HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
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The social system we live under is capitalism, the profit system. It is
a world-wide system. It exists in China and Cuba, just as it exists in
Britain and the USA. Under capitalism, the means and instruments for
production and distribution (land, factories, mines, railways,
shipping, etc.) are owned and controlled by a minority — the capitalist
class (5 percent of the population). All wealth, however, from a pin to
an oilrig, is produced by us, the majority — the working class. In
return for a wage or salary we sell our physical and mental energies to
the capitalist class.
Production under capitalism is primarily undertaken with a view to
making profit for the capitalist class, which means that items are
produced and goods provided only when someone decides more money can be
clawed back than was originally invested. The capitalist class, though,
do not keep all of the profits they make. Much is reinvested in order
that more profits can accumulate.
More often than not, too much is produced. When this happens the
profits of the capitalist class are threatened. The result is that
millions of tons of food are destroyed every year on purpose, to keep
prices high in the shops. In addition, when no profits are to be made,
workers are sacked or made redundant.
Meanwhile, millions die of starvation. Elsewhere, people sleep rough on
the streets while millions of houses stand vacant and millions are
unemployed while factories and machinery stand idle.
Occasionally, the interests of the capitalist class of one country come
into conflict with the capitalist class of another. When this happens
wars sometimes break out and workers are packed off to fight the
workers from another country. They are told they are fighting for
freedom and democracy, when in reality they are fighting over trade
routes, foreign markets and mineral resources (all sources of profit
for the capitalist class).
The mainstream parties will tell you that all this is inevitable (we
agree that is — under capitalism) but that, if we are only patient, the
system can be reformed. This is untrue. The capitalist system cannot be
reformed in our interests because the profit motive always has to come
before social needs. Don't get us wrong, some reforms are beneficial,
but none can abolish that basic contradiction between profit and need.
The only way the capitalist system can be run is as it is run now. This
is why the Socialist Party does not advocate reform, which is another
way of saying patching up capitalism. We seek an end to the entire
world-wide capitalist social system. In its place we wish to see
established a world-wide socialist system.
Socialism does not exist and has never existed. It can not be
established in a single country but only on a world-wide basis. In
socialism, the earth's resources, along with the means and instruments
for producing and distributing wealth, will be commonly owned and
democratically controlled by the world's peoples. There will be no
minority élite and no owners because society will be classless.
With the disappearance of money and the wages system, society's
productive potential will be released from the artificial constraints
of profit. Goods and services will be provided because society needs
them, not because they generate profit. With the barriers of the money
system removed, the only questions needed to be asked is what is
required and where — questions that will be answered according to the
availability of resources.
Technology and communications will be freed from the constraints of
profit and used to their utmost to serve the world's peoples. Again,
alternative sources of fuel and energy will be sought, both to best
serve humans and show the environment the respect it deserves.
People will give according to their ability and take from the stockpile
of communal wealth according to their own self-defined needs, with work
being based on voluntary co-operation.
For the first time ever, people will have control over their own lives,
with all monetary worries and fears of crime and war ended. For the
first time ever, the people of planet Earth will have an equal share in
planet Earth.
jt
www.worldsocialism.org
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