WSWS: The historical basis of socialism

[Karmadillo]

Not short, but the entire article is worth reading.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/oct2004/nbea-o05.shtml

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With these conceptions in mind, let us make an assessment of where are we going. Is humanity travelling, through turmoil and difficulty, towards a liberal democratic society and a resolution of the deep-going problems it now confronts—the eruption of militarism and war, the expansion of terrorism, ethnic wars and conflicts, global poverty and the growth of global inequality, the looming environmental crisis and the increasing economic insecurity of working people in the major capitalist countries, to name just a few? Or are these phenomena the expression of an irresolvable crisis of the capitalist economic and political order?

Let us consider the invasion and occupation of Iraq from this standpoint. All the lies on which the war was launched have been exposed. It was not to counter the danger posed by Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, or to defeat an imminent terror threat, much less to rid the world of a dictator and establish liberal democracy in the heart of the Middle East.

The real reason for the war was the drive by the US to secure its domination of the Middle East and the command of its resources. Regime change was a means to that end—the establishment of a puppet government through which the US could dominate the Middle East at the expense of its rivals in Europe and Asia. In other words, the European powers were much more the enemy than Saddam Hussein.

The conflict between the US and Europe which preceded the war, and Rumsfeld’s remarks about “old” versus “new” Europe, did not arise accidentally. With the collapse of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s, the underlying strategy of the US has been to ensure that, in the post-Cold War world, no one power or group of powers is able to attain a position from which it can challenge US hegemony.

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But what is the market? It is not some institution imposed on mankind by an all-powerful being. It is nothing other than the alienated product of the social and economic power of mankind as a whole, the alienated expression of the social wealth which has been created by the labour of millions of people, all over world, but which is beyond their control. To bring these social powers back under the control of society as a whole, instead of standing over it: this is the life-and-death question on which the struggle for human emancipation and freedom now turns. This is the perspective of socialism in the twenty-first century.

Everything depends on the genuine democratisation of all social relations. Modern society—the complexity of which has been increased by the development of science, technology and the productivity of labour—cannot be rationally organised on the basis of the private ownership of the means of production, in which social decisions are not taken consciously, according to a democratically conceived and executed plan, but are determined by the blind workings of the market and the dictates of profit.

more...

[dumpster_baby]

1. Surely the obvious manipulation of the public after wtc911 & before Iraq

...war, surely that should have convinced many people that the arguments of many Leftists, such as Chomsky, are indeed correct.

[Karmadillo]

2. Kick for irresolvable crisis of the capitalist econ and political order

n/t

[Character Assassin]

3. Perhaps he would do well to go read some more history

Or are these phenomena the expression of an irresolvable crisis of the capitalist economic and political order?

They're neither expressions of anything inherent to capitalism nor socialism. They are inherent to humanity, and are to be found in all societies.

Let us consider the invasion and occupation of Iraq from this standpoint.

Why? It's already based on the assumption of a false premise.