Going Beyond Capitalism

Capitalism cannot work in the interests of the working class, nor can it be controlled. Economic problems are an inevitable result of capitalist society. Not only can capitalism not be controlled to eliminate its ever-increasing range of problems; it is also totally chaotic in its detailed operations. 

Capitalism is outlived. It has submitted us to recurrent crises, each one worse than the previous one. Labour, being the biggest single organised force, and without a stake in the profit system, has the potentiality of organising its own political party to take over the complete administration of industry. Not all of labour is yet conscious of its historic mission. Abolition of the Wage System? Yes, the Socialist Party is for it. We believe the “divine right of management,” acquired, not through Providence but through the unholy exploitation of the people, should belong to those who do the work of society. Let the organised working people manage industry, eliminate private profit, plan production to suit the needs of the people – for peace, prosperity and plenty for all. If automation is to be introduced for the benefit of the working class and not to introduce more suffering for the workers, it will be necessary to operate industry democratically, with the control of industry by the people themselves. The socialist movement must offer the people a clear alternative to capitalism, must offer genuine socialism. 

This is the only way in which workers can guarantee the development of society.

If you have no right to work you have no right to life because you can only live by work. And if you live in a system that deprives you of the right to work, that system denies you the right to live. Workers have no "right" to their jobs; they are employed only on the prospect that their labour will yield profit to the capitalists. In a class divided society conflict is inevitable but in this the strike should be a weapon of last resort, not the plaything of a leader. Strikes should proceed on a democratic decision and ideally should be brief as well as concentrated. It is vital to separate the struggles on the industrial field, which are about the division of wealth under capitalism, from that on the political field, which is concerned with the revolution to dispossess the capitalists of their monopoly of the means of life. It is on the political field, and not the industrial, that the working class is able to contest with the state, to control it for their own emancipation.

Don't blame the “wicked capitalists" for throwing people out of work. Most of them have never been near the factories, shipyards, mines, mills and offices where their unearned income is produced.

Workers — from managers to sweepers — are paid to run these places completely — including giving you the sack. Anyway most capitalists have their investments spread over a number of companies — for safety. Their stockbrokers may transfer their investments from one stock to another frequently, into whatever is most profitable at the moment.

So, if you are thrown out of work, you can’t really blame the capitalist — he is probably in the Bahamas, harming nobody — blame the order book and the stock market — the whole economic anarchy of capitalism. There are no hard feelings — no feelings at all, in fact. Capitalism just ignores people.

For the workers to ignore these lessons is futile and dangerous. History is a guide for future action and that of the coal strike points unwaveringly to the urgent need for a new social system.

 The Socialist Party would never claim that the establishment of a society based on common ownership and production for use will see an end to all of the world's problems. There will still be events over which we cannot possibly have any control — such as earthquakes. But even so, deaths from such natural disasters will be minimised in socialism in a way that they cannot be now.

Most of the deaths take place because buildings collapsed with their inhabitants trapped inside. But why did these buildings collapse? The simple and obvious answer is cost. It is more expensive to build houses, offices, hospitals and schools which can withstand earthquakes. In socialism, nobody's life will ever again be sacrificed on the altar of profitability. 

Socialism will be a system of society with one aim, the satisfaction of human needs in all their various forms. In Socialism, where the market society has been swept away. Your commitment to socialism is required to put an end to the crazy Alice in Wonderland world of today. So, how about it?

A Better World

At all times and in all places, the World Socialist Movement has waged war against every political, social and economic disability of men and woman and proclaimed the gospel of emancipation. Society has been divided into two warring classes. The capitalist owns industry but he has nothing to do with its operation. By virtue of such ownership he has the economic power to appropriate to himself the wealth it produces. This accounts for the fact that the capitalist becomes rich.

But how about the working class? In the first place they have to compete with each other for the privilege of toiling for the capitalist. No work, no food, and after a while, no credit, and all this in the shadow of the abundance these very workers have created. The capitalist has become a profit-taking parasite. Industry is now co-operative and therefore self-operative. The capitalists hire supervisors, managers and foremen to operate their plants and produce wealth. The capitalists are absolutely unnecessary; they have no part in the process of production — not the slightest. It is the worker’ duty to so organise economically and politically as to put an end to this system; to take possession of the machinery of production and operate it, not to create billionaires and multimillionaires, but to produce wealth in plenty for all people. It makes no difference what you do on the economic field to better your condition, so long as the means of production are privately owned, so long as they are operated for the private profit of the capitalist, the working class will be exploited, they will be in enforced idleness, they will be reduced to want, some of them turned into to vagabonds and criminals, and this condition will prevail in spite of anything that organised labour can do to the contrary. The most important thing is to recognise is the class struggle. Now, what is class-consciousness? It is simply a recognition of the fact on the part of the working people that their interest is identical with the interest of every other working person. Class-consciousness points out the necessity for working-class action, economic and political.   

What is it that keeps the working class in subjection? What is it that is responsible for their exploitation and for all of the ills they suffer? Just one thing — it can be stated in a single word. It is ignorance. The working class have not yet learned how to unite and act together. There are relatively but few capitalists, but the capitalists and their retainers have contrived during all these years to keep the working class divided, and as long as the working class is divided it will be helpless. It is only when the working class learn —  and they are learning daily and by very bitter experience — to unite and to act together, especially on election day, that there is any hope for emancipation. As individuals you are helpless, but united you represent an irresistible power.    

Reformists declare they will give both labour and capital a fair square deal, and the Socialist Party say that is impossible. No-one can be for labour without being against capital. No-one can be for capital without being against labour.  Here is the capitalist; here are the workers. Here is the capitalist who owns the mines; here are the miners who work in the mines. There is a difference between them over a division of the product. Each wants all that can be get . Here we have the class struggle. Now, is it possible to be for the capitalist without being against the worker. Are their interest not diametrically opposite?  If you increase the share of the capitalist don't you decrease the share of the workers? Can you increase both the workers' and the capitalist's share at the same time? There is just so much produced, and in the present system it has to be divided between the capitalists and the workers, and both sides are fighting for all they can get, and this is the historic class struggle. We have now no revolutionary organisation of the workers along the lines of this class struggle and that is the demand of this time. The capitalists are combined against you. They are reducing wages. They have control of the courts. They are doing everything they can to destroy your power. You have got to follow their example. You have got to unify your forces. You have got to stand together shoulder to shoulder on the economic and political fields and then you will make substantial progress toward emancipation. No one will attempt to dispute the fact that our interests as workers are identical. If our interests are identical, then we ought to unite. If our interests are identical, it follows that we ought to belong to the same party as well as to the same economic organisation. What is politics? It is simply the reflex of economics. What is a party? It is the expression politically of certain material class interests.

  What is a political party? It is the expression politically of certain material class interests. You belong to that party that you believe will promote your material welfare. Is not that a fact? Now, if you are in a party that opposes your interests it is because you don’t have intelligence enough to understand your interests. That is where the capitalists have the better of you. As a rule, they are shrewd. They understand their material interests and how to protect them. You find the capitalists as a rule belonging only to pro-capitalist parties. They don’t join a socialist party and they don't vote socialist. They know enough to know that socialism is opposed to their economic interests. There will be no change as long as you continue to support the prevailing capitalist system, based upon the private ownership with which working people work and without which they are doomed to slavery and starvation. It doesn't make any difference which pro-capitalist parties wins, you lose! Is there any doubt  that we are in the midst of a class struggle? This whole system is based upon the private ownership and the wage slavery. You may, at times, temporarily better your condition within certain limitations, but you will still remain wage slaves, and why wage slaves? For just one reason and no other — you have got to work. To work,  you have got to beg for work from the man who owns the factories and he will determine the conditions under which you shall work. If he owns your job he is your master. You are in no sense free. You are subject to his will. He decides whether you shall work or not. Therefore, he decides whether you shall live or die. And in that humiliating position any one who tries to persuade you that you are a free is guilty of insulting your intelligence. You will never be free, you will never stand erect in your own self-reliance until you can freely work without the consent of any master. The capitalist receives the lion’s share of what you produce for which he does nothing, while you get a small fraction to feed, clothe and shelter yourself, and reproduce yourself in the form of labour-power. That is all you get out of it and all you ever will get in the capitalist system. You live in capitalism, and you have nothing but your labour-power, and you don't know whether you are going to find a buyer or not. But even if you do find a master, if you have a job, can you boast of being independent?  No-one can rightly claim to be an individual unless free. Can you be satisfied and happy being a wage-slave?

Socialist Standard No. 1384 December 2019

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• Editorial: What Elections Mean
  
• Pathfinders: Getting Out Of The Fast Lane
  
• China: Points for Reflection
  
• Cooking the Books I: Fantasy politics (and economics)
  
• Wood for the Trees: The stable doors of instability
  
• Material World: The Enclosure of the Sea
  
• Lexiteers: Left meets Right
  
• Manifestos: The Socialist Alternative
  
• Neo-Liberalism: Old Religion Repackaged
  
• Democracy: Another Word for Plutocracy
  
• Liberal Democrats: Power Hungry Opportunists
  
• Cooking the Books II: A capitalist own goal
  
• Rojava: The End of the Kurdish Dream
  
• Proper Gander: ‘You’ve Had It, Ain’t Ya?’
  
• Reviews
  
• 50 Years Ago: Hippies: An abortion of Socialist Understanding
  
• Meetings
  
• Rear View
  
• Free Lunch
  

William Wallace

William Wallace is one of Scotland's most famous historical figures. Many more around the world grew acquainted with Wallace when Hollywood and Mel Gibson portrayed him in the movie BraveHeart. However, we know that stories get distorted just through the passage of time. Wallace cames from minor gentry in the West of Scotland. The name Wallace, or Walensis, derives from the Welsh-speaking people of Strathclyde. We have no exact date for Wallace's birth. William Wallace emerges from obscurity and rises up in the spring of 1297, kills the English sheriff of Lanark, then leads an effective and oft-hitting operation against English strongholds.


Edward I had already annexed Ireland and Wales and now took an opportunity of  a political vacuum to meddle in Scotland's affairs in the guise of legal mediator and appointed the weak John Balliol as king, made impossible demands of him, and then settled the issue by military conquest. It was in November 1292, that Balliol was declared King of Scotland, against the Bruce claim. Edward's pressure on him is relentless, forcing acts of homage on several occasions, and to revoke the Treaty of Brigham, which recognised Scottish independence. . When Edward haughtily orders Balliol into military service in France, the Scots instead ratify a treaty with Edward's enemy, Philip IV, and war is inevitable. Edward was free to roam through Scotland as if it was his own fiefdom. This he did, taking control of castles and humiliating King John as he went, resulting in the forced abdication of Balliol in Angus in July 1296.  The stripping of the royal emblems earned Balliol the insulting name "Toom Tabard" (Empty Tabard).  He was sent to the Tower of London and thereafter spent the rest of his life in relatively comfortable exile. Edward's dominance over Scotland was total. He made over 2,000 freeholders swear allegiance to him, in a document which became known as the Ragman's Roll. It was  William Wallace's aim to restore Balliol to the throne of Scotland.


Along with Andrew Moray, Wallace defeated an English army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297, and was Guardian of Scotland, serving until his defeat at the Battle of Falkirk. After Falkirk, Wallace resigned as Guardian and was sent on a diplomatic mission to France and Rome. He did not return until after the Scottish surrender in 1302. In 1305, Wallace was eventually captured in Robroyston near Glasgow by John de Menteith, a Scottish knight. Menteith was no English lackey, and in 1320 he put his seal to the Declaration of Arbroath. Wallace was taken to London to be handed over to King Edward. After a cynical mock show-trial at Westminster Hall in London, where he responded to the treason charge by declaring "I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject." Wrapped in an ox hide to prevent him being ripped apart, thereby shortening the torture, he was dragged by horses four miles through London to Smithfield. There he was hanged, as a murderer and thief, but cut down while still alive. Then he was mutilated, disembowelled, his heart, liver, lungs and entrails were cast upon a fire, and, finally, his head was chopped off. His carcase was then cut up into bits. His head was set on a pole on London Bridge, another part went to Newcastle, a district Wallace had destroyed in 1297–8, the rest went to Berwick, Perth and Stirling (or perhaps Aberdeen), as a warning to the Scots. Edward had destroyed the man, but had enhanced the myth.  Edward I of England wanted the destruction of Wallace's name and reputation as well as physical presence, but inadvertently created a hero and martyr. He entered the realm of folktale and legend.


Separating myth from historical truth is no easy matter. The waters are muddied when the historian only has access to scant Medieval resources. Around 1470s the epic poem, The Acts and Deeds of Sir William Wallace, Knight of Elderslie, was written by Henry the Minstrel, also called Blind Harry; which became  possibly the most influential long poem ever written in Scots. And here we are most definitely in the realm of powerful and deliberate myth-making. Professor Cowan writes of "borrowings plunderings, plagerisms, inventions, and fancies", and points to two major events at least in the poem that never happened - Wallace's victory at Biggar, and English atrocities at the Barns of Ayr. One story says that he started by killing a bunch of English soldiers who tried confiscating the fish he'd caught in the River Irvine. Another says that he killed the son of an English governor who had been bullying his family, and yet a third states that he killed William Heselrig, Sherriff of Lanark, in revenge for the death of Marion Braidfute. This last version dates only from Blind Harry's story from around 1470, and is most likely pure fiction. In 1722 Blind Harry’s work was translated and adapted by another poet, William Hamilton of Gilbertfield, and became the most commonly owned book in Scotland next to the Bible.


Modern Scots today honour who they acclaim as a fighter for Scotland's sovereignty. What was the “Scotland” that Wallace believed in, defended, pledged himself to and died for? The idea of Wallace as early exponent of “democratic patriotism” ahistorically gives to a medieval man the mind and sensibilities of a later, modern age. Wallace was a violent man in a violent age; and anyone researching the gleeful cross-border forays of Wallace’s bands into Hexham Abbey or the priory at Lanercost in Northumberland, England’s far north, can register their devastating impact. Wallace never fought for an abstract “people” or even “nation”, but always in the name of a legitimate power of which he was but the temporary protector or “guardian”  -  John Balliol.

To Make a Revolution

The aim of the Socialist Party is to offer ideas in simple terms to guide workers in their struggle for their interests, to teach them that the economic demands of labour, while important and necessary, are insufficient. The economic struggle of the working class must be joined to a political struggle against the political rule of the capitalist class. To aid in the political development of the working class, to help break it away from dependence, on capitalist politics and capitalist politicians. The Socialist Party is blazing a trail toward the socialist future. We have only just begun; a long and winding road lies ahead. But we are prepared for it by the conviction that there is no hope for a new and better world except through the achievement of the new social order of socialism, a world of peace, freedom and plenty for all. 

What stands in the way? The capitalist class wolfs the greatest share of the fruits of this productive capacity. The working class, the men and women who actually produce the goods of life, has been fighting on the picket lines to raise its own share of the national income at the expense of the share ALREADY received by the idle capitalist parasitic class. The capitalists, on the other hand, fight like the wolves they are to guard every ounce of their unearned share. If the workers were defenceless and without unions and democratic rights, the capitalist class would rejoice in the ability to buy labour as cheaply as possible. Then they could pay the workers only enough on which to live and to raise new families of workers. But the working people are NOT defenceless. They have formed powerful and aggressive unions. Socialists will wipe out capitalism with its waste and be able to plan production and PLENTY FOR ALL.

Capitalism must expand – or die! “The earth is divided? Then it must be redivided,” say the hungry industrialists and greedy financiers. The “normal” life of capitalism  is the REAL enemy of civilisation.

What is the future of mankind? Do we stand upon the threshold of death and destruction for the whole of mankind? Or do we stand at the threshold of a new age of unparalleled peace and plenty? What is the future of humanity? That is for men and women to decide. It must not be decided by those in power, the bankers, the CEOs, the politicians, It must be decided by the working people. They must organise and speak out with one voice: We demand life under socialism before death under capitalism overtakes us all!

Men and women! Act! Act now! Join in the fight for socialism. The fight for socialism has become the fight for the very existence of mankind. It is solely by the independent action of working people, those who produce the wealth of society, that power and privilege can be eliminated and a world of peace and plenty for all be built.

The most important question is this: is it possible for capitalism, a society organised in the interests of profits for a handful of people who live off the exploitation of the overwhelming majority of the people of the world to use this discovery for constructive purposes in the interests of mankind? The answer is, of course, no. Capitalist vultures gorge themselves on profit and whose main occupation is to exploit workers for their own class benefit. Science and technology which can be of such benefit to society, is, under capitalism, the slave of the financial and industrial bandits who rule society. A class society which lives by exploitation can only subordinate such discoveries to the interest of private profit. Let them understand that when the media talk about the destruction of civilisation, they are not joking at all. The destruction is a grim reality unless the social order of capitalism is abolished and replaced by socialism, the society of all the people.

 Britain to-day, as always, is in the hands of billionaire-owners of the biggest corporations and the biggest banks. These capitalists, not only own or control the chief means whereby we work and live, but, in fact, control the whole government machine. They pull the strings. And they use their power to make themselves richer and richer—at our expense. They hire workers to make profit out of their labour; their capitalist production is for profit, not for use: and to get more profit they slash wages, carry through speed-ups and worsen conditions. This mad race for profit inevitably ends in a crisis; and then they try to get out of the crisis—at our expense. Poverty, insecurity and malnutrition making their inroads in the homes of millions of workers: low wages, increased productivity, to the point of physical exhaustion, is the lot of the workers in the factories, mines and shipyards: increases in the number of accidents and sickness. This is Britain to-day for working men, women and their families. Unless we put an end to capitalism, the lot of our fellow-workers will become worse and worse. 

But it is not only poverty and insecurity and unemployment which threatens the majority of  people. For the great capitalist employers, the great financiers and bankers have one last use for us all, even after it has become unprofitable for them to employ us; and that is to recruit us for war. The cause of capitalist war is the attempt of each national capitalist group—British, Russian, French, Chinese, American, etc.—to beat its competitors on the world market and to win bigger and bigger profits for its own wealthy. For capitalism war is inevitable. Global capitalism means that the big multinationals and big banks are dominating through their investments abroad, and that the developing and undeveloped nations countries have been divided up amongst the Great Powers. Therefore they are rivals of one another in the world market. This rivalry becomes fiercer and fiercer. This competitive struggle is carried out, firstly by tariffs, and other protectionist measures, and then finally by war. Daily the capitalists are preparing for this bloody option. The most fearsome, ghastly and deadly armaments are being piled up. Science and inventive genius are prostituted to discover and perfect the means of death and destruction of millions, in order to win new markets, territory, and spheres of profitable capitalist investment, to bring rent, interest and profit for a handful of employers, bankers and landlords.

There is no need for a single worker to be overworked or in dread of losing his job; no reason why an unemployed worker should lack the necessaries of life, or why he should not be brought back into employment. All over the world millions of workers are year by year coming to realise these facts and to see that nothing except the existence of capitalism prevents them building up for themselves a decent and secure world. Everywhere the workers are becoming less and less willing to put up with an entirely unnecessary state of semi-destitution. They are showing themselves more and more determined to insist upon their right to food, clothing and shelter for themselves and their families. But to get this, capitalism must be overthrown. To get this is only possible by the building up of socialism, giving peace and prosperity, happiness and new life to the whole working population. The workers need to end capitalism.

The unity of the working class in struggle makes the capitalists retreat. They give ground. They quarrel amongst themselves. Beaten back in their attack on the working class, they begin to prey on one another. Conflicts arise and the capitalist class as a whole gets into a state of crisis. The authority of the capitalists disappears. The fight against poverty is the fight against the capitalist class. The revolutionary struggle of the workers can, and will, open the way to a new epoch of human progress better than anything the world has yet experienced. The workers have the power to overthrow capitalism. It is the capitalists who are powerless, powerless to move a single inch towards the essential reconstruction of society. It is the workers who are strong from the very moment that they unite and resist.

Socialism will mean that the capitalists will be deprived of their ownership and control of the factories and workshops, mills and mines, shipyards and transport. All these means of production which they have used and misused only to pile up profits for themselves and poverty for the workers will be taken from them. The workers’ revolution will be the end of production for profit and will carry on production for use. The needs of all will be met, and new needs and pleasures now denied to the working class will be created and satisfied by a socialist organisation. For every worker of the new society becomes a citizen, and, because there is then no longer any class division, the need for dictatorship of one class over another disappears.

We have to-day ample resources for producing all the things we need. Today we are both unemployed and unable to get the things we need. The two things go together. For we are unemployed because the capitalists want to have their profits and will not let us produce what we need. Destitution and unemployment can only be cured simultaneously by taking over and running the industries. To achieve all this a vast work of reconstruction will have to be undertaken. The workers will produce far better and more willingly under their own management than they do now. For the first time workers will know that greater productivity will no longer be a threat to their livelihood but will make it possible to raise the whole standard of living and shorten the hours of labour.

The ending of capitalism in this country will put an end at the same time to the threat of wars, to the maintenance of armed forces in preparation for wars abroad. Not only economic security, not only ever increasing comfort and leisure, not only the day’s labour turned from useless grinding toil into useful work—but a far wider prospect is opened up. For these new material conditions will be but the basis for the most rapid intellectual and cultural development of the whole population. The new generation of children will be born into a new world. The building of world socialism will lead the whole human race forward towards a new world. This is the new world of which the workers are already laying down the foundations. This is the new world for which many generations of workers have struggled. It is for us in our generation to bring this new world into being. Revolution becomes possible when there is a complete breakdown of the authority of the ruling class, when the working class is not prepared to live any longer under intolerable conditions and has a will to overthrow capitalism.

The Socialist Party has no interests apart from those of the working class as a whole. The Socialist Party is the bitter enemy of the capitalists. If every person who believes the Socialist Party’s principles are  correct, will join with us and help in the vitally important work of organising and preparing the working class or socialism, the effectiveness of its work will be enormously increased, and the fight against capitalism will enter a new stage. We therefore appeal to every class-conscious worker to join the Socialist Party without delay, knowing that by taking this step they are strengthening the only political organisation that can help the working class to victory.

An Alternative Vision

Today there could be plenty for all the world. It is no myth that there is plenty for all. Here are the facts: More food can be raised today than we could, possibly eat. Food is left to rot in the granaries and storage houses, and hungry people starve in the midst of plenty. Mankind has learned the secrets of the air, the sea, the surface and the bowels of the earth. Mankind has fashioned machines which are miracles of technology for factory and farm. With such tremendous productive capacity, why could we not have a society planned on the basis of a fair and just distribution of the good things of life to the peoples of the entire world? Yet people starve in the midst of plenty and food is dumped when people cannot buy for they may not have the jobs or the money. We have the natural resources, the machinery, the labour. Modern science has made comfort and culture and leisure possible for all. Who will deny the great potentialities for good inherent in our advanced economy? The owners of production have at their disposal all these wonderful opportunities, but have they used them to end poverty, maintain security and a high standard of living and keep the peace? No, for they have flagrantly and willfully mismanaged. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer is always true under capitalism.

The people of the world are today exchanging bombs and destruction instead of the good things of and for life, is not a necessity. It is the outcome of capitalism standing in the way of the progress of the peoples of the earth. The world is teeming with millions of able hands willing to build and operate those machines for production of abundance. Wonderful means of transportation by air, sea and land are here for peoples – peacefully and for their mutual benefit. That the peoples of the world are today exchanging bombs and destruction instead of the good things of and for life, is not a necessity. For the peoples of the world to arrive at the longed-for destiny of humanity to produce and exchange the things of life In peace and plenty, they must rid themselves of the motives of capitalist profits. That is saying that international capitalism is their enemy. Humanity needs a socialist world. 

The Socialist Party’s purpose is not to traffic on the ignorance and backwardness of our fellow-workers, not to attempt to win them unaware by stealth, but on the contrary, to enlighten them and to show them the necessary steps to take along the road to power. We cannot hope to compete with the  populist fake “promises”. Our answer is not a different brand of demagogy, but clear revolutionary answers concerning the meaning of events. 

Why do workers suffer lay-offs, cutbacks, reductions in wages, unemployment, depressions and poverty? Because our economy is capitalist, meaning chaotic and anarchic, based on competition, monopoly, producing not for public need but for private profit. Capitalism, which was progressive in its beginnings in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, because it overthrew the feudal method of production, has now become an anachronism, with its depressions and wars standing in the way of progress and the intelligent, socialist planning of society. The latter would have as its goal economic security for all, so that with this minimum requirement, “human” beings will have the potentialities for the full growth and development of their “humanity.” The capitalist system won’t work, for the very root of capitalism is all wrong. It is based on a contradiction, namely, that the man who owns the tools of production (the capitalist) does not work them, and the man who works them (the worker) does not own them. The working people themselves should own and operate the industries cooperatively, through owning and operating the government. This would end production for profit and the waste of competing corporations. There would be planned production for the first time, increasing the output of wealth so that there would be plenty for all. We have today more workers, more efficiency, more productivity, and more machinery than ever before. We have more of all the means necessary to a high standing of living, shorter hours and certainly full employment for every able-bodied person. But the workers are experiencing cutbacks, lay-offs and unemployment. The kind of planned economy we envisage would, for the first time, make possible an end to wars between nations. The aim of the working class would be to end capitalism and all forms of exploitation everywhere; and everywhere introduce a planned economy. Its aim would be to create a socialist world.