The
general trend in Capitalism is that the gap between those at the top of
society, and the rest of people throughout the world, should get bigger and
bigger in time. As a result of this process, there are clearly a lot more poor
and deprived, than rich and overfed. This makes the uprising an struggles of
the majority, to overcome the small minority, for the creation of an equal and
just world, their natural right.
Looking
at what has been happening since September this year, within the Wall Street
movement in America and several other parts of the world, the struggles of the
majority to create a better world, has started to take form, even though, the
general theme of this uprising is still people’s demands for a fairer
and more equal world.
To
have a clear picture of what should eventually develop out of this movement,
this universal current of dissatisfactions, and the efforts to be heard by
those in power, we need to understand our system in a better context.
This
world isn’t the way it is because at some stage, as a result of the recent
recession, or for any other reason, suddenly the bankers decided to rub the
underprivileged by for example increasing their interest rates, or deciding to
invest in big corporations solely for their own benefits, or the governments
made decisions to put more pressure on people, by encouraging more cuts in the
public sectors, or in the international scale powerful western governments
willing to rule over the weaker, less developed countries, militarising or
changing their governments according to their benefits, just because they are
greedy, and have decided to do so..
Capitalism
is a system of society where the means of production and distribution of
wealth, are owned by a small minority (the 1%), and as a result there is a gap
between the producers (the 99%) and what has actually being produced. This is
the fundamental law of capitalism, which leads to the accumulation of profit
and concentration of capital on one hand, and the growing poverty and
generalisation of labour, on the other hand. This basic contradiction within
the nature of capitalist society, is the mother of all vices existing today,
and all the efforts of the capitalists and their governments, is to preserve
the fundamental law of capitalism, meaning the gap between labour and what has
been produced by labour, and therefore, keep the capitalistic kind of system
going. In this kind of society, recessions are the natural consequences of the
existing contradictions, and the tendency of the profit rate to decrease in
time. However and unfortunately, to survive each recession, the majority
working class people will have to pay the price, they are to bear the most
pressure on their shoulders, and to eventually pull the capitalists (the 1%) out
of their cyclic sicknesses. And more unfortunately, the story doesn’t end here,
as each time the capitalism survives another recession, it comes out of it more
powerful and more concentrated, whilst the majority working class (the 99%)
becomes poorer and more deprived.
So,
what is the solution? What should be done in order to prevent the beast from
getting bigger and stronger? And what is a permanent solution to these cyclic
recessions, and all the global vices that goes with it?
The
answer of course, is a system of society that is radically different from
capitalism. One which does not include the contradictions existing in
capitalism. Socialism, initially proposed by Karl Marx the prominent
philosopher, Sociologist and economist living in the 19th century
Europe, has answers to the most common problems of the capitalist society.
This
system will undoubtedly be a more materially equal
society, but that is not the objective. Rather it is for the establishment of
common ownership of the means of life will be a social relationship of equality
between all people. This creates a classless society. That is the socialist
objective and not a "fairer" or more "just" capitalism. It
is clear that slightly less unequal versions of capitalism are possible, but
also that they do not put an end to social problems, as even the more
egalitarian versions still have them. It leaves the wages-prices-profit system
of capitalism untouched. Most people will still have to work for wages,
companies will still have to make a profit, workers will lose their jobs when
the company can no longer make a profit from their labour power, the
environment will still be desecrated in the search for cheap raw materials and
higher profits. The waste of capitalism, with its banks and accountants will
remain, as will the causes of wars. It will take a socialist society to do away
with the grotesque inequalities of capitalism and its inherent problems.
Marx argued that socialism or communism (they mean the same
thing) would be based on "from each according to
ability, to each according to need." This is not an egalitarian slogan.
Rather, it asks for people to be considered individually, each with a different
set of needs and abilities, and this would be a practical arrangement for
meeting self-defined needs.
Socialists stand for the establishment of a system of society
fundamentally different from that which exists now. In a socialist society the
means of producing and distributing wealth—factories, farms, mines, docks,
offices, transport—will belong to the whole community and will do away with the
need for exchange, so that money will have no use.
Socialists want a
world of equality, but this is not one where everybody has an equal income. On
the contrary, it would be a world where nobody had a monetary income, large,
small or equal, but where everybody would have an equal say in the way things
are run, and an equal right to satisfy their needs. And one in which, while
there’d be no bankers or stock-brokers. We don’t have to choose the lesser of two
evils, a "moral" or "immoral" capitalism. Neither a free
nor a controlled market, but rather, a non-market society..
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