Join us! The struggle for socialism in America

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The writings of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and the example of the Paris Commune in 1871, gave rise to a tremendous vision opening up the 20th century.

The Commune was the first state to inaugurate universal suffrage, the eight-hour day, and the immediate recall of elected officials. It was the first government genuinely controlled by the majority of its citizens.

With • the Russian and Chinese revolutions and the overturn of capitalist property relations in over one-third of the world, the central question of the 20th century has indeed become-socialism or capitalism.

A majority of the world's population undoubtedly consider themselves socialistminded. Yet the ideas of socialism are considered foreign and alien to the American experience.

The same scholarly institutions that have neglected to teach the truth about the history of Blacks, women, and Latinos are still lying about the history of labor and socialism.

Socialists were in the abolitionist move -ment, the suffragist movement, and the fight for the eight-hour day. Socialists fought for child-labor laws, public education, and socialists were instrumental in forming unions in this country.

The rulers in this country deceive the American people about the real history of working people and about the ideas of socialism. This conscious neglect of the truth promotes the false underestimation of the power of mass protests, thus discouraging independent political activity by the majority.

Private property-natural law?

Charles Darwin provided ample scientific evidence that everything in nature evolves. Marx applied the same scientific method to demonstrate that society has also evolved, striving for successively more productive social systems.

For the capitalists, evolution of society stopped with capitalism. "Private property rights" have replaced the "Divine Right" of the feudal lords as the highest "law of nature."

This self-serving philosophy must be rejected. Socialism places human rights above property rights by replacing production for profit with production according to human need.

System outlives usefulness

Humans are distinguished from animals by our method of consciously socializing and cooperating to aid ourselves in improving our environment. Yet under capitalism, personal, narrow, and com -petitive motivations substitute for human values mutually shared by us all.

It is only the narrow objectives which are rewarded in this society-to make this particular company a more profitable product, or that particular country a better bomb.

Capitalism cannot be the inspiration for those who wish for a promising future of peace, jobs, and justice. There have been no mass demonstrations, pickets, or revo -SOCIALIST ACTION SUPPLEMENT lutions anywhere in the world demanding more big business or more capitalism.

On the contrary, these policies are imposed on the majority of people of the world by military dictators financed by the U.S. government. Capitalism has ex -hausted its ability to initiate reforms in the interests of the majority.

Even during its most prosperous and dynamic period of development, the rights of Blacks and women were not recognized by "democratic capitalism." Today, Blacks are no longer slaves, and women are at least permitted to vote. Yet institutionalized discrimination still exists against more than half the population.

It remains highly profitable to discrim -inate against the majority of the human race. The capitalists receive huge profits as a result of the large wage differentials existing among the working class.

The myth of Black and women's inferiority establishes a socially acceptable explanation of the most severe aspects of wage-labor exploitation.

Worldwide impoverishment

In the United States, the veneer of higher consumption for some, conceals the inequalities inherent in the worldwide capitalist system. In fact, the impoverish -ment of the underdeveloped capitalist countries has steadily worsened.

For example, growing monopolization and concentration of wealth in the capitalist world has altered the nature of agricultural production in the semi-colonial countries. "Food crop" oriented production of corn and wheat, which had sustained millions of peasants and small farmers for centuries, has been converted to "cash crop" production of coffee, sugar, and cotton.

This orientation to the export market, which is controlled by wealthy Wall Street food barons, is responsible for the increase in hunger and famine in the underdeveloped nations. Famines are now primarily caused by human decisions—not nature.

One-half of the world's crop owned by only 0.23 percent of the world's population, with one-half to one-third of rural dwellers owning no land.

Indeed, capitalism must expand to survive. It must form cartels and monopolies to control market fluctuations. The concentration of power and wealth in the semi-colonial world is a mirror reflection of the power relationship which exists in this country.

Capitalism in America

In this country, less than 1 percent of the population owns one-third of all capital and 22 percent of all wealth.

Between 1954 and 1981 the top 500 corporations in America swallowed up 4500 other companies, including 166 which were also among the largest 500. Since 1980 another 62 of the top 500 companies have also merged.

These monopoly class relations lead to increasing social misery for the majority.

The rich are growing richer. Despite the tremendous advances in technology and increased productivity, Americans face a long-term, steady deterioration in their standard of living.

Individual capitalists exercise complete ownership and control over the great mass of products resulting from the efforts of the bulk of humanity.

As a result, there is increased distance between our labor and our ability to own or control the product of our labor. We do not even individually or collectively determine what the product of our labor will be.

Working people neither own, control, nor possess the capital necessary to even lease the tools and equipment necessary in large production operations. These are all privately owned by major capitalists.

Working people derive neither satis -faction nor profit from the product of their labor. They must sell their labor power or face impoverishment.

"We shall be all"

For the first time in history, there is a class—the working class—whose interests • converge with the interests of the over whelming majority of society.

The socialized nature of production compels the workers to cooperate and to share the fruits of their labor. Solidarity is essential to a worker seeking maximum bargaining power.

Greed, racism, sexism, and a divided labor force are profitable only for the capitalists.

The working class is the only class in history whose genuine interests require cooperation among all, with justice for all.

Only socialist economic and political conceptions can extend democratic control by the mass of humanity over nature and eliminate the currently enforced control of the majority by a small minority.

This is the fight for a socialist future that Socialist Action is committed to carrying out.

Please join us to help build the antiwar and women's liberation movements. Help us support union strikes, student protests, and more.

Together we can make the international song of the working class a reality-"We have been naught, we shall be all."

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