By Raju Prabath Lankaloka
Has it ever occurred to you that we have the brains to send a probe to Pluto, one of the most distant objects in our solar system, and even invent self-driving cars, and yet we are powerless to solve our everyday problems? How true is that? The wonders of modern science are truly amazing, but we can’t provide enough homes to stop people from being forced to live on the street or provide decent jobs for our young people. Do we have an issue with the resources we have or does the problem lies elsewhere?
According to an article done by Forbes, they have found more than 1,000 billionaires who are richer than they were a year ago. As stated, “236 newcomers have become billionaires over the past year—including the first ever from Barbados, Bulgaria, Estonia and Uruguay. America still leads the world, with 735 billionaires worth a collective $4.7 trillion, including Elon Musk, who tops the World’s Billionaires list for the first time. China (including Macau and Hong Kong) remains number two, with 607 billionaires worth a collective $2.3 trillion. “
While the rich wine and dine-in exclusive restaurants, a growing number of working parents miss meals in order to prevent their children from going to school hungry. Under United Nations No Poverty Sustainable Development Goal, More than 700 million people, or 10 per cent of the world population, still live in extreme poverty, struggling to fulfil the most basic needs like health, education, and access to water and sanitation, to name a few. Within the Zero Hunger Goal, they estimate nearly 690 million people are hungry, or 8.9 percent of the world population – up by 10 million people in one year and by nearly 60 million in five years. The polarization between the rich and the poor has only grown over the years and when the super-rich live as they say in an era of rewarding themselves with other people’s money, the living condition of the masses is degrading day by day.
It is important to understand where the issue lies. It is seen that the masses across the world have taken to streets against this growing inequality. The casual saying that the system needs to be changed is echoing almost in every conversation. People often say that the situation has forced them to be radical as their living conditions are at risk and it is the very reason why you are in need of the tools best to understand the issues, we are facing every day.
Capitalism, the present socio-economic system, is built upon profits. Capitalists, who own pretty much everything, are interested in one thing – making more money. They don’t actually work much, if at all. Most wealthy investors employ managers and accountants to invest their cash and look after it for them. But even if these capitalists did work very hard, they don’t actually produce anything of social value. They gain their wealth from the work of others. They eat food, wear clothes, live in houses produced by the labour of others, and offer nothing in return.
Workers produce far more than they get back in wages. This is where profit comes from. Workers only get given enough to keep them going until the next pay packet. Such exploitation is not as transparent as, say, in the Middle Ages, where serfs were forced to work for free on the lord’s land, but it is the same thing. The capitalists make money in all sorts of ways. But it all comes down to receiving more labour for less.
Such economic system will only grow the burdens of the workers but will not have any solutions to the issues we face right now or in future. Capitalism is a system for the rich, by the rich and of the rich. In place of this dictatorship of bankers and capitalists, we will have the democratic rule of working people. A society run by working people for working people.
During last one and a half centuries Capitalism has demonstrated that it cannot solve any problems faced by human. Contrary it will only aggravate the problems. The periodic economic crises, an inherent feature of capitalism allows few people to concentrate their wealth dragging majority to absolute poverty and misery. Day by day we can see more wars and conflicts, forcing millions and millions to flee their homes abandoning whatever they have earned throughout their lives, become victims of human traffickers etc. But those wars pave the way for big profits for war mongering billionaires. Today capitalism become an absolute fetter for further development of productive forces, which is the driving force of social development. Economic stagnation, inflation, outgrowing debt levels and crisis after crisis and political instability are the norms of present capitalism.
Socialist planning of our resources is the way only forward. Even the capitalists, who preach the virtues of the market, do not apply the market in their own factories and workplaces. In a socialist society everything is planned down to the last item, using the latest technology. That is the only way global production and distribution can be organised. There is no market system here! All we are saying is that the whole economy should be run on a planned basis, rather than being left to the vagaries of blind market forces. Of course, by planning, we do not mean the dictates of unelected managers, but the democratic involvement of all.
According to Marx and Engels, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. In the known history always, the ruling class exploited the oppressed class(es) and the oppressed class(es) have always resisted it. For the first time in the known history this exploitation of human by another set of humans will be stopped under a socialist system. The ownership of private property will be abolished. Those will open up a new era where human will be motivated to use their fullest potential and creativity for their own common benefit.
Hence society will be based on the principle “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” In other words, a classless society based upon solidarity and the harmonious satisfaction of everyone’s needs. The miseries of capitalism could finally end up in the dustbin of history and we could finally progress to a new future of peace and prosperity for all.