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Editorial
Is capitalism crumbling?
Capitalism has never had such a bad press as the
last few months. Countless commentators have given more than a passing
consideration to the question, will capitalism collapse? Whilst this
hopeful question could be expected to emanate from excitable
journalists, and from the rump of what remains of the left-wing
throughout the world, it should be noted that the likes of Bill Gates
and Nicolas Sarkozy have been asking similar questions.
The real challenge to capitalism however is not so much a challenge to
its on-going operation – it will carry on in some shape or form
regardless. The last few months are after all nothing other than a
"market correction", albeit a pretty big and widespread one. Rather,
the challenge to capitalism is one that is of more interest to world
socialists.
For us worthwhile social change cannot come about blindly in knee-jerk
reaction to events, nor in the role of passive bystanders as events
unfold around us. What has become crystal clear over the last few weeks
is the extent to which the experts of capitalism, the self-styled
"Masters of the Universe" were flying by the seat of their silk
monogrammed pants, with little idea what they were actually buying and
selling.
Genuine social change will require more than just restricting
executives' bonuses, or trying to improve regulation of the financial
services sector, as many are calling for. Even when it is working
right, even when it is booming, the market system fails miserably to do
the one thing it claims as its unique selling point. Far from
efficiently sending market signals between supply and demand, between
producer and consumer, the market system sends confused, unreliable and
skewed information.
And of course there are some areas of demand that the economic system
is just not interested in even supplying – because of the low profit
returns available. World hunger is one example illustrating how the
market operates on the basis of profit, not human need. There can
surely be few clearer signs of the priorities of capitalism than the contrast between the painfully
slow progress made to address world hunger over the last few decades,
and the haste with which politicians around the world have responded to
the banking crisis. The sums of money hastily committed to increase
banks' liquidity and stabilise the sector would – if used to meet real
human needs - ensure not one person need die of hunger for the next 23
years.
Capitalism won’t collapse of its own accord. But for many millions it
has never functioned to start with. Instead the market system must be
dismantled intellectually, ideologically and democratically. A genuine
alternative society must be agreed before capitalism can start to be
dismantled in reality, with alternative mechanisms emerging to replace
both the market and the state.
If we want to get rid of capitalism we will need to work at it. That's
why we exist: to try and help as one small part of that massive
process. If you want to help out in that process – if you want to
become humanity to become a "master" of its universe – then please make
contact, and the sooner we may succeed.
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The Socialist Party is like
no
other political party in Britain.
It is made up of people who have joined together because we want to get
rid of the profit system and establish real socialism.
Our aim is to persuade others to become socialist and act for
themselves, organising democratically and without leaders, to bring
about the kind of society that we are advocating in this
journal.
We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists
for socialism.
We are not a reformist party with a programme of
policies to patch up capitalism.
We use every possible opportunity to make new socialists. We publish
pamphlets and books, as well as CDs, DVDs and various other informative
material.
We also give talks and take part in debates; attend rallies, meetings
and demos; run educational conferences; host internet discussion
forums, make films presenting our ideas, and
contest elections when practical. Socialist literature is available in
Arabic, Bengali, Dutch,
Esperanto, French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish and
Turkish as well as
English.
The more of you who join the Socialist Party the more we will be able
to get our ideas across, the more experiences we will be able to draw
on and greater will be the new ideas for building
the movement which you will be able to bring us.
The Socialist Party is an organisation of equals. There is no leader
and there are no followers.
So, if you are going to join we want you to be sure that you agree
fully with what we stand for and that we are satisfied that you
understand the case for
socialism.
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