Change the World

 Our aim, one and all, is to obtain for the whole community complete ownership and control of the means of transport, the means of manufacture, the mines, and the land. Thus we look to put an end for ever to the wage-system and to sweep away all distinctions of class. In our quest to create a better and safer world we should know what to adopt, and, similarly, we should know what to reject. The Socialist Party look for our success to the increasing communication of our views among all working people, and next to the capture of the State-machine. It must be apparent to every thinking worker that there is at present  struggle waged by the capitalist classes to secure a greater share in the exploitation of labour. To confuse workers  false issues of the capitalist class are put forward to mislead the workers, frequently by those posing as friends of labour. The principal function of the World Socialist Movement is to participate in the class struggle in such a way that the workers are educated to understand that their industrial might must back up a political fight, to gain the political supremacy so to substitute the capitalist system with uncompromising world socialism. 

Exploited, oppressed and scorned, the boss class cripple you and humiliate you. They rob you of your feelings. They demand that you surrender your interests, your aims, your ideals and accept servile subjugation. You work all through the year and, with the sweat of your brow, produce everything in the world. You build houses and yet, do you not live in a filthy, shabby, slum. You have produced and prepared all thefine cuisine. And yet are you not yourself eating processed fast food that barely gives you enough nourishment? You have made everything in the world. You have built all that is the very pride of the human civilisation today, and yet you have never shared in them other than through the distance of television and movies.

 The ruling class threaten the entire future of civilisation. Our struggle is the struggle for freedom. you must stand up for your own cause, for the aim of socialism, for the emancipation of the enslaved working people, by means of the irreconcilable class struggle. Class against class is the order of the day. Oppose the capitalist world of exploitation and its wholesale slaughter the innocents and support a world of peace and fraternity between peoples. The World Socialist Movement extend to our fellow-workers across the world our greetings as our brothers and sisters. We cannot sit back and patiently wait for capitalist civilisation to collapse. If we are to survive we must be free from capitalist domination. If the capitalist class continues to dominate we will suffer more bitterly.

The World Socialist Movement is organised to abolish through the ballot box, the capitalist system with its accompanying despotism and oppression, and to establish in its place, world socialism — an industrial democracy where all the land and the means of production shall be the common property of the whole people, to be collectively operated by the whole people for the production of commodities for use and not for profit. Organise with us to end the domination of private property — with its poverty-breeding system of unplanned production — and substitute in its place the socialist co-operative commonwealth in which everyone shall have the full benefit of all the modern technology.

Workers of all countries, we call on you to carry out the work of socialist liberation. Rally to the call for our total emancipation. In answer to the capitalist class let our battle cry be:

"Workers of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains; you have a world to gain."

 

What do we want? We want socialism!

 

We are not so naive as to imagine that the changeover from world capitalism to world socialism will occur over a single weekend. The changeover can be envisaged as taking place over a relatively short period of time of, say, five years or so (we simply don't know.) Yet even before the full establishment of socialism people will have started to do what is needed to begin creating the new world. Local life will soon became largely self-administering and local plans will be devised to make the best alternative uses of buildings that no longer served their original purpose, such as banks and armament factories.

 Communities able to grow their own food can very quickly become self-sufficient: food surpluses distributed elsewhere to areas of need without any requirement to pass through the intermediary of the market although later it will not be a question of communities passing on their surpluses to one another (most, if left to themselves, wouldn't have any surplus); it is a question of them being interlinked in a single network of production which in the end embraces the whole world. Wider co-ordination will ensue. It is as well to be aware to what extent local communities are interconnected and interdependent and that this places severe limits on what needs could be met locally. The fact is that people in small communities aren't able to produce all they need, or anything like it. The final stage of the production of a range of goods for everyday use could be done locally - food, clothes, shoes, furniture--as well as repairs but neither (most of) the raw materials nor (in most cases) any of the metals to make the tools and machines used in this final stage could be produced locally. The community will ascertain what are the requirements of the people - anything and everything that the people desire. Food, clothing, housing, transport, sanitation — these come first; all effort will be to supply those first; everyone will feel it a duty to take some part in supplying these. Then will follow the adornments and amusements. There will be a real sense of working together for a common goal - a true community. If you read people’s reminiscences of the Second World War or the Depression of the Thirties, you will find time and again the refrain, “Times were hard, but everybody pulled together.” It matters not how accurate these memories are; what is crucial is the way that cooperation and solidarity are seen as positive values, to be cherished and kept in the memory.

For real democracy: imagine a society where all the people would be of equal status, with equal, free access to resources owned by the community, as a whole (e.g. food, shelter, health-care, education, transportation, etc.).

 

Imagine a world with no leaders and no elite to lord it over us. A society where everyone can have an equal say in the issues that concern them. Above all, a world, in which all the people own and share the wealth that we need in order to live. The precise, day-to-day details of the running of this future society will be up to the people at the time, but what we can be sure of is that there will be open access to the administration of society for those interested in particular issues, such as food production, health, education, building of houses, the environment and local matters. Immense satisfaction will be experienced by huge numbers of individuals as, on the one hand they will be able to contribute their mental and physical energies into increasing the commonly held wealth of society, whilst on the other hand, they will satisfy their own self-defined needs from the common store.

"It's a nice idea but it will never happen" is one of the most common responses to the suggestion that it is in our interests to work towards building a socialist society. The assumption is that socialism will rely upon everybody being altruistic, sacrificing their own interests for those of others. In fact socialism doesn’t require people to be any more altruistic than they are today. We will still be concerned primarily with ourselves, with satisfying our needs, our need to be well considered by others as well as our material and sexual needs. It is enlightened self-interest that will work for the majority. The coming of socialism will not require great changes in the way we behave, essentially only the accentuation of some of the behaviours which people exhibit today (friendliness, helpfulness, co-operation) at the expense of others which capitalism encourages (acquisitiveness, competition.)

Given the control of human affairs that a socialist system would bring, people in socialism would be able to take charge of their destiny. What is undeniable is that we are a species with great talents. In science, technology, in art, crafts and design we can call upon a wide range of great skills. The point now is to release these for the benefit of humanity and a new era for humanity will have begun. Production for profit will have been confined to a barely-understandable and barbaric past.

No Government Can Stop Capitalists From Making Profits.

 Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, recently released the government’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions(GHG) by 2030 and a gradual hike on the Federal carbon tax on fuels to $170 a tonne that year. It also promises $15 billion in new spending on climate initiatives over the next ten years - money earmarked for improvements to Canada's electric vehicle charging infrastructure, rebates and tax write offs to zero emissions vehicles and funding for home retrofits. 

The overall goal is to reduce GHG by 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. 

Well, they mean well and try hard, but don't understand the nature of the economic system which they attempt to administrate any more than the American government did when it passed the prohibition law. 

No government can stop capitalists from making profits, like they give a hoot what laws are passed. All this will eventually end in another crazy capitalist clusterfuck Social.

S.P.C. Members.

There Is No Other Hand.

More than 7,600 workers have gotten COVID-19 on the job, causing thousands of workplace safety inspections across Ontario, but since the start of the pandemic the Ministry of Labour has issued just two fines, one of which to a worker. 

Ministry inspectors have conducted over 31,500 field visits checking for pandemic precautions and issued the same number of health and safety orders, which identify workplace violations and require employers to address them. However, only one employer has been fined and none have faced serious prosecution. 

To quote Deena Ladd of the Toronto based Workers’ Action Centre:

 ''The ministry is obviously not using the powers and the tools that they have to enforce and to send a strong message to employers that they can't mess around on this.'' 

What is blatantly obvious is the capitalist class and their political stooges don't care. 

On the one hand some may say, ''The only way to eliminate the problems capitalism causes, including this disregard for people's lives, is to abolish it,'' but on the other hand, - there is no other hand.

S.P.C. Members.

Work in Socialism

 

Work should not really be equated with employment. Employment is wage labor and the ability to work is a commodity the workers are forced to sell. As such it has alienating factors associated with it; e.g. Monday to Friday , 9 -5 , is “their” time, whilst the weekend is "our" time, where we can enjoy working in the garden or painting. Employment is based on the division of labour. The upshot being workers are tied to one job for years on end, instead of being people able to do all kinds of things, which socialist society – run by conscious decisions instead of blind forces – will allow. It is a moot point as to how far the division of labor can be removed from socialism; not every one can have the steady hand and requisite knowledge of a surgeon. People most fitted for a certain task will do it because they want to, and not through bureaucratic compulsion or unfortunate necessity. Socialist society will not eliminate inequalities of talent: one person might be a greater pianist than another will ever be, while another will run faster than another could ever train to run. But this does not mean that socialism will establish a hierarchy of pianists or athletes or poets or brain surgeons. In a cooperative society it will be recognized that poets cannot write their literary masterpieces unless the miner is willing to bring the coal from under the ground. Humanity lives interdependently. And who is to say that miners will not be poets when they are not down the mine and the greatest chess player in socialism will not sweep the streets so that the greatest brain surgeon can walk to the hospital without rats biting at the ankles? The rigid division of labor which is a feature of the present system will not exist in socialist society.

The changes that the working class of the world has developed under the whip of capital, have modified conditions of living and working, and particularly the prospects for future society, in a fundamental way. They have made the production of abundance a real and obvious social possibility. There is now very little that modern science and technology can not do, given sufficient resources and effort. Except for large products, such as ships or steel girders, enormous manufacturing plants are no longer technically necessary. Such items as cookers, fridges, a vacuum cleaner, a washing machines, TVs would have to be produced en masse. This doesn't mean that they need be produced under the conditions that exist today in factories under capitalism. Far from it. Factories in a socialist society can and will be structured and run quite differently: slower pace of work, shorter hours, non-polluting technology, democratic participation in decision-making, even be set amidst trees and gardens. They would be making goods to supply all the local communities in a given area (except, perhaps, for some factories producing very specialized equipment as for hospitals or scientific research). The potential of automation for post-capitalist, democratic society is enormous (this society only automates to increase profits and for no other reason.) When used in conjunction with computers it is virtually limitless in its possibilities.

 

Whereas tools may be said to supplement human limbs, and machines - themselves using tools - can be thought of as amplifying human energy and speed, automation represents an extension, an amplification, of the human nervous system and, with computers, the brain. Automation makes decisions and gives instructions for them to be carried out. Operating machines by giving them information opens up other possibilities too. Information can be sent over almost any distance, as the control of the various exploratory space vehicles demonstrates. Remote control of machines in dangerous or humanly inaccessible locations is now, therefore, becoming common practice (but only where profitable) The potentialities of remote control for the free society of the future are, in contrast, rich and liberating. A person who had taken on responsibility for a particular production process or service could monitor its progress and make adjustments from wherever he or she happened to be. With good satellite communication links, machines and equipment in isolated stations, performing a variety of environmental control or supply functions, could be supervised from almost any distance. As far as the technology is concerned, there is now no reason why human beings should do any of the dull, dreary or dirty jobs that are necessary to provide the wealth and services of an advanced, affluent society. Machines can - could if they were under the control of a free democratic society - do all of these tasks for us.

One of the strangest objections to socialism is “who will do the dirty work?”. Imagine such doom-sayers arguing “I don't want to live in a world without want and hunger , and where my needs are satisfied, if it means I have to do dirty work once a week.”

Who will do the dirty work? Socialism will not be a Utopia where all the problems of existence have vanished. Socialism can do lots of things, but it can't make shit smell of roses - that is one little fact of life we'll just have to put up with. Unpleasant work will still have to be done.

 

Machinery will do it, said Oscar Wilde. “All unintellectual labour, all monotonous, dull labour, all labour that deals with dreadful things, and involves unpleasant conditions, must be done by machinery”. This will release each individual to help the community in his or her own way by doing service or producing things which will satisfy each person’s need to be active, to contribute and to help. Wilde summed it up: “The community by means of organisation of machinery will supply the useful things, and...the beautiful things will be made by the individual”.

Unappealing dirty work can probably be taken care of by utilising labour-saving machines. But where it is impossible and where dirty work will have to be done in socialist society we can be quite sure of two things: Firstly, it will NOT be done by the same people ALL the time. All able members of society will take turns at such work.

 

Secondly, and not to be forgotten, is that it will be carried out by socially conscious men and women who appreciate that society belongs to them and therefore its less pleasant tasks must be performed by them. In the knowledge that we own and control the earth, and all that is in and on it, it is unlikely to think that human beings will refuse to attend to the dirty work within socialism.

The fact is that most jobs under capitalism are either completely or partially unnecessary. Many of those that are necessary are performed by people working long hard hours while others suffer poverty of low wages and low status. At first, everybody would carry on with their usual duties for the time being, except all those whose duties being of an unnecessary nature to the new system, were rendered idle: for example, bank and insurance employees, and sales-people p;us all those security personnel toprotect private property, not to mention the great numbers in the police and armed forces. These people would, in time, be fitted into productive occupations for which they considered themselves suitable. Elimination of all jobs required only within a capitalist system would reduce necessary tasks to such a trivial level that they could easily be taken care of voluntarily and cooperatively, eliminating the need for the whole apparatus of economic incentives and state enforcement. Work will be an essential part of life in socialism; it will be a part of the individual's personal development, a necessary, healthy expenditure of energy and a social bond with co-workers. The hours needed to work will be considerably reduced as unemployment will no longer exist, and from the additional extra labour being made available from no longer required capitalist occupations which will not exist in the moneyless, free access society of socialism. There will simply be many more hands to do the unpleasant but necessary stuff. Socialism will entail new applications of technology and the abolition of unnecessary routine work. Dangerous and unpleasant work will be eliminated unless absolutely essential. It may be reasonable in some ways to compare work in socialism with people’s hobbies now: things done for their inherent enjoyment, not because of the wage packet. And just as the appeal of some hobbies and pastimes is incomprehensible to outsiders, so different people will find different kinds of work attractive.

As for the lazy greedy shirkers and free-loaders who may contribute less and take more, why should this be a problem in a society which is based on the satisfaction of needs? Socialist society will contain millions of babies and infants who will not be able to milk the cows. There will be those in socialist society who are too old or too disabled to go down the mines. There is no reason why society should not allow them to take according to their differing needs. And those people living in a socialist society who are too idle to work will not be a drain on society’s resources for very long, for if they lie in bed for long enough they will die—of boredom. If work is organized, not to meet your need but for someone else's profit, it is understandable that you will avoid it if you can. But if you are working for yourself, for others like yourself, or for the community as a whole you will be unlikely to shun work. What is it most people like about their jobs? It’s the interaction with their work colleagues. But of course if people didn’t work then society would obviously fall apart. If people cannot change their behaviour and take control and responsibility for their decisions, socialism will fail. And consider all those aspiring artists and novelists who endeavor to create their contribution to culture. Are we to have committees to consider if their efforts are acceptable and worthy or not?

Technology and Science in Socialism

Near-future science fiction frequently explores the possibilities of imminent technologies – gadgets that haven’t been designed yet, but could be given recent real advances in technology and design. Whilst its track record on such predictions – such as us getting to Mars by 1977 and everyone having flying rocket cars – have been a bit wide of the mark, others have been much closer and in fact actively conservative compared to the real historical record. 

 

Scientists can be very far-sighted but at the same time have only a very narrow field of view, like a blinkered racehorse. William Morris's News From Nowhere famously describes a deliberately low-tech socialist society in which people have eschewed the benefits of technology and adopted simple ways of doing things, although arguably he cheats by powering his 'force barges' with some mysterious energy source he never explains, thus hiding his technology rather than really abolishing it. 

Nonetheless, this is unusual in that most portraits of the future, whether socialist or not, depict a society of advanced technological splendor in which all our needs are met by a range of technical apparatuses only a voice-command away. The amount of electronic appliances in the average household now massively outweighs that of fifty years ago, and half a century from now we may shudder at the poverty of gadgetry suffered in the early 21st century. But it is not necessarily the case that a socialist society will produce an equal amount of high-tech gadgetry.

 Because socialist production will meet real rather than false needs, it could be that socialism might be a low-gadget society. Although mobile phones, - I-pads, lap-top PCs and so on can satisfy some actual needs, it is mainly sociologically- and psychologically-induced perceived needs they actually satisfy, such as the need for conforming to group norms, the desire for prestige, and the belief that a product brings contentment. And because these items are produced to satisfy manipulated needs, they can have little use value. So if socialism will be a society that relies far less on gadgets, it is only because it will be a more honest society than the present one, without artificial needs.


Most people have no direct experience of science, only of the technology that is an almost incidental by-product of it, yet capitalism pours billions into pure scientific research despite the fact that virtually none of it will ever yield a profit. Why? Because the one per cent that does make a profit will pay for the 99 per cent that doesn't. In capitalism, science is a huge gamble that only occasionally results in a win, but bets are never placed on research that helps people who can't pay.

Scientists do have their heroes, but they don't worship them as infallible gurus because it is recognised that argument from authority is inferior to argument from evidence. Socialists take the same view of Marx and other revolutionary thinkers. Non-market, non-hierarchical socialism, which has no such agenda and which can therefore collectively determine the best course of action based on the available evidence. In science good ideas are not taken seriously enough when they come from people of low status in the academic world; conversely, the ideas of high-status people are often taken too seriously. The scientific method suffers because science is organised hierarchically. The problem with science in capitalism is that scientists have mortgages to pay, so they need to chase funding because they can't afford to work for free.

"Science uses commodities and is part of the process of commodity production. Science uses money. People earn their living by science, and as a consequence the dominant social and economic forces in society determine to a large extent what science does and how it does it."(The Doctrine of DNA by R.C. Lewontin.)

And what will socialism do with pure research? Carry on the same way? Hardly. What we can say for sure is that curiosity is not likely to be dimmed by some inexplicable post-capitalist apathy in a society that releases scientists as well as all other workers from the compulsion to direct their efforts towards only those endeavours that the
capitalist class sees an interest in funding. 

So what approach would socialist society take to the great scientific project? Priorities would certainly be different. Drug research, for instance, will not occur in capitalism if the R and D cost is not likely to be recouped, thus diseases rife in poor countries are overlooked while popular research projects are based on global sales estimates such as anti-depressants. Much of the pharmaceutical industry would be obsolete or transformed anyway if one can assume, after capitalism, a dramatic fall in heart disease and obesity, two wealth-related conditions for which the present drug market is principally geared, and an even more dramatic fall in poverty and stress-related diseases which presently do not even merit scientific attention.

 Similarly, science would no longer be prostrate at the feet of the military where global military spending is in the trillions. While some other lines of research would probably end, for example cosmetics , including most animal testing which is for this purpose, there would be a clear need for continued work in climatology, energy, epidemiology and many others, but it is questionable whether a socialist community would have the same passion to send humans to Mars, or to build space hotels. In socialism, science will still be a gamble, but with the difference that no knowledge thus gained can ever be money lost. It may be that the huge time, resource and work investment in such esoteric projects as Atlas and the Large Hadron Collider, the LIGO gravitational wave detector or the AMANDA neutrino telescope will continue in socialism, but if they do it will be because the population understands and respects scientific enquiry for its own sake, and not because they are expecting to get a new groovy gadget out of it.

The freedom from patent and copyright restrictions, which are forms of private ownership and will thus be abolished, will almost certainly unlock a tidal wave of new development which may revolutionise areas of science which are currently at a near-standstill, for instance drug research and computing. In addition, the justifiable fear of what corporations, governments and the military might do with horizon science will no longer hold back developments in gene research and nanotechnology.

Lastly, the ending of male domination of science, in which men are four times more likely than women to be scientists will produce a vast influx of new talent and new ideas that can only advance scientific effort for the acquisition of knowledge and ultimately the betterment of humanity.

There are times, though, when even some scientists start to sound a little reactionary, self-righteous and sanctimonious on their own account. One such instance is the issue of animal rights. Scientists tend to be very defensive about animal research, but their arguments, that such research is always necessary, tightly controlled, responsible and largely painless, are at best questionable and sometimes plain wrong, depending as they do on an idealised representation of scientific research as it is supposed to be, and not as it actually exists in the dollar-hungry world of capitalist corporations. Scientists do not help their own case with simplistic no-brainer dilemmas like “your dog, or your child”, which imply that all testing is for the common good and which gloss over the large proportion of experiments done for cosmetics, food colourings, and other non-health-related products. 

Socialists are not unduly sentimental about animals, and consider that a human’s first loyalty should be their own species. 

Nevertheless, the degree to which human society is ‘civilised’ can reasonably be gauged by its treatment of animals and the natural world as well as by its treatment of humans, and socialism, in its abolition of all aspects of the appalling savagery of capitalism, will undoubtedly do its part to abolish all unnecessary suffering by non-human sentient creatures.

Even in socialism, where there would be little likelihood of animal testing for non-medical purposes, e.g. cosmetics (such research today account for around three quarters of testing). Socialist science would (if it decided to do so at all) conduct animal research only under conditions of strict and peer-assessed necessity, and with attendant informed public debate, two key factors notable for their general absence today.

Technology is often seen as either the salvation or the scourge of humankind. Some of us incline to be technophiles and others techno-sceptics and others a bit of both. That is not to say, though, that the case for socialism rests on developing technology. It is neither possible nor desirable to abolish technology. Without it we would have to go back to a much harsher form of living.

 Few people would deny that among the changes technology has brought there have been tremendous improvements to our productive capabilities, if not always to our personal circumstances, or that in a socialist society modern technology will be vital in making sure everyone gets adequate food, housing and medical care. What is required is to change the basis of society so that technology can be developed and applied in the interests of the majority. Neither nanotechnology nor genetic modification are required for socialism.

Socialism will take, adapt and use technology as it finds it. What socialism must do, however, is change our relationship with our tools, so that we can take control of our own destinies.

A Hilarious Moment.

Dragons Den is a Canadian TV program in which would be capitalists ask a panel of billionaires for investment and sometimes partnership in their companies. 

On Dec. 17 there was a hilarious moment on the program and what-the-hell, we could all use a good laugh.

 Billionaire, Arlene Dickinson, agreed to invest in a petitioners line of baby clothes and said, ''That's capitalism with a heart.'' 

So we've had two devastating world wars, the Holocaust, the Atom Bomb, pollution of land, sea, air and rivers, global warming, nearly 60 genocide's since WW2 and racism, to name a few of capitalism's lovely effects. 

That's what I like about capitalism - It's all heart.

S.P.C. Members.

“Beware” Landlords Baring Maintenance.

For 20 years Ontario's governments have allowed landlords to raise rents to whatever they want when an apartment has been vacated, and for the prospective tenants it’s a case of pay it or get lost.

 Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, recently vowed to eliminate vacancy decontrol if elected in the next provincial election by changing legislation and creating a registry that attaches rent to each unit.

 Landlords don't agree - surprise, surprise - on the grounds that the new law would reduce their incentive to spend on maintenance or upgrades. 

What they are not saying is that, in many cases, upgrades are made from crappy materials and solely for the purpose of jacking up the rent. 

Another damned if you do, damned if you don't, capitalist situation. I guess it would never occur to Ms. Horwath to advocate a society where there will be no rent.

S.P.C. Members.

Education in Socialism

 

Education is an integral part of any social system. Feudal society required little of the peasants by way of education. The Industrial Revolution demanded more - workers who could make, tend and repair machines, and some who could keep records and books. In the 20th century the process was continued - mass education was fashioned into an increasingly refined training and selection mechanism for the labour force.

There is a conventional mythology surrounding the noble ideals of education. Schools are said to be places where young minds are nurtured, where boys and girls are prepared to become responsible citizens. In the present society the main aim of education is to provide the knowledge and skills base necessary for employment in capitalism. Dominated by commodity relationships and values, education both reflects and contributes to those relationships and values. Under capitalism most people don’t get the chance to develop their capacities.

The inherent inequality between teacher and pupil has led some critics to question the value of "schooling". The concern has been that hierarchical and autocratic teacher-pupil relationships concentrate power in the hands of teachers and lead children to acquire attitudes of docility and submission to authority. A critique of authoritarian schooling as simply preparation for employment led to a movement for "de-schooling"

So, what would education be like in a socialist society? A detailed description obviously cannot be given, however, it is very clear that, in complete contrast to capitalism, socialism will put human need first. The welfare and needs of people, both as individuals and as a community will be treated as a priority. The importance of developing to the full, the mental, physical and social abilities and talents of everyone, as individuals, will undoubtedly be recognised. Most significantly, education will inevitably be considered a lifelong process and certainly not something to be compartmentalised into time slots, like happens under the present system. As a result of this, people will be able to lead far more satisfying lives than could ever be even remotely achieved under capitalism. This satisfaction would derive from the contributions to the overall material, intellectual social and cultural wealth of society which people would be able to make and, of course, from the fact that, as individuals, they would be able to enjoy the fruits of the common store. Learning is better stimulated through a holistic and experiential approach and would be available on demand at all life stages. From the moment a baby emerges from the womb (perhaps, even before that) it begins the process of learning. "Playing" is a part of that process. We cannot visualise a socialist society where children are regimented into education, conveyor-belt style. Basic schooling would take a huge shift away from the narrow confines of a rigid, test-based curriculum. Endless possibilities would be available from an early age to stimulate children. No financial budget means more "educators, facilitators, trainers, coaches, mentors" etc. to guide young and old through a much wider educational experience. Universal education can only raise levels in all areas important to the well-being of society whether knowledge, awareness, tolerance, capabilities, wider appreciation of self and others, resulting in wealth being measured in human terms. It will take time for world socialist education to develop its own character, and there is no reason to suppose that it will take the same form for everyone everywhere.

A quotation from the Communist Manifesto sums up the situation well:
“In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”
Here, the term “free development” can be taken to include education. In socialist society, there would be no financial constraints since the monetary system will have been abolished and production will be carried out solely for human need. The stresses and strains of cutbacks and needless austerity measures will finally have been abolished forever and at last, humanity will be able to move forward, considerably through genuine and effective education, towards real progress, both as individuals and as a community. The knowledge and skills needed to run a society which inherits the best from the past and rejects the worst will be circulated and developed among adults, and the ability to think creatively and critically transmitted from generation to generation. There will surely be different approaches to — even controversies about that task.