Gloom and despair have gripped millions around the world. We live under dark clouds, is there anyone in the socialist movement to whom this thought has not occurred? Many of our fellow-workers see no way out and no-where to go.
Although we in the Socialist Party have full confidence in the certainty of the great change coming about, it would be foolish for any one of us to attempt to speculate as to the date of the realisation of our goal. Over-expectation is apt to give birth to despair if it meets with disappointment. It nevertheless remains our task to continue our urging of our fellow-workers to press their due claim to that fullness and completeness of life. The demands of non-socialists go little beyond the demand for a bigger ration and better lodging for the slave.
Economically the world was ready for socialism decades ago. But politically the people are not yet ready for socialism. They do not yet understand why capitalism is not capable of feeding, clothing, or sheltering them. They are capable of seeing only their immediate ills, and hence are capable of making only immediate and emergency demands. The burning problem of the day, therefore, for the Socialist Party is to construct the bridge between working people and the socialist revolution. People can see the abundance surrounding them. They can see the fertile fields full of crops. They can see the packed shops and warehouses, the potential of new technology. And they can see just as clearly the empty plates on the dinner tables of many. They can hear children crying for food. They know of the slums and shanty-towns. They can feel all the horrible misery of the rotten conditions, the shame and degradation in which many are compelled to live under. The first and most important point is that it is useless to depend on the government for protection. One of the most important lessons a socialist learns is that the state is the executive committee of the ruling class. Another is that the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself.
The world today is a place of stark and bewildering contradictions. With the greatest industrial and agricultural power history has ever before seen, we cannot feed, clothe and provide a decent livelihood for billions. As people sweat and toil away to survive, billionaires squander fortunes and fly around the world in private jets. Poverty and economic insecurity exist alongside extravagance. The ruling class is capable of extinguishing life on the planet with nuclear war and is on the verge of environmental self-destruction with climate change. Our society is based upon violence, despair and degradation, and people’s life’s aim has become one of narrow self-gratification. The capitalist system of exploitation, violence, racism and war strangles our lives. Real life, in contrast, cries out for work for the welfare of humanity. What is the reason for these contradictions between the promises, the potential of this society, and its reality? Why is there such an agonising gap between what is and what could be!
The rich have one basic goal in life: to make more and more profits, and they accomplish this by controlling the economics, politics, and cultural life. The capitalists will throw workers out into the streets to starve, promote racism, and build a military arsenal that can destroy the world several times over – anything for profits! This is an irrational and unjust system. But life does not have to be this way.
We can improve our lives and society, and we can eliminate exploitation and capitalist injustice, by overturning the capitalist system. We can replace capitalism with a rational and humane system – socialism. Socialism is a social system where social wealth is genuinely controlled by society and for the benefit of society; where the common good, not profits. Such an economic and political transformation will be radical, but a radical solution is what it will take to bury the miseries of capitalism. The socialist revolution has become a historical necessity and possibility. There is no other choice today but for the working people to organise to struggle and, one day, win socialism. Socialism will qualitatively improve the lives of the working people. Women and men, young and old, and people of all lands are realising we must unite and struggle to survive, to be able to work, eat and live as decent human beings. If the working people, and not the corporations, controlled the great resources of our society, we could improve all our lives. We could guarantee a decent standard of living for all. We could end pollution and global warming.
These are the promises that encourage us forward. These are the hopes and dreams of socialism. The Socialist Party is dedicated to realising that day when the exploiters, racists and warmongers will be thrown from power forever, and a new life for the people of the world can begin.
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