The present economic system is based upon the class ownership of the means of living. It is not geared to meeting our needs but to making profits for those who own the world’s resources. The gap between the rich and everyone else is now greater than ever before. Oxfam reports that eight people now own as much wealth as half the world’s population.
National and local politicians are just running capitalism in the only way it can be run – as a system where priority has to be given to profit-making over meeting human needs. It’s the system that’s to blame, not those elected to run it. That’s why changing the politicians in charge makes no difference. Changing governments changes nothing. It will be like this as long as the profit system lasts. And so there is no point in voting for parties that accept this system.
Across the world capitalism holds centre stage. Its cruelties and inequalities are too numerous to count, yet almost everybody imagines it is here for good. In the wings, however, a new society is waiting. It is not supposed to exist, but it is there just the same, the next stage of history, the one that comes after capitalism. It stands impatiently in the shadows as the world grinds on regardless. This society is different in one basic respect from all that has gone before – it is based not on material scarcity but on abundance.
The new society is one without leaders just as it is one without owners and wage –slaves. It is a wholly democratic society, one which can only be achieved when you – and enough like-minded people – join together to bring it about peacefully and democratically.
The Socialist Party is a democratic organisation of equals. There is no leader and there are no followers.
Our aim is to build a movement with the single objective of creating a world socialist society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of all the earth’s resources. This social system will be one in which goods and services are produced voluntarily and made freely available to us all. Wealth will be created directly to meet our needs and not for the profit of a few.
This is not a utopia but a practical solution to the problems we all face.
www.worldsocialism.org/spgb