Editorial: Do they take us for fools? (1996)

Editorial from the April 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Politicians ask for our votes and promise to make things better but you know, from your own experience, that they can't. Every government running the present system will put profits before needs. This is a system of production for sale and profit, where goods and services are not produced mainly for need.

That's why so many of us, and those around us, are feeling discontented and deprived.

Problems abound: unemployment, mortgage repossessions and homelessness, destruction of the environment, cuts in the care services, escapism in a drug epidemic, families too poor to feed their kids properly . . . and a million other ghastly problems which are socially, not naturally caused.

All because the current social system puts profits before needs.

So what do we propose that a majority of men and women unite to put in place of this rotten system?

We call it Socialism, but don't be put off by the word. Look what it means:

• Common Ownership: no individuals or groups of individuals having property rights over the natural and industrial resources needed for production.
• Democratic control: everybody having an equal say in the way things are run including work, not just the limited and distorted political democracy we have today.
• Production for use: goods and services produced directly to meet people's needs, not for sale on a market or for profit.
• Free Access: all of us having access to what we require to satisfy our needs, not rationed as today by the size of our wage packet or giro cheque.

Of course, nothing will change unless a majority wants it to. Socialist change calls for understanding and democratic organisation. It means not being taken in by leaders, but following your own social interest.