For socialist reason against the insanity of capitalism!

Socialist solidarity greetings for the New Year

New Year and Christmas 2014 is over. Now it's back to reality and social absurdity for another 364 days. We face widening inequality, increasing state repression, perpetual militarism and mounting environmental destruction. A few years ago, this might have sounded alarmist but not anymore. Even the mainstream apologists for capitalism recognise the diverse threats we now confront in our lives.  

The class struggle can be very simply described as when those who own the wealth wants one thing and the mass of the people wants another. So-called “democracy” means the holders of big money usually wins out. Billionaires and corporations buy political lobbyists to advance their values and interests. Gilens and Page examined 1,800 policy decisions made by the U.S. government between 1981 and 2002 and concluded:

“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence….Ordinary citizens might often be observed to "win" (that is, to get their preferred policy outcomes) even if they had no independent effect whatsoever on policy making, if elites (with whom they often agree) actually prevail.”
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In the United States, for example, no law on the environment has been passed by Congress without the Business Roundtable's approval since 1975. The Business Roundtable is a pro-business lobbying group composed of CEOs from the very largest corporations, including the handful of energy giants. That seems very much as if it is an oligarchy or plutocracy controlling things. If nothing changes, in the coming decades we are almost certainly going to see a society the likes of which has never existed and can scarcely be imagined.

It is unfortunate that today the term socialism means wildly different things to different people. The word comes with a lot of baggage. To some it is the social-democratic welfare state of Scandinavia. For some others socialism is a Soviet one-party state-dictatorship. Closer to the truth it is seen as primarily a society of democratic workers' cooperatives. For most on the Left it as a basic set of values and practices more than a single, coherent model which begs as many questions as it answers. It’s not the name—it’s the thing that counts. We have seen all too many disillusioned people on the left “coming to their senses” by abandoning the goal of socialism and the rise of a debilitating cynicism which cripples the imagination, represses aspirations and dismissively regards alternative social forms of organization as utopian. Impossible is just a word thrown into the discussion by those who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion.

Today humanity faces a global crisis. Capitalism will destroy the human race as it is absolutely clear that the bourgeoisie will continue to put the drive for corporate profit ahead of everything, even our own future as a species. It is incapable of changing. Even when it recognises the danger it cannot stop doing what it does. If capitalism is not overthrown, humanity is most likely doomed. The only solution is the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by socialism. The prisoners of the system will rebel in ways that cannot be foreseen and at times that cannot be predicted.

If it were the case that capitalism, with a bit of social engineering here and a bit of political reform there could be turned into something approaching a system of society that satisfied the needs of the majority of people then there'd be no need for socialists to argue for a fundamental transformation of society.  But it is easy to demonstrate that capitalism cannot be changed in that way, and that it is a system of society that can never satisfy the needs of the majority. At present, roughly two-thirds of the planet's population spends most of their lives hungry.  Children die of malnutrition, avoidable disease and contaminated water.  All of this happens in the face of massive global food production that could easily satisfy the needs of everyone. It should be clear, that hunger isn't a problem of production. We can feed the world. Several times over, in fact. But not within capitalism, because in capitalism human needs are only met if they can be paid for. That's because production in capitalism takes place in order for a small minority - the capitalist class - to realise a profit.

Capitalism has to go. Capitalism does not offer hope. Economic and social inequality mushrooms, poverty increases, public services are slashed, downward pressure on wages intensifies. And at the same time, corporations and investors successfully demand ever greater concessions from governments and communities as the quid pro quo for their investment. Millions of workers unemployed yet the capitalist class hoards as much as $2 trillion in liquid cash because they perceive a lack profitable opportunities. So many government operations are being convert them into profit-centers for corporations, privatised or outsourced, from the military to prisons to education. The investors will reap monopoly profits, while the public receive less efficient services. Likewise, the rich lobby governments to rescind their regulations to safe-guard workers, consumers, and the environment to guarantee that the "job creators" enjoys a healthier return but results in disaster for everyone else. A socialist outlook recognises that a capitalist society can never be more than superficially democratic, and whatever democratic victories are won will always be in jeopardy.

What we need to do is to completely restructure society and do away with capitalism. For the majority of humans with no power, our lives are not our own. We are back to the days when the rich lord it over us peasants and plebs. We see laws and finances perverted and twisted for their own ends. Reform movements have almost entirely burnt out. Yet the embers remain and will catch fire again… sometime. Revolution is a fire that spreads quickly, can’t be controlled and illuminates paths mired in darkness. There is a fire that burns within everyday people, fueled when we are disrespected or dehumanized. This fire spontaneously ignites. We already know what happened in the past. Now, everyone is wondering what will happen in the future. The first step to solving a problem is realising that it exists. The world now appears to know the system is no longer working. Austerity isn't working. Reformism isn’t working. The alternatives are hidden in the still smouldering class conflagrations of our past. 

We really need a revolution but not by the sword. The pen is mightier. Use it at the ballot box to stop the incessant jackboot of capitalism. Socialism is the way, common ownership with the humility to understand they are just the custodians of our collective wealth and natural assets, not the conquerors.

Building socialist movement is the primary task of the Socialist Party and using its political power to challenge capitalism. Many liberals who wish to reform and humanise capitalism are uncomfortable with such a radical objective. "Shhh," they say, "If we antagonise or scare those in power we will lose our seat at the table and not be able to win any reforms." Yet these same reformers often are dismayed at how they are politically ineffectual. Therein lies a great irony, because to enact significant reforms requires a powerful mass movement that our ruling class fear and which frightened them into yielding concessions. The number of reforms rises greatly when our masters look out the window and see a million people demonstrating, and actually threatening their existence. If there is something that terrifies the ruling class is a workers’ movement they do not and cannot control. It is no wonder they are happy to see cynicism and apathy prevail among the people politically and why personalities become more important than principles. If people don’t participate in politics, then we can abandon all hope of change. The elite fear genuine democracy, particularly one such as Occupy with the lack of leaders to co-opt and buy off. Socialists do not feed pessimism and despair but plant the seed for real genuine revolutionary changes to take place. But first, people will have to organize to get things done.

The Socialist New Year message is there is a need for real change. We greet this New Year with the working class movement around the world still facing the challenges of a capitalist system in deep crisis. The contradictions of the system emerge as wide-open cracks visible to the masses in their day-to-day struggle for survival. While billions of dollars are spent trying to rescue capitalism, a billion people struggle to live on less than US$2 a day. And working people are struggling in their millions worldwide, against capitalism’s ‘solutions’ and for system change. Powerful corporate interests, and the governments which serve them are on the offensive against the working class, imposing austerity measures, privatizing public services and slashing social programs that were created by decades of working class struggle and on which many lives depend. The assault on workers is accompanied by an assault on the environment. Big oil companies and others continue to destroy our planet, depleting essential resources while increasing global warming and putting the future of humanity in peril, in their insatiable drive for profits. While more and more of the world’s people are forced to flee their homes due to the impacts of war, the rich world’s leaders whip up nationalism and racism to strengthen their fortresses against refugees.

The capitalist class is desperately striving to force working people of the entire World to pay for the global economic, social and ecological crises it has created, but the momentum towards change and the creation of a system that puts the needs of people and the environment before private profit cannot be easily stopped. Increasingly workers don’t accept the logic of the present system in which they have to work more and harder for less money.  Workers in different countries are today fighting for better wages. While there seems to be plenty of money to pay huge amounts to the bosses, there isn’t enough money to give the workers a real wage increase. Huge anger and alienation from the established parties and the system are a dominant feature in the consciousness of working class people. The Left have given up the fight against the capitalist system and they have become regular partners of the capitalist parties as witnessed in their de facto support for the Scottish nationalists in the referendum. Socialism is internationalism or it is nothing.

Just like the problems don't disappear ignoring them, socialist ideas will not disappear by denying or disregarding them. Although these are hard times for socialism, keeping alive the ideas of Marx and Engels for over a hundred years when capitalist propaganda have slandered them makes the Socialist Party optimists for the future. The world needs genuine socialists more today than ever before. We are not faced with a failure of our theory, but rather a failure to convince people to appreciate the value of community, and strive for the brotherhood of mankind. The understanding of why capitalism is a failure is simply not getting through to people, that there is simply not of enough cake to fulfill the capitalist dream. So the capitalist dream offered by the PR men is a sham. The old year reaffirmed for us of the World Socialist Movement that in the people’s struggle to save humanity from destruction by capitalism, international solidarity will be essential.

Today we live in special times. As we face the challenges ahead, at the same time we have an opportunity available to this generation, to advance towards a socialism. This means that we can and must put forward the case for socialism pointing to the need to struggle for system change. The challenge is to put forward socialism as a living theory and movement, one not mired in dogma and the past.  The workers of the world are up to the tasks with which this dire situation presents them.  Unity in the struggle can curb and finally end the power of the forces of capital which act with such disregard for the vast majority of the human race and for the planet itself. We will build a socialist future. This is a moment in history when the need to move towards a society founded on collective ownership, participatory democracy, social justice and ecological sustainability has never been more urgent or necessary. If we do not change the world now, there may be no next new year for many of our brothers and sisters around the world.

We wish you all strength to keep the fight going, to light the torch in the dark world.

For Socialist Dawn!

For The Revolution!

Forward to World Socialism!