that time, not today.
We can, however, reach some generalised conclusions based on basic premises and can outline broad principles or options that could be applied. We do not have to draw up a plan for socialism, but simply and broadly demonstrate that it is possible and therefore refute the label of “utopianism”.

It is reasonable to assume that productive activity would be divided into branches and that production in these branches would be organised by a delegate body. The responsibility of these industries would be to ensure the supply of a particular kind of product either, in the case of consumer goods, to distribution centres or, in the case of goods used to produce other goods, to productive units or other industries.
Since the needs of consumers are always needs for a specific product at a specific time in a specific locality, we will assume that socialist society would leave the initial assessment of likely needs to a delegate body under the control of the local community. In a stable society such as socialism, needs would change relatively slowly. Hence it is reasonable to surmise that an efficient system of stock control, recording what individuals actually chose to take under conditions of free access from local distribution centres over a given period, would enable the local distribution committee to estimate what the need for food, drink, clothes and household goods would be over a similar future period. Some needs would be able to be met locally: local transport, restaurants, builders, repairs and some food are examples as well as services such as street-lighting, libraries and refuse collection. The local distribution committee would then communicate needs that could not be met locally to the bodies charged with coordinating supplies to local communities.

The individual would have free access to the goods on the shelves of the local distribution centres; the local distribution centres free access to the goods they required to be always adequately stocked with what people needed; their suppliers free access to the goods they required from the factories which supplied them; industries and factories free access to the materials, equipment and energy they needed to produce their products; and so on. Production and distribution in socialism would thus be a question of organising a coordinated and more or less self-regulating system of linkages between users and suppliers, enabling resources and materials to flow smoothly from one productive unit to another, and ultimately to the final user, in response to information flowing in the opposite direction originating from final users. The productive system would thus be set in motion from the consumer end, as individuals and communities took steps to satisfy their self-defined needs. Socialist production is self-regulating production for use.
To ensure the smooth functioning of the system, statistical offices would be needed to provide estimates of what would have to be produced to meet peoples likely individual and collective needs. These could be calculated in the light of consumer wants as indicated by returns from local distribution committees and of technical data (productive capacity, production methods, productivity, etc) incorporated in input-output tables. For, at any given level of technology (reflected in the input-output tables), a given mix of final goods (consumer wants) requires for its production a given mix of intermediate goods and raw materials; it is this latter mix that the central statistical office would be calculating in broad terms. Such calculations would also indicate whether or not productive capacity would need to be expanded and in what branches. The centres for each world-region would thus be essentially an information clearing house, processing information communicated to it about production and distribution and passing on the results to industries for them to draw up their production plans so as to be in a position to meet the requests for their products coming from other industries and from local communities. The only calculations that would be necessary in socialism would be calculations in kind. On the one side would be recorded the resources (materials, energy, equipment, labour) used up in production and on the other side the amount of the good produced, together with any by-products.
Stock or inventory control systems employing calculation in kind are, as was suggested earlier, absolutely indispensable to any kind of modern production system. While it is true that they operate within a price environment today, that is not the same thing as saying they need such an environment in order to operate. The key to good stock management is the stock turnover rate – how rapidly stock is removed from the shelves – and the point at which it may need to be re-ordered. This will also be affected by considerations such as lead times – how long it takes for fresh stock to arrive – and the need to anticipate possible changes in demand.

As we have seen , socialism will be a self-adjusting decentralised inter-linked system. A socialist economy would be polycentric, not centrally planned. The problem with a central planning model of socialism is its inability to cope with change. It lacks any kind of feedback mechanism which allows for mutual adjustments between the different actors in such an economy. It is completely inflexible. Socialism does not necessary involve the creation of new layers of administrations but simply the transformation of them. It is not a command economy but a responsive one to provide for a self -sustaining steady state society.
And we can set out a possible way of achieving an eventual zero growth steady state society operating in a stable and ecologically benign way. This could be achieved in three main phases.

1) There would have to be emergency action to relieve the worst problems of food shortages, health care and housing which affect billions of people throughout the world.

2) Longer term action to construct means of production and infrastructures such as transport systems for the supply of permanent housing and durable consumption goods. These could be designed in line with conservation principles, which means they would be made to last for a long time, using materials that where possible could be re-cycled and would require minimum maintenance.

3) With these objectives achieved there could be an eventual fall in production, and society could move into a stable mode. This would achieve a rhythm of daily production in line with daily needs with no significant growth. On this basis, the world community could reconcile two great needs, the need to live in material well-being whilst looking after the planet.

A money-free society can calculate opportunity costs and allocate resources rationally by :-
1) Calculation in kind
2) A self-correcting system of stock control - which identifies quantities of stocks available and provides a reliable indication of consumer demand (via the depletion rates of stocks)
3) The law of the minimum - whereby you economise most on those factors of production that are relatively scarcest
4) A social hierarchy of production goals - which sorts out the allocation of scarce factors where competing demands are placed upon them.

Humans behave differently depending upon the conditions that they live in. Human behaviour reflects society. In a society such as capitalism, people's needs are not met and people feel insecure. People tend to acquire and hoard goods because possession provides some security. People have a tendency to distrust others because the world is organised in such a dog-eat-dog manner. To establish socialism the vast majority must consciously decide that they want socialism and that they are prepared to work in socialist society. The establishment of socialism presupposes the existence of a mass socialist movement and a profound change in social outlook. It is simply not reasonable to suppose that the desire for socialism on such a large scale, and the conscious understanding of what it entails on the part of all concerned, would not influence the way people behaved in socialism and towards each other. In socialism, status based upon the material wealth at one's command, would be a meaningless concept. The notion of status based upon the conspicuous consumption of wealth would be devoid of meaning because individuals would stand in equal relation to the means of production and have free access to the resultant goods and services. Why take more than you need when you can freely take what you need? In socialism the only way in which individuals can command the esteem of others is through their contribution to society, and the stronger the movement for socialism grows the more will it subvert the prevailing capitalist ethos .
Free access to goods and services denies to any group of individuals the political leverage with which to dominate others (a feature intrinsic to all private-property or class based systems through control and rationing of the means of life). This will work to ensure that a socialist society is run on the basis of democratic consensus. Decisions will be made at different levels of organisation: global, regional and local with the bulk of decision-making being made at the local level.

Anything less than the demand for full free access socialism does not go far enough. In the final analysis, those who oppose it lack the confidence that either there are sufficient resources on the planet to provide for all, or that human beings can work voluntarily, and co-operate to organise production and distribution of wealth without chaos, and consume wealth responsibly without some form of rationing. In the end, these critics remain fixated to the laz

y person, greedy individual critique of human behaviour.