Aside from proletarian power, what is absent from today's society that would be needed for socialism to work as a economic system?
Nothing! That's right not a single thing is needed aside from proletarian control - all the social mechanisms exist albeit in the hands of the ruling class. Marx could not say this nor Lenin, but we can. Socialisation exists to a degree that only the missing force of class direction remains to be acquired. Somehow, the left has missed this altogether. Ask the left what is required for socialism and it will say, the abolition of private property in the means of production, the removal of the chaos of the market and proletarian power. Suggest that the market is all but extinct (at the hands of monopolies) and the means of production have already socialisied the means of production (through public companies) and that all that remains is therefore creating proletarian power that can grow only by exercising its will through what history has provided and the response will be a barrage of formulations which "prove" this is not the case. The fact is that socialism does not have to wait, that historically it has already come of age but in a guise we didn't expect, the struggle for its Proletarian future should be taking place in the here and now. The stopper in the bottle, the only thing holding back the historical forces for this struggle is ironically the left itself. Greg Schofield Perth Australia
