Wednesday, May 06, 2020

Capitalism Will Not Save Us


Not even a tragic pandemic is changing capitalism’s sacrifice of working people and their communities in order to boost profits. Capitalism’s social responsibility is fake. All our separate and different social movements needs to coalesce around one single goal - world socialism. In the wake of the global pandemic, it has become clear that our planet needs a new economic system, a viable alternative to the present capitalist system, a movement that stand for economic democracy and the equitable shared distribution of resources,  rational and people-oriented planning rather than short-term profit and capital accumulation. The Socialist Party’s goal is to try to steer our fellow-workers and society in the right direction.

Some say the language of socialism is outmoded, something from the past that is unlikely to resonate. Yet, despite the vagueness of terms many people have embrace the term socialism and rallied around what they call for “democratic socialism” as a more inclusive, transformative vision for the future. The world’s injustices,  have inspired new innovative forms of organising and coordinating collective struggles.

One of the great mysteries of life for the Socialist Party is why the majority of people tolerate a social system based upon exploitation and oppression by a small minority. For a great numbers of decades now, the capitalist world has been ripe for a socialist revolution. Yet we have had no socialist revolution. There are many explanations such as economic compulsion, ideological and cultural socialisation by media and psychological manipulation. You have to know the world you want to change. To change society and end oppression, we need a plan to get from where we are now to liberation - a strategy that will work. Any successful revolutionary strategy must address the fundamental issue of who are our friends and who are our enemies and explain how we will go about uniting all who can be united to end the existing order of things.

Capitalism is a doomed system whose continued existence stands in the way of all social progress. Huge corporations and financial institutions are headed by a wealthy oligarchy that dominates the political and economic life of this world, blocking the path to prosperity for the vast majority. The ruling class have built an empire that spans the earth who live off the labour, land and natural resources of others.  The world has been divided up between the big capitalists, which will stop at nothing to expand their spheres of influence and control. The capitalists have accumulated untold wealth based on the exploitation of the multinational working class and their systematic discrimination and robbery.  

We have the experience of a whole series of reforms in a conscious effort to save capitalism while at the same time neutering working class strength and emasculating working class power. Reformers fear an emerging working class consciousness might lead to a revolution. In promoting palliative policies, politicians prevent the transition from economic demands to class struggle.

Class consciousness does not flow automatically out of class struggle. Being a worker does not necessarily mean you will identify with fellow-workers. Class consciousness is a learning process, gaining insights arrived from events that brings the relationship of the class to the surface. Class militancy is born of self-protection and self-interest which can then grow into a movement for deeper, broader social transformation where the working class comes to see itself as an agent of change — and finally takes action.


 We in the Socialist Party patiently wait for our fellow-workers to announce “We won't take it any longer,” and acts accordingly. When the majority of working people refuse to be fooled any longer and when they will not stay on their bended knees they can become transformed overnight from seemingly meek sheep into mighty lions. We need to turn things upside down. This means revolution, a radical break that advances the cause of the exploited. This power is the means to reorganise society in our own interests, a transformation that continues until the end of all classes and all oppression.

The Socialist Party holds a vision of the exploited working class overthrowing those that prevent us from getting what we want and need. If self-emancipatory actions emerge out of genuine working class consciousness, the ruling class will be helpless to stop them. There is only one thing that the Socialist Party has ever sought in terms of economic and political democracy — and that’s everything.




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