2008 Woodie Awards
Intro to socialism: 101
Jake Hess
Issue date: 12/8/04 Section: Opinion
I, Jake Hess, a sophomore here at Suffolk, am a socialist. I have many friends who are socialists. I work with a political party called Socialist Alternative. I, like my chief philosophical inspiration Karl Marx, recognize that a comprehensive overthrow of all existing conditions in the United States is the only way to bring lasting social justice to the oppressed people of this country and the world.
It is in the interest of both my readers and I for me to explain the basic tenets of socialism. If, at the end of this interaction, you better understand why socialism has and continues to capture the hearts and minds of so many hundreds of millions of people across the earth, I will have met my goal in writing this article.
We socialists recognize that the interests of the capitalist class, who own the means of production and distribution of wealth in the world, are necessarily at odds with the interest of the working class, the huge majority of the world - in other words, that true justice will never be achieved so long as the most important decisions about society are left to profit-driven oligarchs.
Socialists see that capitalism is a system of organized theft and exploitation, and we call for public ownership of wealth, democratic control of workplaces and national planned economies.
Socialists say that the resources of the world should be democratically controlled and distributed in such a way that allows people's needs to be met - as a matter of policy. If people are starving, for instance, then appropriate food should be produced and provided. If our inner cities are decaying, then infrastructure should be revitalized and revamped. Socialists believe that alleviating want and misery should be the first priority of the government, not organized theft and exploitation of the sort see under capitalism.
We can only achieve these ideals through a planned economy and public ownership of wealth. A planned economy would allow the tremendous productive resources of the United States to be put to good use - to achieve the sort of goals I outline above - while avoiding wasteful expenditures on such things as needless military enterprises or advertising.