What Socialism means (1998)

From the August 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism means a world society based on production solely for use, not profit.

It will be a class-free society, in which everyone will be able to participate democratically in decisions about the use of the world’s resources, each producing according to their ability and each taking from the common store according to their needs.

In such a society there can be no money
–or, more precisely, no need for money. Money is only needed when people possess and most do not.

Imagine that all the things you need are owned and held in common.
There is no need to buy food from anyone–it is common property. There are no rent or mortgages to pay because land and buildings belong to all of us. There is no need to buy anything from any other person because society has done away with the absurd division between the owning minority (the capitalists) and the non-owning majority (the workers).

In a socialist world monetary calculation won’t be necessary. 
The alternative to monetary calculation based on exchange-value is calculation-based on use values. Decisions, apart from purely personal ones of preferences or interest, will be made after weighing the real advantages and disadvantages and real costs of alternatives in particular circumstances.

The ending of the profit system
will mean at the same time the ending of war, economic crises, unemployment, poverty, and persecution–all of which are consequences of that system.

The revolutionary change that is needed
is not possible unless a majority of people understand and want it. We do not imagine all humankind’s problems can be solved at a stroke.

Reforms of the present system fail because making profits must always be given priority over meeting needs, so the problems keep on recurring and ever multiplying.
It will take time to eliminate hunger, malnutrition, disease, and ignorance from the world. But the enormous liberation of mental and physical energies from the shackles of the profit system will ensure that real human progress is made.

1. The resources to produce what we need are owned by the rich 5 percent, while the remaining 95 percent of us do all the work.
2. These two groups, or classes, are always going to be at loggerheads because of it.
3. This dispute will only be settled when we 95 percent organise and abolish class ownership, and run a democratic system of communal ownership instead.
4. When we do this, there will be no further oppression of any sort.
5. But we must do it ourselves, without leaders.
6. Since we can’t fight governments and armies, we must organise to take them over by political means and abolish them along with ownership by the rich.
7. We must oppose any party which wants to keep or reform the present system, no matter how well-intentioned.
8. The World Socialist Movement calls upon all workers to organise to do this, in the interests of themselves, their children, and the future of the planet.