Election Address of The Socialist Party candidate in the local election in Uplands Ward, Swansea.
Promises, promises
On May 7 you have a choice to make. You can vote Labour. Tory, Alliance. Plaid Cymru ... or Socialist. The first four parties will all be making promises. They’ll be promising to fight for Singleton Hospital. They'll be promising to keep rates down. They'll be promising to provide better local services, like pavements. schools and rubbish collection. And they'll all be blaming the other parties for the things that aren't right. Labour will blame the Tories because the Tories are in power nationally; the Tories will blame Labour because Labour are in power locally; the Alliance will blame Labour and the Tories because they aren't in power anywhere; and Plaid Cymru will blame all the "English-based" parties for not having the interests of Wales at heart.
What about The Socialist Party? The Socialist Party won't be making promises and won't be blaming anyone. No promises, because we think that if you want something done you've got to do it yourself, and not leave it to others. No blame, because if you put others in charge of your lives, you can't blame them for not doing things the way you want them to be done.
But wouldn't voting for The Socialist Party candidate be the same as voting for the others? We say it wouldn't, because in voting for Gareth Thomas you'll be taking a step towards a society in which we will be our own leaders. Rather than the vast majority of people being led by a small minority, we'll all be constantly taking our own democratic decisions about the things that concern us.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
At present, although we're supposed to live in a democratic society, the machinery for decision making is not in our hands. Singleton Hospital is a case in point. Decisions of the kind that have been made over Singleton are taken over our heads, against our will and without our being able to do anything about them. The only power we have is to decide every so often by a cross on a ballot paper who is going to have power and take the decisions for us. And every time we vote in a local or national election, we give our consent to this state of affairs — if we vote, that is, for the parties who wish to perpetuate it and who compete with one another on how best to run it.
In fact their choices about how to run it are very limited. That's why whichever party is in power, it's like Tweedledum and Tweedledee — what they do is strikingly similar and changes very little in our daily lives. This probably accounts for the uncertainty a lot of people feel about which party to vote for — they know it isn't going to make much difference.
The plain fact is that all these parties are committed to running a system where the single most important factor in decision making at all levels is, and must be, "how much does it cost?" — profit takes priority and human needs come a poor second. And they're committed to running this system — because it can't be run in any other way — for the benefit of the small minority of people (about 10 per cent) who own most of the wealth of society and to whom the profit from the labour of the majority goes.
The Socialist Party has nothing against the individuals who make up the owning minority. After all, they are only there by the consent of the majority — the wage and salary earners. What the Socialist Party asks for instead is a new outlook from the majority.
No money, no wages
In the world today we have the resources, the technology, the skills and the knowledge to satisfy everyone's needs — in food, clothing. shelter and everything else several times over; no informed person would deny it. But we cannot fully use those assets in a society where the fundamental aim of production is profit. We can only use them in a society where the fundamental aim of production is human needs.
This means establishing a society without money — where we don't use bits of metal and pieces of paper to needlessly ration ourselves, and don't all walk around with a cash register in our heads.
This means a society without wages — where we aren't forced to work for an employer just to get by, but where we can choose the work we want to do for our own satisfaction and for the benefit of the community as a whole.
This means a society without frontiers and nations — where the world's resources and knowledge are used rationally and not in the crazy, haphazard way determined by "market forces" or governments, causing millions to die of starvation or go short while food and other essentials are stockpiled in huge quantities.
This means a society without wars or the threat of wars — because wars in the modern world are caused by economic and trade rivalries between nations, and in a world that is united there won't be such rivalries to fight over.
“You can’t change human nature"
A lot of people will say that this sounds nice but it's impossible because human beings are naturally lazy, greedy and aggressive, and "you can't change human nature".
We'd reply to this that human beings can certainly be lazy, greedy and aggressive. But that they can also be (and they usually are in their day-to-day relations) co-operative, generous and caring. They are what their situation makes them. We are not, for example, usually greedy or aggressive about the thing that is most essential above all else to our survival — water. We don't fight for it, refuse a glass of it to a thirsty stranger, or hoard it in our baths or in buckets under our beds. Nor do we needlessly waste it. Why not? Because we know that every time we turn on the tap. it's there. And if we organise society — and we can do it easily — so that everything we need to live comfortably is there when we turn on the tap (in other words we have free access to all goods and services), then we are more likely, in these circumstances, to behave in a generous and co-operative way. We will also be providing for ourselves the secure material framework within which we can attend to all the inner, non-material needs we may have.
The real alternative
So we're not asking people to be "good" or "idealistic". We're simply asking them to see that a fundamental change in the way society is organised — which we call socialism — is in their individual interests, in their children's interests, and in the interest of society as a whole.
But the Socialist Party doesn't exist to bring about this state of affairs for you. We exist to spread the ideas we've outlined and to be used, if people want to use us, to vote out the present system of buying and selling and production for profit and vote in a new system of common ownership, production for use and free access to all goods and services. And just as it must be voted in democratically, this new system can only be run democratically — by everyone — with all having equal access to everything it produces.
Voting for Gareth Thomas in this election won't in itself bring this about. But it will help to make the idea more widely known and, if Gareth Thomas wins the most votes, it will give the idea a chance to make itself heard on an important public platform.
We would ask you therefore, if you agree with our case for socialism (but only if you agree with it), to put your cross next to the name Gareth Thomas on your ballot paper on Thursday May 7 and vote for yourself for a change — a real change.
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