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To substitute common, for private, ownership of the means of production and abolishing the present system of production means substituting production for use for production for sale that is the economic development the Socialist Party urges. The Socialist Party’s objective is the social or co-operative production for the satisfaction of the wants of a commonwealth. Mankind has always been a social being, as far back as we can trace ourselves. Until the present system of production (production for sale) was developed, co-operative production for common use was the norm.
If the modern state nationalises certain industries, it does not do so for the purpose of restricting capitalist exploitation, but for the purpose of protecting the capitalist system and establishing it upon a firmer basis, or for the purpose of itself taking a hand in the exploitation of labour, increasing its own revenues. As an exploiter of labour, the state is superior to any private capitalist. Besides the economic power of the capitalists, it can bring to bear its political power.  The state has never carried on the nationalising of industries further than the interests of the ruling classes demand, nor will it ever go further than that. Nationalisation will never be carried so far as to injure the capitalists and landlords or to restrict their opportunities for exploiting the proletariat. The state will not cease to be a capitalist institution. The Socialist Party has set to call the working-class to conquer the political power to the end that and to establish a self-sustainable co-operative commonwealth.
The fact remains that none of the reformist parties has so well-marked and clear an aim as the Socialist Party. It may, indeed, be questioned whether the other political parties have any aims at all. They all hold to the existing order, although they all see that it is untenable and unendurable. Their manifestoes contain nothing except a few little piecemeal palliatives by which they hope and promise to make the untenable, tenable and the unendurable, endurable. The Socialist Party, on the contrary, does not build on hopes and promises, but upon the unalterable necessity of social progress. All other political parties live only in the present, from hand to mouth; the Socialist party is the only one which has a definite aim for the future, the only one with a consistent purpose. Those who oppose the Socialist Party declare that the co-operative commonwealth cannot be considered practicable and cannot be the object of the endeavors until the plan is presented to the world in a perfected form, and has been tested and found feasible. They start with the notion that “human nature” is unchangeable. Socialists are told that they must come out with their plan of a future socialist society; if they refuse, it is a sign that they themselves have not much confidence in it. The predictions and blueprints can at best show that the socialist commonwealth is not impossible and they are bound to be defective. They can never cover all the details and minutia of social life; they will always leave some loophole through which critics can object to.
The capitalist social system has run its course; its dissolution is now only a question of time. The substitution of a new social order for the existing one is no longer simply desirable, it has become inevitable. Socialism is not only to be possible, but to be the only thing possible. If indeed the socialist commonwealth were an impossibility, then mankind’s civilization will relapse into barbarism. As things stand today we must move forward into socialism. Working people live in such conditions that, increasingly, they realise that the only way out of their grave situation lies through socialism. Thus, increasingly favourable conditions are being created for bringing them into the active struggle for socialism.
58 sec ago
Few folk deny climate change any longer. The scientific consensus is that fossil fuels are killing us. We need to switch to clean energy and do so with an urgency. But as important as clean energy might be, we still won’t avoid climate change. If we did achieve getting off fossil fuels and switch to 100% clean energy, a vital step in the right direction, the best-case scenario is that it
3 hours 5 min ago

Our goal is a socialist world, a new social order based on common ownership of our resources and industry, cooperation, production for use and genuine democracy. Only socialism can turn the boundless potential of the people and their resources to the creation of a world free from tyranny, greed, poverty and exploitation. Business corporations, of a scope and size unimaginable to previous generations, treat the entire planet as their domain. They are a law unto themselves, free to roam the globe in search of cheaper labour, more exploitable resources, more pliant governments and greater profits. These empires now hold the power of life and death over every region and industry across the planet. By their dictates, our resources are plundered. Workers are their pawns in a global game of mergers, lay-offs, and relocations. These conglomerates have robbed us of our wealth and of the very power to determine our own future. Incapable of turning their technology and organisation to the needs of people, world-wide suffering and hunger are the legacies of these profiteers. The capitalist system of production, under the rule of which we live, is the production of commodities for profit instead of for use for the private gain of those who own and control the tools and means of production and distribution. Out of this system of production and sale for profit springs all the evils of misery, want, and poverty that, as a deadly menace, now confronts civilisation. The socialist option is the only alternative. The needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of a socialist society.
The Socialist Party is the party of the dispossessed and oppressed struggling to build a new world. Under capitalism, labour is a commodity. Workers are used as replaceable parts, extensions of machines—as long as they provide dividends. Employers use their power of ownership to devastate the lives of workers. Unions, despite courageous efforts, are unable to eliminate even the worst abuses of the employers’ power. The Socialist Party believes in the ability of working-people to own and manage their own productive institutions democratically. Human power and natural forces are wasted by this system, which makes “profit” the only object in business. Science and invention are diverted from their humane purposes and made instruments for the enslavement of men, women and children.
Humanity faces the danger of complete destruction. With the destruction of the environment and the consequences of climate change there has never come to socialism so plain an opportunity as that now being offered. We have reached the psychological moment when socialists may define the issues of life and death for the world. There is only one power which can save it – the power of the people. Civilisation hovers at the edge of an abyss. Socialism is the salvation. The only power that can save humanity from the peril of barbarism is the working class. It must free itself of all dependence on the possessing classes. It must cease all collaboration with the exploiters and embark on the road of class struggle, the road of socialist victory. The resources of the world must pass into the possession of working humanity. All other problems, the problems of nationality and of race and colour will be solved once society is freed from exploitation and class divisions. Every step taken will be in the direction of the co-operative commonwealth, since there is no difficulty whatever in creating wealth far in excess of our requirements, by the scientific organisation and application of the right labour of all to the satisfaction of our social needs. The motto, “From each according to ability, to each according to needs,” will cease to be an aspiration and become a reality. The problems of society will no longer be affected in any way by money values. Labour will be devoted to this or that by the desires of the community. Work that, after all possible amelioration, remains dangerous or difficult will be shared by all of the community who are fit, instead of being relegated to a class. The standard of life for each and all will be far higher than anything ever yet attained or suggested. The best possible conditions will be so obviously to the general benefit that the elevation of the level of society will be the aim of each individual as of the whole community.
1 day 57 min ago
Those who make very little money in their first jobs will probably still be making very little decades later, and those who start off making middle-class wages have similarly limited paths. Only those who start out at the top are likely to continue making good money throughout their working lives. That’s the conclusion of a new paper by Michael D. Carr and Emily E. Wiemers, two economists at
1 day 57 min ago
Habitat destruction has reduced the variety of plants and animals to the point that ecological systems could become unable to function properly, with risks for agriculture and human health, say scientists. The variety of animals and plants has fallen to dangerous levels across more than half of the world’s landmass due to humanity destroying habitats to use as farmland. The unchecked loss of
1 day 3 hours ago