The owners of the newspapers and television stations fear socialists, because we will take away their power to lie and to manipulate. They lie about socialism and socialists. People who trust the media repeat the lies, out of ignorance.
This is what we really stand for. In our own words.
As democratic socialists, we first believe in democracy. We the people must be able to change the government. We the people must be able to change society. We the people must be able to organise for ourselves.
The United Kingdom is one of the richest countries in the world. There is no good reason for people to have to sleep in the streets. There is no good reason for children to be hungry. There is no reason for old people to die of hypothermia in their own homes. There is no good reason why people who wish to work or who need to work cannot find employment that will allow them a life of dignity rather than indignity. There is no law of nature that says that families need live in precarious, unsafe, unpleasant or expensive accommodation.
If you work, you should earn enough to support your household. State benefits to supplement your income or to pay your rent are subsidies to your employer, not to you. Your employer competes unfairly against employers who are paying proper wages.
If you cannot work, you should be supported by society.
Social democrats largely accept society as it is. They wish to temper the worst excesses of capitalism. They wish to make life better for the losers in the economy, but they have no fundamental quarrel with society as it is today.
Socialists have a fundamental quarrel with society as it is today.
There is a romantic myth about capitalism, which is that capitalism works in everyone’s interests. Why should individuals all working in their own interests result in a fair society? If everyone is grabbing from the pot, those with short arms will always miss out.
Those who own the pot will always do even better than the rest of us!
If you were setting up a National Health Service from scratch, would your hospitals be cleaned by your own staff, or would you use an agency that makes its money by paying its workers dreadful wages? The dreadful wages are made up with state benefits. There is no saving to the taxpayer. Someone is making money by milking public funds.
The social democrat says “We will build one million council houses in our first term of office This will provide homes, jobs, and apprenticeships.”
The socialist says, “There are already a million empty homes in Britain. Give the local authorities power to requisition empty properties and rent them to people who need them. You could end homelessness in a month. All the millions of people living in unsafe and horrible housing conditions can have better homes immediately.
“Then you can build bungalows and sheltered housing. Couples and single people living in large properties will be able to move to them, freeing up family homes for families who need them. That provides the jobs and apprenticeships. It will bring down rent levels generally.”
Which makes more sense?
Join Left Labour and work with us for democratic socialism.
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