Definition of Socialism

All below is an excerpt [1].

Socialism is the latest (fifth) main stage of human society that some countries are already beginning. It is the level of development where the contradiction between social production and private appropriation is resolved by making the appropriation social also. This means the major industries, mines, farms, railways, or in other words, all the major means of production, are under the control of the working class. This is easily accomplished by socializing these enterprises (socialized is where the people, community, or state owns them). Under socialism, the state or government in turn is truly controlled by the working people; they not only vote once every couple of years for government officials, but also have more direct and real control of the day-to-day operation of the workplace.

For example, if you worked in a factory, you and your co-workers would be making most of the decisions on the work, conditions, etc., as well as having a real voice, along with all the working class, in deciding national and other large issues as well. This is really only logical because it is the working people that actually make all the goods that the country needs. Therefore, they should be the ones who collectively own the means of production and the goods they produce, and decide how to allocate those goods as well.

As it now stands, all production is done for only one purpose – profit. The capitalists are not concerned with whether the commodities and services they have produced are useful or not as long as they can be sold. In fact, a huge portion of U.S. production today is war production. In the summer of 2008, the Iraq war is costing U.S. taxpayers $12 billion a month. This comes out to $5000 a second! In addition it is costing taxpayers another $40 billion per month for the rest of the military-industrial complex expenses. This serves no purpose but high taxes and death for us and obscene profits for the military-industrial complex. For the capitalists, war production is a highly profitable business, and when war involving U.S. troops breaks out they rarely send their sons or daughters to die. Meanwhile, people in this country today, let alone in the rest of the world, are going hungry, live in rotten housing, cannot afford decent medical care, have to send their children to old, overcrowded schools, etc. What has happened is that now, when our country has reached a point where poverty and suffering could be wiped out, the capitalist refuse to do it, because it is not profitable. The capitalist class has outlived all its usefulness and is standing squarely in the way of necessary progress. This is not just because they are all greedy nasty individuals (although most, no doubt, are), but ==because the only way the capitalist system can operate is on private property and profit, and these are thus protected as inherent, constitutional rights that may not be legally challenged. Therefore, the solution requires more than a matter of putting a so-called “nice guy” into office, because even a “good guy” has to act within the limits of the system.==

Socialism resolves many other contradictions that present day capitalism imposes on us. By overthrowing the capitalists’ political control and setting up a working class democracy, it is possible to establish a socially owned means of production. Having resolved these work relations contradictions, we could begin building not only a more materially plentiful life, but an emotionally and socially satisfying and ecologically sustainable one as well. ==Under capitalism the idea is that you gain at someone else’s expense. Such a basis for society quite naturally leads to an overall hostility, distrust and negativity amongst the people. Socialism is instead based on the principle that mutual cooperation leads to advancement.== It is not hard to see how, in a socialist system, society would grown increasingly harmonious and people truly, regardless of race, sex, or any other features, would have the greatest possible freedom to develop their full human potential. [...]

Finally and generally, socialism as a social-productive system is the first time since primary communalism that society is run and controlled by the majority of people (the working class). The people who work and produce would also be the people who own and decide what should be done, when, how and why. The working class as opposed to the capitalist class would be the class in power, and it is always true that whoever controls the economy also controls the government. The working class as a whole would determine how society would live and grow, by setting up and using truly democratic methods and institutions. Then the schools, medical services, recreational facilities, and all other social institutions would be open and available for the people to use. There would be no one to deny us these or other things if we as a class were running the country. Socialism is the logical and necessary next stage of society and human development on this planet. [...]

This is just a short outline of socialism. How any specific socialist society would look would be up to the people of that country to determine. Part of this determination is how industrially and materially developed the country was to begin with. Cultural, historical, and environmental factors will also influence the faces of socialism.”

This is not easy and it never has been, but all we really have to lose are our chains – the chains that confine us to a life of wage slavery in a system of discrimination and injustice, the chains that hold us in prison cells in capitalist dungeons, the chains that allow us only frustrated half-lives as the oppressed class in a capitalist nightmare. The New Day Is Ours To Build!

More marbles

• on visuals for flow of power in socialist & capitalist economies: Wright 2013
• on military statistics:
  • US department of defense funding in comparison
  • climate change and militarism

#definition #socialism #militarism #democracy

Source

[1] - Laaman, J. (2008). Dialectical and Historical Materialism. https://4strugglemag.org/2008/05/10/a-basic-introduction-to-dialectical-and-historical-materialism-by-jaan-laaman/