When the election comes you will be promised the earth. The Tory Party will claim that the "feel good factor” is just around the comer. They are hoping that you forget the last 17 years of broken promises and shattered dreams. The Labour Party are out-Torying the Tories in a bid for your support. Don’t be deceived. They favour the same market system as the Tories, Liberal Democrats, Nationalists and all the other candidates will promise a variety of reforms. Despite their differences they all have this in common—they want to run the buying and selling system. Only the Socialist Party candidates will be standing for a complete transformation of society from capitalism to World Socialism.
Behind all the fine words of the politicians about democracy and freedom is the reality of a system based on production for profit. The rule of capitalism is no profit— no production. That is why we have thousands homeless, and thousands living in substandard housing while building workers are unemployed. That is why we have people living on inadequate diets while farmers are paid not to produce food. That is why we have well over 2 million workers unemployed in this country—banned from producing the goods we all need to live. That is why world-wide the day-to-day experience of millions is one of unemployment, hunger, war, pollution and crime. That is why we must get rid of capitalism and bring about World Socialism.
John Major said he was going to create the classless society and Tony Blair promises a stake-holder society. This is nonsense. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of the population own little or nothing but their ability to work. In order to live we must work. We are the working class. Whether we work as railwaymen or doctors, labourers or university professors, we must work for wages or salaries. A small minority own enough of capital to be able to live without working. They live off the unpaid labour of the majority. This is the capitalist class. This class difference is based on ownership or non-ownership of the factories, the workshops, and all the commercial and transport undertakings. Between these classes, there is a conflict that shows itself in strikes, lock-outs, speed-ups and productivity drives. While the buying and selling system lasts this class division will always form its basis.
The major illusion in politics today is that by voting for one of the reformist parties the present system can be made to run in the interests of the majority. This is a fallacy. In this country over the last 100 years we have had Liberal, Conservative, Labour and Coalition governments. None of them has altered the class basis of society. In other countries they have had Republican, Democrat, Communist and Nationalist governments. Again the profit system has remained intact. Any reforms that have been brought about, such as the National Health Service, have left a two-tier provision—and recent experience has shown even these reforms can be taken away. Capitalism can only work in the interest of the owning class. For the working class a century of reform has proved virtually useless in dealing with social problems.
Socialism would be a world-wide system. It will mean that the earth— everything in it and on it—will be owned in common by the whole population. It is a new system of society where everyone capable of it would work according to their ability and take according to their needs. It is a society based on co-operation, where wealth would be produced solely to satisfy human needs without recourse to the market system with its profits, prices and wages. Inside a socialist system the problems of world hunger, war, poverty and environmental damage would be capable of solution because their cause—world capitalism—would have been abolished. Socialism will be a real democracy, where men and women can decide what will be produced and how society would be organised without the necessity of shareholders, directors or politicians.
No one can give you socialism. We in the Socialist Party do not claim that we can give you it It can only be brought about by a majority understanding it and organising for it. Only you, the working class, can make socialism possible. The choice is yours—another 4 or 5 years of the same or the start to building a better new society?
Richard Donnelly
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