Socialism, the society of tomorrow

 

Supporters of the established order have little doubt about what the future holds for working people. Capitalism is here to stay—indefinitely. Socialism has little future. A socialist revolution is a pipe dream. Socialism is a Utopian fantasy without relevance. The Socialist Party holds to the contrary that socialism is the only progressive alternative to capitalism’s misrule. Socialism is both a liberating and realistic goal. Many disgusted with the intolerable evils of capitalism have exclaimed at one time or another: “There must be a better way of living” There is and there can be. That is the essential message presented by the Socialist Party.

World socialism operating with a planned economy under the democratic control of the working people could assure everyone of the basic necessities of food, healthcare, and housing and provide an increasing abundance of material benefits and cultural advantages that would radically transform the habits, customs, and relations of human beings for the better. Such a system would eradicate oppressive inequalities of all kinds and enhance individual opportunities and freedoms in a fraternal atmosphere of social solidarity. This vision of what a socialist future could achieve is in contrast to the capitalist way of life. Sooner or later, he affirmed, the slumbering giant of the labour movement will shake off its lethargy and go forward to fulfill its historical mission. On this hangs the future of humanity.

 What will it be like after the revolution? How will socialism be organised? Socialist society is not anything immutable. Like all other social formations, it should be conceived in a state of constant flux and change. Its crucial difference from the present order consists naturally in production organised on the basis of common ownership of all means of production. 

We believe that it should be our special aim to make socialists, by putting before the working-class the elementary truths of socialism, since we feel sure, in the first place, that there are comparatively few who understand what socialism is, or have had opportunities of arguing on the subject with those who have at least begun to understand it; and, in the second place, we are no less sure that before any definite Socialist action can be attempted, it must be backed up by a great body of intelligent opinion, people who know what they want, and are prepared to accept the responsibilities of self-governance. Socialism is the rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is run. 

When socialism comes it will not be through the back door nor in the darkness of night. It will come only when a socialist party, having won the confidence of the working class is able to convince the majority  that socialism, that is, the common ownership and operation of the means of production, has become necessary. Socialism is based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, upon production for use as against production for profit, upon the abolition of all classes, all class divisions, class privilege, class rule, upon the production of such abundance that the struggle for material needs is completely eliminated, so that humanity, at last freed from economic exploitation, from oppression, from any form of coercion by a state machine, can devote itself to its fullest intellectual and cultural development. Much can perhaps be added to this definition, but anything less you can call whatever you wish, but it will not be socialism.

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Against this insane capitalist system, the Socialist Party raises its voice in emphatic protest and unqualified condemnation. It declares that if our society is to be rid of the host of economic, political and social ills that for so long have plagued it, the outmoded capitalist system of private ownership of the socially operated means of life and production for the profit of a few must be replaced by a new social order. That new social order must be organised on the same basis of social ownership and democratic management of all the instruments of social production, all means of distribution and all of the social services. It must be one in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. In short, it must be genuine socialism.

The Socialist  Party calls upon all who understand the critical nature of our times, and who may be increasingly aware that a basic change in our society is needed, to place themselves squarely on working-class principles. Join us in this effort to put an end to the existing class conflict and all its malevolent results by placing the land and the instruments of social production in the hands of the people as a collective body in a cooperative socialist society. Help us build a world in which everyone will enjoy the free exercise and full benefit of their individual faculties, multiplied by all the technological and other factors of modern civilisation.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE - FREEDOM NOW

 “The state has not always existed. There were societies which did without it, which had no idea of the state or of state power. At a given stage of economic development, which was necessarily bound up with the breakup of society into classes, the state became a necessity, as a result of this division. . . With the disappearance of classes the state, too, will inevitably disappear.” (Engels)

The capitalists are the ruling class. But the class of capitalists is itself divided. We have small businesses and big business, small landlords and large real estate companies. The various capitalists have interests that conflict.

No ruling class has ever inscribed on its war banner: “We fight for the Greater Good of Our Class Interests.” That is, no ruling class has ever done so if it expects the mass of people to do the fighting for it. It always goes to wars for God, for country, for honour, for defence, for freedom – for an aim which is also shared by those who have to do the dying.

class-divided

The first step in a class analysis is to understand the antagonism of the two basic classes: capitalist and worker. Racism, like nationalism, is the ideological product of class divided society. This ideology serves to divide the oppressed classes and strengthen the oppressors, a basic economic strategy designed to maintain a surplus of labour and prevent the unity of the exploited. All aspects of capitalist ideology that penetrate the working class must be struggled against and overcome. The establishment of a socialist society will go a long way toward the elimination of present-day racism until racism is wiped out entirely.

People have been taught to bow before the modern state with superstitious awe. The State has been looked upon as something sacred, as a “neutral arbiter,” standing above classes and mediating disputes between them. In reality, government institutions are dominated by representatives of the capitalist class and ensure their rule. The State is the product and the manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The State arises when, where, and to the extent that class antagonisms cannot be objectively reconciled. And conversely, the existence of the State proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable. The State is a special organisation of force; it is the organisation of violence for the suppression of the working class.

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In 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, the monogamous family based on property, etc. – will all have disappeared. There will be no wars, no armies, and no need for weapons of war, which will become historical curiosities. There will be no distinction between mental and manual work. Socialism will be a life of material and cultural abundance. Contradictions between people will remain, but these will not be antagonistic and will be resolved by mutual cooperation.

Forward to a socialist world, a society where peace, justice, equality and an end to poverty can be achieved.

 

 

 

Abolish the Monarchy

 

Fewer than half of people in Scotland say they support retaining the monarchy, according to a major new poll that reveals the cultural divides emerging within the union.

Only 45% in Scotland said they wanted to retain the monarchy – with 36% saying the end of the Queen’s reign would be the right moment to move to a republic.

Only 48% of people living in Scotland are interested in the jubilee – fewer than said they were interested in the World Cup in December, despite the fact that Scotland have not yet qualified. This contrasts with 73% of people in Wales and two-thirds across England who are interested in next month’s events.

Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?

 Some fellow workers may have heard about the Socialist Party for the first time only recently, we are not a new party. Our programme is based on the principles worked out by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels over a century ago. Their teachings constitute a guide that can end the workers of their misery, and despair and eliminate the bloodshed of capitalism into a better world of socialism. We are their heirs. Our aims are far more radical than simple reforms and trade unionism. World society can no longer advance under the capitalist system. National boundaries are like a strait-jacket on industry. Environmental destruction is a most ominous warning that humanity itself faces extinction if the chaos and anarchy of capitalism continue. The only hope is to end capitalism and build a socialist society. With socialism, the rule of a privileged minority is ended forever. The national resources, transportation system, mines, mills and factories pass into the hands of the people. The Socialist Party is dedicated to the great goal of guiding working people out of the blind alley of capitalism and into the planned society of socialism. The road to socialism is the road to peace and plenty. 

The Socialist Party believes in the international solidarity of the working class. The interests of the workers extend across all frontiers. Every person who is against another war, who is against capitalist exploitation and capitalist oppression should join the Socialist Party. Here he or she will find enthusiastic, militant, and whole-heartedly devoted to the great historic task of freeing humanity from the chains of capitalism. The combined political power of these workers far exceeds the simple sum of their individual strengths taken one by one. This power gives new strength, courage and freedom of mind to the sincere worker who joins the Socialist Party – a life of the greatest satisfaction, the only life that is really worthwhile, a life dedicated to the struggle against capitalism and for the world of socialism. The class struggle and class warfare continue under all circumstances in capitalist society.

We have witnessed the complete bankruptcy of capitalism as a social system. Why has the bankrupt system of capitalism survived? Why has the scourge of hunger and poverty inflicted mankind? Why have the devastations of one  war has been followed by another and another. There is only one answer to these questions, and it has been given by history: Bankrupt capitalism has survived beyond its time, and inflicted untold evil on the world, primarily because of the betrayal of the principles of socialism by those who pretended to speak in its name. Pseudo-socialists, intervened to play their tragic role of deception, sabotage and betrayal. They continued to preach socialism in words, but in practice they placed themselves at the service of the capitalist class. We of the Socialist  Party have nothing to do with these brands of so-called “socialism” or “communism.” We are orthodox, Marxists because we know that Marxism is the only revolutionary socialism of the working class, and that is the only genuine socialism. History has demonstrated the spuriousness of every other brand. Marxism is a theory of social evolution which affirms that capitalism is obsolete and bankrupt and that it must be, and inevitably will be, replaced by a higher form of social organisation which Marx and Engels called socialism.  

The socialist society will eliminate the exploitation of labour by removing the capitalist ownership of all 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 a 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.

Marxism teaches that socialism will not fall from the skies. Neither will it be gained by any appeals to the goodwill and compassion of the capitalist exploiters, as the Utopians, who preceded Marx, used to think, and as some people still seem to think. Socialism can be realised only as of the outcome of the class struggle of the workers. Many people become frightened by the immensity of the tasks, or crushed by adversity to the point of losing their moral and intellectual backbones, and losing sight of the main line of social evolution. This ‘lost generation’ has forgotten, if they ever learned, the supreme lesson of both world history. This is that the forces making for the advancement of mankind have overcome the most formidable obstacles and won out in the end. The idea, that people capitalism is the happy final chapter of human history, is but a repetition of the prejudice prevalent in both feudal and slave societies. Without a scientific long view of history, it is impossible for peoples at a given stage of culture to relate their past with their future; thus they accept their presence as given and unchanging.

To the establishment of socialism we pledge all our efforts.

For a socialist world

 

Join the only battle

Where no man can fail,

For whoso Fadeth and dieth,

Yet his deeds shall still prevail

William Morris

To this inspiring task, we summon all who are oppressed by capitalism. Only world socialism can give us peace and plenty. Look how the capitalist world always totters on the brink of destruction. Working people continue to suffer yet  mankind produces more with less labour. Capitalism has left the workers in hunger and want and sickness and despair. The capitalist parties and governments are as rotten and bankrupt as the system they uphold. They can maintain themselves and that. system today only by piling additional burdens upon the people. For the future they offer only war, continued insecurity and increasing reaction.

The single most decisive event in the social and political history of mankind will be the coming socialist revolution. This revolution will end this terrible period of the death agony of capitalism with its social decay, hunger, wars, and bestial bigotry, and open the socialist era of abundance, peace, and harmony – of truly human civilisation on a global scale.

The myriad evils of capitalism will disappear only with the destruction of capitalism and the building of socialism. The Socialist Party dedicates itself to urge the workers of the world forward to socialism. The struggle for socialism will be an arduous one, for the capitalists will not  relinquish their power and privileges to the people and only by wresting the state power from the capitalists can we begin the task of building a new social system. What will the people of the future think of a society where the workers lived in constant fear.

Socialism will do away with the anarchy of capitalism. Democratically-elected councils of workers and citizens in every industry and district will manage the factories and public services. The vast technological and natural resources of society will help us avoid the bitter years of construction. Freed from the fetters of production for profit, the technologically-equipped factories will pour out their products without interruption: the productive forces will leap forward to provide almost undreamed-of plenty. No longer will the food be ploughed under or dumped to keep up prices.

You can count on a shorter workday, and there will still be an abundance. Enlightened citizens of a free and prosperous socialist world will not be narrow-minded, ignorant, and selfish isolationists, but will regard themselves as citizens of the world, concerned with all the affairs of the world and all its peoples, and will seek fraternal association with them on the basis of equality. Workers will decide, freely and voluntarily the world outlook which the vision of socialism.

Capitalism offers no future to the people but more recessions, wars, violence and a final plunge into barbarism. All this is part and parcel of the development of capitalism—the system which puts profits above all other considerations. The capitalist system has long outlived its usefulness. To avoid such a fate, the workers of the world must go into politics on their own account, independent of all capitalist politics. A socialist economy eliminating capitalist wars, profits and waste, will be so productive as to ensure a rich living for all who are willing and able to work and provide security and ample means for the aged and infirm, to help the hungry people of the world to improve their standard of life. The economy of the entire world will be united and planned on a socialist basis. This will bring universal peace and undreamed abundance for all people everywhere. The real upward march of humanity will begin.

We, the Socialist Party, refuse to join the reformists in leading the workers into the camp of capitalism. Now is the time for the working class must overthrow capitalism. The only road is the socialist path.  All will be free and equal. The state itself will wither away. The government of men will be replaced by the administration of things. The goal we strive for is worthy of anything we do for it.

The working class can open up the way to this new world. They are the majority. They have the power. All that is necessary is for the working class to understand it—and to use it. We firmly believe they will do so. We firmly believe the working people will help save the world.

What World Socialism Will Look Like

“Tomorrow does not belong to us.” Auguste Blanqui, French revolutionist

In the present society people are haunted by insecurity Their mental health is undermined by fear for their future and the future of their children. They are never free from fear that if something happens, if they have a sickness or an accident for which they are not responsible, the punishment will be visited upon their children; that their children will be deprived of an education and proper food and good health.

Socialism  not as an arbitrary construct from a preconceived plan, but as the next stage of social evolution. Socialist society  will grow out of the new conditions when the class struggle will have been carried to its conclusion—that is, to the abolition of classes. The architects and builders of the socialist society of the future will be the socialist generations themselves.  The Socialist Party has been quite sure of this and has always refrained from offering these future generations any blueprints. The writings, of Marxists, however, do contain insight and perspective.  The people in the future society will most likely be more informed than we are. We must assume that they will be better educated, in every way, and that they will know much more than we can tell them. We can only anticipate and point out the general direction of current developments. What the future socialist society will look like is a fascinating speculative question of interest and contributes to the campaign for socialism.

Socialism will  bring about a radical transformation of human activity and association in all fields previously conditioned by the division of society into classes—in work, in education, in leisure and the arts. Change will begin with and proceed from the revolutionary transformation of the system of production and the anticipated growth of the productivity of labour,  of the manner of working and of regulating, measuring, and compensating the labour time of the individual—will take place first and should be considered first, because it will clear the way for all the other changes. This is the necessary material required for a society based on shared abundance.

The advances in science and technology which can be expected plus the elimination of waste caused by duplication arising from competition and equally easily conceivable that a new scientific-technological-industrial revolution will bring about a dramatic universal reduction of working hours yet still would be adequate to provide abundance for all.  The whole thought of the amount of necessary labour required from each individual, based on present conditions and practices, must be abandoned.

People will have no further use for money. Marx predicted money wages based will initially be replaced by labour certificates or coupons, like tickets to the theatre. But even that, eventually, will pass away. There will be no money, and there will not even be any bookkeeping transactions or coupons to regulate how much one works and how much he gets. When labour has ceased to be a mere means of life and becomes life’s prime necessity, people will work without any compulsion and take what they need. So said Marx. In a socialist society, when there is plenty and abundance for all, what will be the point in keeping account of each one’s share. What purpose would be served in keeping accounts of what each one gets to eat and to wear? There would be no need for compulsion or forcible allotment of material means. “Wages” will become a term of obsolete significance. A socialist society of universal abundance will be regulated by a different standard —“From each according to ability—to each according to needs.”

 What about this “human nature”, which we hear so much about? In the socialist society of shared abundance, the nightmare of insecurity will be lifted from the minds of the people. They will be secure and free from fear, and this will uplift their attitude toward life and their enjoyment of it. Human nature will get a chance to show what it is really made of with its boundless potentialities.

The present division of capitalist society into classes, under which the few have all the privileges and the many are condemned to poverty and insecurity, creates artificial and unnatural divisions which deform and degrade the individual and prevent the all-around development of one’s personality and a harmonious association with others. There is a division between men’s work and women’s work, to say nothing of men’s rights and women’s rights. There is the division of race prejudice between blacks and whites, which is cruelly unjust. There is a division between skilled  and unskilled labour. There is a division between the city and the country, which is ecologically harmful. These divisions are not ordained for all time. They are the product of a  capitalist class society. A socialist society based on human solidarity will have no use for such unscientific and inhuman notions as the idea that one person is superior to another because of gender, sexual orientation or colour of skin. With socialism, there will be the absolute and unconditional abolition of every form of economic discrimination and disadvantage, and proceed from that to full equality in all domains. Race prejudice will vanish with the ending of the social system that produced and nourished it. Then the human family will live together in peace and harmony, each of its sons and daughters free at last to make the full contribution of his or her talents to the benefit of all. 

The present urban sprawl of over-crowded, unhealthy mega-cities will be no more.  People will want also to live right in beauty and in harmony with all their surroundings. These monster cities we live in today are blights of modern society. They will certainly give way to planned cities interlinked to the countryside. Everybody will live with the natural advantages of the country and the cultural associations of the town. The private ownership of industry and property deprives all of any real scope. For improvement In socialism society will undoubtedly be more cooperative, more social. The city landscapers will organise buildings, and neighbourhoods which will be a delight to live in and a joy to behold. Communal centres of all kinds will arise to serve the people’s interests and needs. The class society, which divides the population into separate and antagonistic groups of the privileged and the deprived will be eliminated.

Inside socialism people will not fear to love their neighbour lest they be taken advantage of, nor be ashamed of disinterested friendship, free from all self-interest and calculation. There will be powerful impulses to give things to each other, and the only possible way of giving will be by doing, by making. There will be no chance to “buy” a present for anybody—because nothing will be for sale; and besides, everybody will be free to take anything one needs from the superabundant general store of material things rolling from the assembly lines. People will be able to live comfortably and to travel freely, without passports. People will have ambition, under socialism, to explore our great planet and unlock its secrets, and extract from their knowledge new resources for the betterment of all the people.

 They will organise an all-out war against sickness and disease and there will be a flowering of the great science of medicine. They will look back with indignation when they read in their history books that at one-time people had to live in a society where there was a shortage of doctors. Good health will be a major concern, and sickness and disease a disgrace, not to the victim, but to the society which permits it. People will engage cooperatively to control climate change and end the destruction of the environment.

Socialism means there will be no more private property, except for personal use. Consequently, there can be no more crimes against private property—which are 90% or more of all the crimes committed today—and no need of all this huge apparatus for the prevention, detection, prosecution, and punishment of crimes against property. No need of jails and prisons, policemen, judges, probation officers, lawyers, bureaucrats; wardens. No need for  the present-day State. No more “politics”, because politics is essentially an expression of the class struggle; and no more parties, as they are now known, for parties are the political representatives of classes. That is not to say there won’t be differences and heated debates. Groupings, we must assume, will arise in the course of these disputes. But they will not be based on separate class interests. The state will wither away and die out has a profound ultimate meaning, for the state is the most concentrated expression of violence. Where there is violence, there is no freedom. The society of the free and equal will have no need and no room for violence and will not tolerate it in any form. 

No matter whether we personally see the dawn of socialism or not, no matter what our personal fate may be, the cause for which we fight has social evolution on its side and it brings all humanity a new day.