Capitalism, the Enemy of Nature and People

 

Scottish climate change expert Prof Jim Skea, a member of the United Nations climate body the IPCC and the UK government's Committee on Climate Change, has called on world leaders to "step up to the plate" at the COP26 summit in Glasgow at the end of the month. He said the scientists had spoken clearly and time was running out for governments to act.

Many environmentalist writers have pointed to the dangers of endless economic growth and have offered various proposals for a zero-growth or steady-state economy. Is zero growth possible in a capitalist economy? The answer is no. Businesses compete to make a profit. Those who make the most profit can reinvest in capital and with more efficient machinery they out-compete others. Companies have to make a profit to survive. It’s not a case of wicked capitalists but instead a system with a built in growth imperative. In an irrational system, we throw away and buy more and the system works. But the better the system works the worse it is for us and the rest of nature. But capitalism only works if we work harder, consume more and throw more away. Capitalism without growth is capitalism in crisis.

Derek Wall of the Green Party put it well in his book, ‘Getting There: Steps to a Green Society’ when he explained:

“A Green government will be controlled by the economy rather than being in control. On coming to office through coalition or more absolute success, it would be met by an instant collapse of sterling as ’hot money’ and entrepreneurial capital went elsewhere. The exchange rate would fall and industrialists would move their factories to countries with more relaxed environmental controls and workplace regulation. Sources of finance would dry up as unemployment rocketed, slashing the revenue from taxation and pushing up the social security bills. The money for ecological reconstruction—the building of railways, the closing of motorways, the construction of a proper sewage system—would run out.”

We need to recognise that humans are part of nature and that nature is not a thing to possess or a mere supplier of resources. The Earth is a living system, it is our home and it is a community of interdependent beings and interconnected parts of one whole system. We humans are just one element of the biosphere. The capitalist system has gotten out of control and like a virus, it's going to kill the body that feeds it.

Only through replacing growth with a steady-state economy can we be sustainable. This, however, does not mean advocating zero-growth worldwide, because that would deny development to a majority of the world’s population in urgent need of material advancement.

Capitalism is going to make life near-impossible for humans as we know it. we need to recapture nature from the market's grasp, nurturing and legitimising more interconnected human-ecological relationships and understandings, along with tried-and-tested forms of local ecosystem stewardship based on them. We need to overthrow capitalism and develop a system that is based on the world community - a real commonwealth of peoples.

 It’s time to build a new decentralised, democratic, horizontal model, where all ecosystems are respected. A truly green economy would put an end to harmful policies which put profit before people and also end our obsession with economic growth and unsustainable consumption and embrace a focus on how everyone’s needs can be truly met in a sustainable manner. It means dismantling the corrupt, top-down power structures that maintain wealth for the few and reinstating decentralised, community-controlled economies. Only through replacing growth with a steady-state economy can we be sustainable. Instead of applying market rules to nature what we need is to forge a new system based on the principles of harmony and balance among all and with all things; common ownership and collective well-being; the satisfaction of the basic necessities of all. The global response needed to confront the crisis we face requires structural changes.

 We must change the capitalist system, not the ecosystem. The time has come to unite the thousands of struggles, the hundreds of campaigns, all the separate movements and organisations combating the many different ways capitalism has stolen our destinies in every region of the planet. Peoples' liberties have been violated, the Earth and its resources destroyed and pillaged while companies continue to commit economic and ecological crimes without constraint. These corporations, driven by their imperative of maximising profit, pit workers against each other in a race to the bottom. Multinationals operate globally, moving from one country to another, applying the same game-plan to generate profit at any cost. It is we, the working class, who bear the costs. Yet resistance is growing throughout the world. Every day, more communities and peoples struggle against these companies. Even so, we have not managed to halt the advance of corporations. When defeated in one place, they adjust their strategies and move to another location.

There is an urgent need for a concerted response. We must unite our experiences and struggles, learn collectively from success and failure, and share our analysis and strategies for putting an end to capitalism. Voting is only one step in taking control of your future. Being politically and socially active is more than voting, however. We invite you to join us in collectively building this process of mobilisation towards a global campaign against the power of the capitalist and coordinate global struggles, combining street protests with education and political action to create a potent movement of solidarity and practical opposition against big business, its apologists and its promoters. The truth and knowing the facts will prevent us from being fooled into believing what’s bad is good.

Socialism is very often described as a steady-state economy, one of zero-growth but in its early days ending growth will not be a realistic option to deal with. Billions of people in the developing world want access to more resources and fully deserve those resources as much as those of us in the rest of us in order to rise out of poverty. Roughly, one billion people alive today on the planet have access to air conditioners and central heating. The other billions do not. Two billion lack access to a toilet. One billion lack access to electricity. The bulk of the growth to come over the next few decades – in energy consumption, in CO2 emissions, in food consumption, in water use – will all come from the developing world. It isn’t about building mansions or driving SUVs. It is growth that reflects the aspirations of billions of people around the world to rise to a level of comfort that nearly everyone in the more developed world – even those we consider poor – enjoy.

A future that doesn’t allow billions to rise out of poverty and to at least this modicum of comfort is not a very appealing one. Socialism without this initial growth phase is a world we’re not very likely to enjoy.

The problem isn’t growth, per se. Nor is the problem that our natural resources are too small. While finite, the natural resources the planet supplies are vast and far larger than humanity needs in order to continue to thrive and grow prosperity for centuries to come. The problem, rather, is the type of economic system we have which determines the manner and efficiency with which we use these resources. We could raise food yields faster than demand, and still shrink the amount of land we use to farm to be returned to wilderness, to a managed forest, or some other use.  

With socialism, we innovate better and tap more efficiently and cleanly into an enormous supply of fundamental natural resources the planet provides. Is the world fated to be a dystopian future, where billions of people live in poverty on a wrecked, overcrowded planet? Or an even worse world where climate change has wrecked the planet, crashing human populations to the point of extinction? Or is the future going to be a better place than today, one where all of our problems have been solved, and people live in peace and prosperity?

We can expect a re-direction of the productive forces to be a relatively swift one. From swords to plough-shares and a host of other wasteful commerce ending and the resources being re-diverted. However, we acknowledge things cannot change overnight, particularly if we need to bring CO2 emissions and resource depletion issues into the equation. It may well be a "generational" rate of change to bring equilibration between regions. Bear in mind that - as measured in exclusively quantitative, consumption terms (eg calories intake, range of different shampoos available in your local store, etc) - workers in the rich regions will presumably experience a decrease albeit offset by the massive quality of life improvements, in terms of qualitative aspects such as stress, alienation, work/life balance, nutrition etc. While people in the majority of underdeveloped regions will experience massive qualitative and quantitative improvements in life expectancy/health, education, etc. Even with no net increase in global production, some commentators would hold that just the conversion from production for profit to that of use would almost immediately and relatively effortlessly make a massive difference to workers in all regions, as production is diverted away from the socially useless and towards the socially useful.

We have before us two scenarios. The first is a pessimistic view that capitalism will destroy the world. The other is a more optimistic one, where people will make the decisions and plan and allocate the wealth of the world. Ideas transform relatively quickly but it is a process not a single event.

What WE Want

 

History is made by people struggling to put society’s resources at the disposal of the majority of the people. Private ownership is the foundation upon which the entire edifice of exploitation, sexual oppression,  corruption, race hate,  criminality, and warfare making up modern civilisation rests.  Lawmakers and politicians have striven down the ages to ensure working peoples’ lives suffer its murderous consequences. Above all else, we must put an end to private ownership.

Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? To begin to understand the first step is to distinguish between two antagonistic classes: the capitalist class and the working class.

The capitalist class owns and controls the means of production, distribution and communication. The working class owns none of these, and therefore workers must sell their labour-power to the capitalist for wages in order to live. The worker creates a product of value, part of which is returned to him as wage, and the rest of which is taken from him by the capitalists as profit. Thus is created the basic antagonistic contradiction between worker and capitalist, since the interest of one is, and has to be, directly opposed to the interest of the other. This most fundamental of contradictions will not end until capitalism with its private ownership and/or control of the means of production is itself ended and replaced with socialism.

People have been taught to look upon the State as a “neutral arbiter,” standing above classes and mediating disputes between them. In reality, government institutions  (courts, prisons, police forces, the military) are dominated by representatives of the capitalist class and ensure their rule.  

In a socialist society, all means of production will be common property. There will be no classes and no class struggle. The consequences of class-divided society – racism, national chauvinism, male supremacy will all have disappeared. There will be no wars, no armies, and no need for weapons of war. Socialism will be a life of material and cultural abundance.

The aim of the Socialist Party is to build a socialist society. will be a class-free society, in which all the means of producing wealth are owned in common. Instead of being divided into workers and employers, rich and poor, society will be an association of free people, all making their special contributions to the wellbeing of society, which in return will supply them with what they need in order to live full and happy lives. Such a society can be summed up in the slogan: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” For this to be possible, socialism must be based on abundance. Production will be organised in such a way that there is plenty of everything for everybody: not only food, houses and so on, to satisfy material needs; but also leisure and recreation. 

Work, instead of being simply a means of earning a living, will have become the natural expression of peoples’ lives, freely given according to their abilities. Moreover, the nature of work will itself have changed. Through the development of technology, much of its drudgery will disappear and every man and woman will develop their mental and physical capacities to the full.

Because it will be a community of plenty, where there is enough for all and therefore no advantage can be obtained by theft or other forms of crime, all need for courts of justice and police will have disappeared. 

Socialism will be worldwide. It is not something that can be fully completed in one country, isolated from the rest of the world. On the contrary, it must eventually embrace all the peoples of the world, and in so doing it will put an end to nationalism and war. Because no wars can take place in a truly global society there will be no need for the military.

The State will itself disappear. Instead of one section of society ruling and oppressing another, men and women will live together in society without fear and compulsion. Thus, for the first time, mankind, united in a worldwide family of nations, will be free to devote all its creative energies. The working class, being itself the great majority of the people, will end the exploitation of man by man, and lay the foundations for a socialist society.

 

Which side are YOU on

 

The working class are the working class because we have no meaningful ownership of the means of production that provide everyday essentials. We have nothing but our brains and brawn that we are forced to sell to obtain work.  This means that our lives are dominated by the capitalist market and exchange economy. Only the employing and owning class, the wealthy, benefit from this arrangement. Freedom from wage slavery will only come from common ownership, free access, and control over the means of life. Once capitalist society is gone we will find fulfilment beyond what is possible in today’s society. We have everything to gain from liberation. Working-class power is international or it is nothing. The system of capital that confronts us is thoroughly global. Just as capitalism is global, today’s working-class crosses all national borders. Capitalism is a world threat, and only an internationally organised working class is capable of fighting it.  Together, we can cast off our chains.

It is not true that there is no class consciousness within the working class, but that consciousness is at a low level and has allowed millions of disgruntled workers to vote for class enemies of working people. The World Socialist Movement is an organization of men and women committed to building a socialist society and sees that only within a socialist society can we take control over our own lives and bring an end to war, economic insecurity and sexual and racial inequality. Only within socialism can all people fully develop their potential and capabilities. We must bring about the end of the present economic and political system that is imposed upon our lives – the system of capitalism. This system is inherently based on misery and exploitation. It profits a wealthy few at the expense of the vast majority of working people throughout the world. It generates war. It keeps people divided and powerless by fostering racial and sexual oppression. We believe that this system is controlled by a small number of extremely rich owners – a ruling class – who use all this country’s major institutions, including the government, to protect their interests and wealth. Socialism is not just an ideal. It is a proven, workable system where political and economic power is held and used to benefit not just a handful of people, but all people. Working people of the world will make it a reality.

Our world is changing. In the last few years, there have been tremendous changes around the world. We are being replaced by robots, computers, and other new technologies in our workplaces. At the same time, most people in the world still struggle daily for food, healthcare, and shelter. While a relative handful of people grow ever richer, the vast majority of people face a rapidly declining standard of living. The capitalists are defending their profits and domination by being ever more ruthless in their policies towards the workers and the dispossessed. The system can no longer feed and house us or provide us with jobs. At every opportunity, we must expose the capitalist system and uncloak our class enemy. Workers create the wealth of society, and the exploitation of that wealth is the basis of the bosses’ power. The lower the wages, the faster they work, the fewer the benefits, and the longer the hours, all add up to more profit for the bosses, and more misery for the workers.

We invite you to join us for a future of social justice and economic security. We must end this system of private property. We have no choice but to create a new world free of exploitation and want. This is not a system that can meet the needs of the people. It’s not a system that even considers the question of how to meet the needs of the people. We can only get rid of all social inequality when we’ve done away with classes, done away with the situation where anybody has to work for anybody else, and we have created a situation where we all work in common for the common good of society and humanity.

Capitalism has been unable to fulfil the needs of the people and has also been incapable of providing a decent life for the majority of the people, and poses a serious threat to the future of life on the planet with its pollution and environmental destruction. Homelessness, unemployment, inadequate education, lack of health care, and mass alienation have become facts of life. Present and future generations are confronted with the reality that they will be worse off than their parents. Millions of children are living in poverty. Increasingly, people are looking for alternatives to the way of life currently available to them.

We do not believe that Leninism is leading towards social change. We reject Lenin’s view of the vanguard workers’ party. We do not believe that a single party can or should determine the direction, strategy and tactics of the struggle for fundamental change. We reject the idea that fundamental change can or should come about through a seizure of power by a vanguard party claiming to act in the interests of the working class and the majority of society. We reject the goal of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” We reject the view that a single party can use its claim to represent the working class as a substitute for multi-party democracy and free elections. We are opposed to dictatorship in any and all forms. 

We believe that movements for justice must practice and embody the values and principles that they strive to achieve in society. We do not pretend to have a blueprint for a new and better society nor the road map on how to get there. We do have a vision of a better society and general agreement on the pillars of a successful political strategy. We believe that fundamental change will take the support of the majority of people who will demonstrate in some verifiable way such as through voting that they want such a change.

A Vision of a Socialist Economy

 Unfortunately, socialism has now become a dirty word. In the sense it is used by the Socialist Party, it does not mean a one-party police state or state capitalism. It means a free and voluntary association. Socialism is a world without classes, without nations, and without money”. While this definition is very basic (even negative, since it defines socialism as being “without”), it nonetheless contains the fundamental characteristics of socialist society:

− It will be without classes, because working people cannot free themselves by becoming a new exploiting class: the reappearance of an exploiting class after the revolution would in reality mean the defeat of the revolution and the survival of exploitation. The disappearance of classes flows naturally from the interest of a victorious working class in its own emancipation. One of the class’ first objectives will be to reduce the working day by integrating into the productive process the unemployed and the masses without work in the Third World, but also the petty bourgeoisie, the peasants, and even the members of the overthrown bourgeoisie.

− It will be without nations, because the productive process has already gone well beyond the framework of the nation, and in doing so has rendered the nation obsolete as an organisational framework for human society. By creating the first planetary human society, capitalism has already gone beyond the national framework within which it was itself born. Just as the bourgeois revolution destroyed all the old feudal particularities and frontiers (taxes on the movement of goods within national frontiers, laws, or weights and measures, specific to this or that town or region), so the world socialist revolution will put an end to the last division of humanity into nations. The state is there to serve the interests of the capitalist class, to give to the capitalists as much as they can without risking social unrest and to take from the workers as much as they will allow. Only when workers realise they have no country to owe allegiance to, and that the reliance on leaders leads them nowhere but down a blind ally, will we start to make progress.

− It will be without money, because the notion of exchange will no longer have any meaning in socialism, whose abundance will allow the satisfaction of the needs of every member of society. Capitalism has created the first society where commodity exchange has been extended to the whole of production (contrary to previous societies, where commodity exchange was limited essentially to luxury goods, or certain articles which could not be produced locally such as salt). Today, capitalism is being strangled by its inability to sell on the market everything that it is capable of producing. The very fact of buying and selling has become a barrier to production. Exchange will therefore disappear. With it will disappear the very idea of the commodity, including the first commodity of all: wage labour.

The WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT understands that only through mutual solidarity among the working class can we realise our common goals. We hope to achieve a global network of individuals and groups united by our opposition to capitalism and the State. We hold the following ideas:

Opposition to all forms of capitalism (past, present, local, global, state or ‘free market’)

Its replacement by a class-free, money-free world community without borders or states

Common ownership and direct democratic control of the means of production.

A free access ‘use’ economy with production geared towards the satisfaction of human needs;

Voluntary association, cooperation and the maximisation of human creativity, dignity and freedom.

A recognition that such an alternative society can only be established democratically from the ‘bottom up’ by the vast majority of people, without the intervention of leaders, politicians or ‘vanguards.’

Join the Socialist Party today for a better tomorrow

 

Socialism is not about giving equal property to all. It is the abolition of the idea of property, of ownership, altogether. Does it seem strange to think of things as owner-free?

The way to end the scandal of unmet needs alongside unused skills and resources is not to retain the exchange economy. It is to get rid of the exchange economy altogether by establishing a society based on the common ownership of productive resources where goods and services would be produced directly for people to take and use and not to be exchanged, or bought and sold, at all. Thomas Carlyle noted, “We have profoundly forgotten everywhere that cash payment is not the sole relation of human beings”.

The Socialist Party’s politics exposes the limits of capitalism and the political, social and economic boundaries that the system imposes. It challenges capitalism’s apologists on both the Right the Left. The Socialist Party goes beyond conventional party politics. Socialism means many things to many people. It can be defined as government control, state ownership, regulations, deficit spending, economic intervention by government, redistribution of income, progressive taxation. It’s the welfare state, the mixed economy, or totalitarianism. One of the most common misconceptions about socialism is that it means a draconian police state where a small party elite exploits the majority of the population, as what happened in the USSR, its Eastern European colonies, and what is happening in China, North Korea and Cuba. Some believe the very meaning of socialism has been lost.

Socialism is human-centred. We don’t talk of money and the market and so on. Instead, we talk of the economic means for the satisfaction of the needs of all human beings with the least possible waste of energy to achieve them. Instead of the vague and reformist aim of  “the right to work”, socialists aim for “the right to well-being”, that is, the satisfaction of physical, creative and other needs. But to satisfy these needs, we need to re-organise society. We need to have a revolution to abolish all classes and wage labour. The Socialist Party rejects the market, money, and profit as both exploitative and unnecessary. Instead, we seek a society of common, voluntary agreement to meet these shared needs and wants.

The first task is taking into possession of all of the wealth of the world, on behalf of the whole of humanity, because that wealth is the collective work of humanity. ‘All belongs to all’. This requires the abolition of all property and the holding of all resources in common for the well-being of all. The second task is organising society around the principle “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” This means everything should be produced and distributed for free according to need. Everyone within reason would be the judge of their own needs and take for free from the common storehouse whatever they needed. If there was scarcity, things would be rationed according to need. 

One of the reasons the abolition of money is a necessity is because there can be no exact measure of the productive contribution of every individual, as production today is so interwoven. These two aspects of communism are intimately related: common possession of the necessaries of production requires the common enjoyment of the fruits of production. The abolition of property requires the abolition of the wage system. Retaining some form of private property or monetary exchange would lead to the re-establishment of classes and the state.

The five criteria for socialism can be listed as:

(1) The means of production will be owned and controlled communally, and production will be geared towards satisfying everyone’s needs. Production will be for use, and not for sale on the market;

(2)  Distribution will be according to need, and not by means of buying and selling;

(3)  Labour will be voluntary, and not imposed on workers by means of a coercive wages system;

(4)  A human community will exist, and social divisions based on class, nationality, sex or race will have disappeared

(5)  opposition to all states, even the ones who falsely proclaim themselves to be ‘workers’ states

 

What we mean by socialism

 

What is socialism? The emancipation of mankind from economic servitude is our definition. In order to bring about this emancipation, socialists agree in saying that the whole people must undertake the management of their own affairs, and in this sense, all socialists are for democracy. The society of the future will surely be based upon the principle of equality; equality that recognises the human right of every individual to exercise to the full his or her powers of intellectual activity. There will be no need to curtail this complete freedom, for there will be no fear of the intellectual genius trying to make oneself wealthy at the expense of others when production for the public use has taken the place of production for individual profit or personal gain.

There are those who argue that after the Revolution there will not be enough to meet the unlimited wants of all. We believe this to be a mistake.

Even today, when waste is everywhere to be seen, and when through the sordid calculations of shameless speculators uncultivated land abounds, production so much exceeds consumption that the unemployed are ever-increasing their numbers. What then will it be in a society where no one will have any reason for monopolising because everyone will be sure of having their wants satisfied everyday; in a society where everyone will be socially productive, where all those who compose the army, the bureaucracy, having no other work to do to-day but to satisfy the caprices of our exploiters, where, in short, all those who to-day consume without doing any useful work in society, will be productive workers: moreover, when all those lands would be given over to agriculture which are now allowed to lie fallow by their over-fed proprietors, as well as all those lands, still more extensive, which are now abandoned because the harvest would not be sufficient to cover the expense necessary to put the in a productive state and also to give the owner a usurious interest but which in the future society would cost but little to put into cultivation, since the indispensable material would be in the hands of the workers, when we should be able by means of the steam-engine to ransack the earth unceasingly and take from it those nourishing essences that are given to the soil in the form of the manure which chemistry is able to produce to-day. Without estimating the future we can, therefore, very well think and even assert that production will be able quite well to answer all the requirements of consumption.

We protest because the present system hinders society’s forward march. Socialists are convinced of the absolute and speedy necessity of social revolution and are determined to bring about a change in the economic relations of men to one another which shall give all who do their best in working to supply the needs of the whole community, an equal chance of supplying their own needs, and render it impossible for a crew of wilful idlers to live in luxury at the cost of their industrious fellows. We all desire to establish a manner of life among ourselves that shall tend naturally to keep us all on terms of economic equality, making it easier for each one to work than to be idle, and to work for the common benefit, than to attempt to make riches for himself.

We are convinced that the workers must take possession for the common use of all the wealth now individually monopolised, which has been created by the common labour of all workers, with brains and hand; and that in future the wealth of the community must be held in common by all the members of the community, that we may have no return to the misery and exploitation which result from the monopoly of property to-day.

As a social species, men and women must necessarily associate one with another; it is as much a part of their nature to do so as it is to seek food and other necessaries of life. The purpose of the revolution is to render them perfectly free in following the guidance of this social nature which they possess.

All for All

 

The Socialist Party states that society cannot be organised on some kind of wage-system. Most social reformers have built up their schemes on the supposition that their reforms must be merely directed towards some improvement of the present system of wage-payment, and it is usually supposed that this improvement would result from the State, either taking industry under their management or declaring a minimum wage. If the social revolution should follow this course, it would be doomed beforehand to be defeated. 

The Socialist Party explains that the abolition of private ownership of land, mines, machinery altogether, surely will be the distinctive feature of any movement worthy of the name of socialist; and we have said, moreover, that no Parliament, no Government can do this. The expropriation can be carried out only by the initiative and action of working people themselves. It is not enough to proclaim, "These factories are ours," and to put on them the inscription, "Public Property." They will become ours when we really set the machinery to work. We do not answer "The State will do that, and it will pay wages, either in money or in 'labour-time vouchers.' Production is, for us, the mere servant of consumption; it must mould itself on the wants of the consumer, not dictate conditions. The very first advance towards a socialist society will imply a thorough reorganisation of industry as to what we have to produce,  a transformation of industry so that it may be adapted to the needs of the consumer. That can be and will be reorganised in time not by the State,  but by the workers themselves.

We hold that the satisfaction of the wants of all must be the first consideration of the revolution, that in the very first days and weeks, there must not be one single family in want of food; not one single person reduced to sleep under a bridge or in a doorway. Our first object must be to care for providing this food and this shelter for those who are most in need of them, for those precisely who have been the outcasts of the old society.

Is it possible? Are we able immediately to provide everybody with food, shelter, and healthcare? None of those who know the richness of our modern society will doubt the possibility. We have plenty, and we have plenty of food in our stores to satisfy their first wants. And if we thus consider the satisfaction of everybody's first wants as the first duty of each social movement, we shall soon find out the best means of reorganising our production so as to supply everybody with, at least, the first necessaries of life.

The Socialist Party is prepared openly and avowedly to profess that the satisfaction of the needs of each individual must be its very first aim, and we must prepare public opinion to establish itself firmly at this standpoint.

One of the commonest objections to socialism is, that mankind is not good enough to live in a socialist society. Submission to authoritarianism has rendered it unfit for a society where everybody would be free and know no compulsion. We are told we are too slavish, too selfish, too greedy. We are told now. "You don't understand human nature”. Therefore, we are told, some intermediate transition state of society is necessary as a step towards socialism. We have heard such words before. They will see that history is nothing but a struggle between the rulers and the ruled, the oppressors and the oppressed, in which the practical camp always sides with the rulers and the oppressors, while the unpractical camp sides with the oppressed.

Never forget that the sole end of our campaign for socialism is that the people shall be ready to rely on their own revolutionary initiative and not be scared from it by the scruples and prejudices or the plausible pretences of leaders, either timid or self-interested. The end of the social revolution is not to make men and women obedient servants. of a re-structured state, but to set them free.

Socialism refers to humanity in relation to the production of social wealth. Socialists look at the wealth of a community as the result of the common labour of the working men and women of that community in the past and present, and therefore. the common possession of all of them.

Socialists are agreed that individuals ought not to be allowed to monopolise (to claim an absolute right to prevent others from using) the necessary means for the production of wealth, whether land and raw material or capital created by past labour, because this monopoly gives to the monopolists' dominion over the lives of all other people, who must, of course, work that they may live, and who cannot get at the means for doing so without the monopolists' permission. And we, very well know that this permission is not granted except in return for the lion's share of all the worker can produce. Hence the extremes of idle luxury and toil-worn misery which disgrace our civilisation. Socialists are, therefore, agreed upon the attempt to change the existing method of producing and distributing wealth.

Socialists would have society recognise no rights of private property at all (other than personal possessions). In the creation of all wealth, the united efforts of the brain and muscle of the whole community have home their part, and the exact fraction contributed by each is impossible to distinguish. In a society of workers, all the wealth consumed is in the broadest sense capital, since all is devoted to increasing and developing the resources and capacities of wealth producers. All wealth, therefore, is to be held in common and the principle upon which it must be shared among the members of the community is, To each according to needs (not deeds). The supply of our needs is the object of our labour. We associate ourselves with our work because thus we can supply our needs better and with less effort. Let us, therefore, share what we produce according to the needs which are the reason for our work and our association.