Seriously, It's Time for Socialism

All government is based on the conception of the coercion of men and women unlike the socialist commonwealth which will be an administration of things.

It has been customary for citizens to be told that they must look to the State for protection yet it leaves them at the mercy of unsympathetic civil servants and irresponsible ministers. A socialist society must be one in which there is democratic control of all institutions, which effect on people's lives. It is now time to think beyond the welfare state. Democratic control over the means of production is the only solution to austerity cuts, never ending wars and the destruction of our environment. And it is the only road to the reversal of the current descent into barbarism. Democratic control over society is the goal of socialism and the only thing that will save the world. capitalism itself is the real enemy of the people.Socialism is not about fighting for palliatives or amelioration. Socialism cannot be reformed into being. We can’t make that distinction clear if we lend our support to capitalist politicians no matter if they call themselves liberal or progressive. Socialism is the Nordic or Scandinavian model of the welfare state.

Reformism's strategy is that working people should devote themselves primarily to winning elections so as to gain political office and pass legislation to improve their working conditions and living standards. Reformists also argue that too militant a resistance by workers to capitalist exploitations such as blocking the introduction of innovative technology or refusing new working conditions, will decreases productivity and this, in turn means a reduction in the pie to be shared by capital and labour, curtailing investment. It therefore follows for business to secure economic stability and growth workers must enter into partnership with employers and collaborate with them to increase their profitability and also acquiesce to the State’s  intervention to regulate capital-labour relations. The implication is that class struggle is not required nor really necessary for the long term interest the working class. Socialists reject the reformists' political method. So long as capitalist property relations continue to remain, the state cannot be neutral. Whoever controls the state is limited in what they can do by the needs of capitalist profitability and because, over any length of time, the needs of businesses cannot be reconcile with the interest of working people. In a capitalist society, you can't get economic expansion and growth unless you can get investment, and you can't get capitalists to invest unless they can make what they judge to be an adequate rate of return in share price or dividends. Even governments that would desire to further the interests of the exploited must make capitalist profitability in the interest of economic growth their first priority. If profits are threatened by the strength of the trade unions or if competition intensifies because of the cost of paying (via taxation) for social services which endanger the financial health of the companies governments will end up endeavouring to use its power to restore profitability by seeing to it that wages are constrained or and social spending cut, while the capitalist class receives tax breaks or subsidies.

Reformism gives false hope that electing a political party can achieve all the reforms the people and the planet need to survive. We know that the only solution to the plight of the working class and the planet is socialist revolution—the complete overthrow of the capitalist mode of production for profit and replacing it with a system of production for want and need, democratically controlled by the working class—to end hunger, homelessness, oppression and inequality. There are no short-cuts to socialism. If the Socialist Party doesn’t advocate the necessity of this then most probably, humanity faces the possibility of the end of civilisation. The immediate goal of the Socialist Party is the social revolution. We have been separated from reformists for quite some time, since our formation in 1904, in fact. Nothing binds us to them. We are above all socialists, i.e., we want to eliminate the cause of all iniquities, all exploitation, all poverty and crime: private property. We have, on the one hand, the toiling masses, more or less poor and enslaved, and on the other the privileged minority. The latter must disappear. The workers must go forward and take possession of the means of production. We must show that socialism isn’t an abstract concept, a scientific dream, or a distant vision, but a reality, destined to renew the world

The Socialist Party - Champions of the Exploited

We live in an age, where the dominant mood is one of cynicism and despair and where horizons are narrow and aspirations low. Capitalism is as mired as ever in its own crises and contradictions. Yet the Socialist Party’s talk of an alternative society is dismissed with a sceptical sneer as too many radicals on the Left have lost their sense of direction and their identity, and wallow in political and ideological confusion as they reject the fundamental tenets of socialism as ‘old fashioned’ and ‘out-dated’.

The Socialist Party see the present time as one of opportunity, with the chance to help with the rebirth of revolutionary thought, based unequivocally upon the concept of self-emancipation. Socialism is centred on human freedom and it is upon this that we wish to grow.

Socialists have argued that working people are the agents of socialism because in its experience of collective production it discovers the need for collective solutions to society’s problems. Every battle by workers, from the smallest walk-out to the greatest general strike, can be fought and won collectively or not at all. Land can be divided into individual plots, but a factories can only be collectively expropriated. The exploitation of the workers brings them face-to-face with the fundamental contradiction of capitalist society – the contradiction between the private ownership of the means of production and the social character of production.

Simply stated, the working class is defined as all those who:

1) Do not own the means of production;
2) Have to sell their labour-power to the capitalist class to make a living;
3) Directly, or indirectly, create surplus value...which is expropriated by the capitalist class. 

This exploitation, or expropriation of surplus value, creates an irreconcilable, antagonistic class contradiction between the working class and the employing. Only the emancipation from capital itself can liberate the working class. Its mission, therefore, is to overthrow their masters, establish socialism, a class-free society. 

Socialisation which is devised to spare the profits of the capitalist class cannot be a path to socialism. There is no other way but to suppress exploitation. The tactic of the Socialist Party is the political expropriation of the capitalist class today, and its economic expropriation tomorrow. The first great revolutionary effort of the workers will be to seize political power; so long as the capitalist hold the parliamentary stronghold, all working class measures will be rebuffed or if passed, it will be in such a form that they become illusory  and only benefit the capitalist class. When the ruling class are dispossessed of political power, then only will the Socialist Party be able to commence its economic expropriation. “Tax the rich” is far from being a revolutionary demand. Demanding taxation of the rich presumes the continued existence of the rich! The object in reality is to prevent the social expropriation of capitalist property, The Socialist Party intends to expropriate the capitalist class.

The working class is not a small, narrow class. In developed capitalist countries, the working class constitutes the vast majority of the population. We perceive an epoch where, with the needs of consumption and the powers of production scientifically calculated, consumption as well as production will be free. There will be neither wages nor market prices. Human society will then have achieved socialism

Capitalism has to go!

Capitalism—by its very structure—is designed to protect the privileges of the wealthy by any means necessary. That is the purpose of the courts, the police and the military. The capitalists tell us hen it comes to economic inequality “it’s human nature…there has always been a wealthy minority in power over the majority—the wealthy are on top because they are smarter, better, stronger. The poor are poor because they are inferior.” It is beat into our heads from the time we are born. We are taught to believe that this is the way it is, has always been, and will always be. 

The economic structure of capitalism and the laws created and enforced by capitalists are all designed to allow the wealthy to accumulate the profits that working people produce. In contrast to the socialist principle “from each according ability, to each according to need.” the ruling class have substituted “From each whatever you can grab —to each whatever you can get.” 

Capitalism is democracy for the wealthy and dictatorship over the working class. Capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It destroys the world in order to produce private profits for the wealthy. The gap between the rich and the poor has grown astronomically in the last few decades all over the world. Natural resources are taken by force of violence for the benefit of the corporations. Enriching the wealth of the capitalist class at the price of human life and at the expense of the health of the planet is the very purpose of the capitalism and its wars.

Socialism turns capitalism—the private ownership of the means of production—upside-down. Socialism is an economic system that democratises production in order to fulfil the needs and wants of all, on an equal basis, instead of on the accumulation of private profits for the few. Production for need and use instead of private profit will free up resources to ensure safety and efficiency on the job—both for the benefit of people and the preservation of our environment.  It will eliminate the waste of producing inferior products designed to break down so that they have to constantly be replaced. Instead, we can concentrate on the production of durable products that can be upgraded as technology evolves. Capitalist production pollutes and degrades the environment because taking the proper precautions to preserve the health of both people and the planet cuts into their profits. That’s why factories spew their filth in the air, land and sea with abandon and without guilt. Socialism will end all that.

Without the profit-driven capitalist motive of production, we will be free to revolutionise production methods without sacrificing the well-being of people or the planet. The goal will be to sustainably manufacture what people want and need more efficiently by maximising automation, shortening the work-week and bettering living standards for all—so that everyone can have, not only all the necessities of life, but more free time to pursue hobbies. We will study life on Earth, conserve our environment and explore the diversity of the species that share our planet with us.

It will be a world without racism, sexism, war, jails, poverty, starvation, homelessness, ignorance, despair, drug addiction, crime and pestilence.

Under a democratic and cooperative commonwealth, the free and equal development of each individual’s talents and abilities will finally become the condition for the free and equal development of all of us.

There is only two thing that stands in the way to a socialist utopia — one is the private ownership of the means of production by a tiny, despotic, divisive, parasitic capitalist class and the other is yourself not willing to make the socialist revolution 

With a socialist society, an ecologically safe and carefully planned communal economy, there are no obstacles that we won’t be able to overcome. It will be a society designed to encourage human development to its fullest while preserving and safeguarding the health and welfare of our planet for the benefit of all.