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Welcome! The U.S. Freedom Socialist Party is a revolutionary, socialist feminist organization, dedicated to the replacement of capitalist rule by a genuine workers' democracy that will guarantee full economic, social, political and legal equality to all who are exploited, oppressed and repelled by the profit system and its offshootimperialism.

We are unionists, antiwar activists, free speech advocates, environmentalists, gay freedom fighters and rebellious people of color and youth. There are branches of the party in San Francisco, New York City, Seattle, Los Angeles and Portland and a sympathizing section in Australia. Our sister organization Radical Women is the leftwing of the feminist movement and the feminist wing of the socialist movement.

Learn more about the party by subscribing to the bimonthly Freedom Socialist newspaper. It carries analysis, commentary, humor, and cartoons on the worldwide struggle for human emancipation. Or order books and pamphlets by socialist feminist theorists and revolutionary poets from Red Letter Press, the party's publishing house.

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Freedom Socialist Party | http://www.socialism.com

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. ... In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Socialism refers to a broad array of theories, ideologies, doctrines or political movements which envisage a socio-economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy, as well as methods of establishing such a systems. "Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, citizen ownership of equity, or any combination of these. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them.

It is absolutely necessary that this question of legal plunder should be determined, and there are only three solutions of it:

1. When the few plunder the many. 2. When everybody plunders everybody else. 3. When nobody plunders anybody. Partial plunder, universal plunder, absence of plunder, amongst these we have to make our choice. The law can only produce one of these results. Partial plunder.This is the system which prevailed so long as the elective privilege was partial; a system which is resorted to, to avoid the invasion of socialism.

Universal plunder.We have been threatened by this system when the elective privilege has become universal; the masses having conceived the idea of making law, on the principle of legislators who had preceded them.

Absence of plunder.This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, conciliation, and of good sense.

So these are the things I noted in anarchism, and increasingly I came to the conclusion that if we were to avoidor if we are to avoidthe mistakes in over one hundred years of proletarian socialism, if we are to really achieve a liberatory movement, not simply in terms of economic questions but in terms of every aspect of life, we would have to turn to anarchism because it alone posed the problem, not merely of class domination but hierarchical domination, and it alone posed the question, not simply of economic exploitation, but exploitation in every sphere of life. And it was that growing awareness, that we had to go beyond classism into hierarchy, and beyond exploitation into domination, that led me into anarchism, and to a commitment to an anarchist outlook.

I believe in individual freedom; that's my primary and complete commitmentindividual liberty. Thats what it's all about. And that's what socialism was supposed to be about, or anarchism was supposed to be about, and tragically has been betrayed.

And when I normally encounter my so-called colleagues on the leftsocialists, Marxists, communiststhey tell me that, after the revolution, they're gonna shoot me. [audience laughs, Murray nods] That is said with unusual consistency. They're gonna stand me and Karl up against the wall and get rid of us real fast; I feel much safer in your company. [audience laughs and applauds]

Being an Anarchist I am also a Socialist. Socialism is the antithesis of Anarchy. One is the North Pole of Truth, the other the South. The Socialist believes in working for the good of all, while Anarchy is pure Individualism. I believe in every man working for the good of self; and in working for the good of self, he works for the good of all. To think, to see, to feel, to know; to deal justly; to bear all patiently; to act quietly; to speak cheerfully; to moderate one's voicethese things will bring you the highest good. They will bring you the love of the best, and the esteem of that Sacred Few, whose good opinion alone is worth cultivating. And further than this, it is the best way you can serve Societylive your life. The wise way to benefit humanity is to attend to your own affairs, and thus give other people an opportunity to look after theirs.

If there is any better way to teach virtue than by practicing it, I do not know it.

And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?

They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.

So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.

But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny.

And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house,

Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.

But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?

Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.

Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?

So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

"About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went.

"He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing.About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?'

"'Because no one has hired us,' they answered.

"He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.'

"When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.'

"The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius.When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner.'These who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'

"But he answered one of them, 'I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius?Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you.Dont I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'

"So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

Indeed, he would later argue that any nominally private institution that gets more than 50% of its revenue from the government, or is heavily complicit in government crimes, or both, should be considered a government entity; since government ownership is illegitimate, the proper owners of such institutions are "the 'homesteaders', those who have already been using and therefore 'mixing their labor' with the facilities." This entails inter alia "student and/or faculty ownership of the universities." As for the "myriad of corporations which are integral parts of the military-industrial complex," one solution, Rothbard says, is to "turn over ownership to the homesteading workers in the particular plants." He also supported third-world land reforms considered socialistic by many conservatives, on the grounds that existing land tenure represented "continuing aggression by titleholders of land against peasants engaged in transforming the soil."

Link:
Socialism - Wikiquote

Socialism

A class of ideologies favoring an economic system in which all or most productive resources are the property of the government, in which the production and distribution of goods and services are administered primarily by the government rather than by private enterprise, and in which any remaining private production and distribution (socialists differ on how much of this is tolerable) is heavily regulated by the government rather than by market processes. Both democratic and non-democratic socialists insist that the government they envision as running the economy must in principle be one that truly reflects the will of the masses of the population (or at least their "true" best interests), but of course they differ considerably in their ideas about what sorts of political institutions and practices are required to ensure this will be so. In practice, socialist economic principles may be combined with an extremely wide range of attitudes toward personal freedom, civil liberties, mass political participation, bureaucracy and political competition, ranging from Western European democratic socialism to the more authoritarian socialisms of many third world regimes to the totalitarian excesses of Soviet-style socialism or communism.

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Socialism: A Glossary of Political Economy Terms - Dr. Paul M ...

In Marxist theory, socialism, also called lower-stage communism or the socialist mode of production, refers to a specific historical phase of economic development and its corresponding set of social relations that supersede capitalism in the schema of historical materialism. Socialism is defined as a mode of production where the sole criterion for production is use-value and therefore the law of value no longer directs economic activity. Production for use is coordinated through conscious economic planning, while distribution of economic output is based on the principle of To each according to his contribution. The social relations of socialism are characterized by the working-class effectively owning the means of production and the means of their livelihood, either through cooperative enterprises or by public ownership and self management, so that the social surplus accrues to the working class and society as a whole.[1]

This view is consistent with, and helped to inform, early conceptions of socialism where the law of value no longer directs economic activity, and thus monetary relations in the form of exchange-value, profit, interest and wage labor would not operate and apply to socialism.[2]

The Marxian conception of socialism stands in contrast to other early conceptions of socialism, most notably early forms of market socialism based on classical economics such as Mutualism and Ricardian socialism. Unlike the Marxian conception, these conceptions of socialism retained commodity exchange (markets) for labor and the means of production, seeking to perfect the market process.[3] The Marxist idea of socialism was also heavily opposed to utopian socialism.

Although Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote very little on socialism and neglected to provide any details on how it might be organized,[4] numerous social scientists and neoclassical economists have used Marx's theory as a basis for developing their own models of socialist economic systems. The Marxist view of socialism served as a point of reference during the socialist calculation debate.

Socialism is a post-commodity economic system, meaning that production is carried out to directly produce use-value (to directly satisfy human needs, or economic demands) as opposed to being produced with a view to generating a profit. The stage in which the accumulation of capital was viable and effective is rendered insufficient at the socialist stage of social and economic development, leading to a situation where production is carried out independently of capital accumulation in a supposedly planned fashion. Although Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels understood planning to involve the input and decisions of the individuals involved at localized levels of production and consumption, planning has been interpreted to mean centralized planning by Marxist-Leninists during the 20th century. However, there have been other conceptions of economic planning, including decentralized-planning and participatory planning.

In contrast to capitalism, which relies upon the coercive market forces to compel capitalists to produce use-values as a byproduct of the pursuit of profit, socialist production is to be based on the rational planning of use-values and coordinated investment decisions to attain economic goals.[5] As a result, the cyclical fluctuations that occur in a capitalist market economy will not be present in a socialist economy. The value of a good in socialism is its physical utility rather than its embodied labor, cost of production and exchange value as in a capitalist system.

Socialism would make use of incentive-based systems, and inequality would still exist but to a diminishing extent as all members of society would be worker-owners. This eliminates the severity of previous tendencies towards inequality and conflicts arising ownership of the means of production and property income accruing to a small class of owners.[6] The method of compensation and reward in a socialist society would be based on an authentic meritocracy, along the principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution".[7]

The advanced stage of socialism, referred to as "upper-stage communism" in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, is based on the socialist mode of production but is differentiated from lower-stage socialism in a few fundamental ways. While socialism implies public ownership (by a state apparatus) or cooperative ownership (by a worker cooperative enterprise), communism would be based on common ownership of the means of production. Class distinctions based on ownership of capital cease to exist, along with the need for a state. A superabundance of goods and services are made possible by automated production that allow for goods to be distributed based on need rather than merit.[8]

The period in which capitalism becomes increasingly insufficient as an economic system and immediately after the proletarian conquest of the state, an economic system that features elements of both socialism and capitalism will probably exist until both the productive forces of the economy and the cultural and social attitudes develop to a point where they satisfy the requirements for a full socialist society (one that has lost the need for monetary value, wage labor and capital accumulation). Specifically, market relations will still exist but economic units are either nationalized or re-organized into cooperatives. This transitional phase is sometimes described as "state capitalism" or "market socialism". China is officially in the primary stage of socialism.

The fundamental goal of socialism from the view of Marx and Engels was the realization of human freedom and individual autonomy. Specifically, this refers to freedom from the alienation imposed upon individuals in the form of coercive social relationships as well as material scarcity, whereby the individual is compelled to engage in activities merely to survive (to reproduce his or herself). The aim of socialism is to provide an environment whereby individuals are free to express their genuine interests, creative freedom, and desires unhindered by forms of social control that force individuals to work for a class of owners who expropriate and live off the surplus product.[9]

As a set of social relationships, socialism is defined by the degree to which economic activity in society is planned by the associated producers, so that the surplus product produced by socialized assets is controlled by a majority of the population through democratic processes. The sale of labor power would be abolished so that every individual participates in running their institution as stakeholders or members with no one having coercive power over anyone else in a vertical social division of labor (which is to be distinguished from a non-social, technical division of labor which would still exist in socialism).[10] The incentive structure changes in a socialist society given the change in the social environment, so that an individual laborers' work becomes increasingly autonomous and creative, creating a sense of responsibility for his or her institution as a stakeholder.

In Marxist theory, the state is "the institution of organised violence which is used by the ruling class of a country to maintain the conditions of its rule. Thus, it is only in a society which is divided between hostile social classes that the state exists."[11] The state is thus seen as a mechanism that is dominated by the interests of the ruling class and utilized to subjugate other classes in order to protect and legitimize the existing economic system.

After a workers' revolution, the state would initially become the instrument of the working class. Conquest of the state apparatus by the working class must take place to establish a socialist system. As socialism is built, the role and scope of the state changes as class distinctions (based on ownership of the means of production) gradually deteriorate due to the concentration of means of production in state hands. From the point where all means of production become state property, the nature and primary function of the state would change from one of political rule (via coercion) over men by the creation and enforcement of laws into a scientific administration of things and a direction of processes of production; that is the state would become a coordinating economic entity rather than a mechanism of class or political control, and would no longer be a state in the Marxian sense.[12]

See more here:
Socialist mode of production - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

At present it is difficult to be anything but pessimistic about the future. Environmental calamities are now facts of life. The drive for profit leading to the neglect of everything that stands in the way of this has created ecological havoc in every part of the world. The history of environmental degradation is a history of greed, poverty and ignorance. By greed we do not mean the individual idiosyncratic greed that might yearn for three yachts where two would do. Rather it refers to the institutionalised greed of business that has to expand to survive, that is always looking for new products, ways to create new needs, ways to cut costs by reducing environmental safeguards or evading the enforcement of existing ones.

While ecological necessity seeks sustainability, the commodified economy needs growth. This growth can be achieved by producing more of the same things, or by making familiar commodities bigger, more complicated or with more elaborate packaging. Growth can also be achieved by inventing new ways of turning natural conditions into resources for exploitation, by finding technical means for making more and more of our lives marketable, and by investing great effort into creating new needs for consumption.

Ecology values the uniqueness of materials, places and living things, but the economy sees them all as interchangeable commodities measured on the single scale of economic values. Therefore there is no special virtue in preserving a resource, only in making profit. It may be economically rational to use up a resource totally and then move to the next investment. While ecology values diversity, economic rationality favours going for the single most profitable crop, and great quantities of a single commodity, to benefit from economies of scale.

Poverty allows environmental degradation as a lesser evil when there is the urgent need to have food or money for food. It shortens the time horizon to the immediate urgencies. It forces people to use up their capacity to produce forests, water reserves, soil quality, rare species even when they know the new problems they are creating. It encourages governments, and local authorities of poor communities in rich countries, to tolerate violations of ecological standards and even to invite the dumping of toxic materials on their land in order to gain income. Poverty is usually accompanied by a lack of control by the poor over what will happen to them.

Greed creates and maintains poverty and promotes ignorance. Ignorance justifies greed as natural and inevitable while rejecting all criticism of greed, thus guaranteeing poverty.

Over the last few centuries average agricultural yields increased as a result of mechanisation, the use of chemicalisation (including fertilisers and pesticides), plant and animal breeding, and scientific management. Although problems arose, it was widely believed that such problems were the price of progress and would be solved by the same means that created them.

The Green Revolution

1. Modern high-tech agriculture has not eliminated hunger.

2. It undermines its own productive base through erosion, soil compaction and salinisation, depletion of water resources and depletion of genotypic diversity.

3. It changes land use patterns, encouraging deforestation, draining of wetlands and planting crops according to market criteria even in unsuitable climates. It promotes a loss of crop diversity by specialisation and commercial seed production and reduces overall biodiversity through its chemical inputs and extensive monocultures.

4. It increases vulnerability to nature, especially to climate and microclimate change, pest outbreaks and atmospheric and water pollutants. This is because of large scale monoculture, the selection of varieties for maximum yield under optimal conditions and the loss of beneficial fauna and flora.

5. It makes farming increasingly dependent on inputs from off the farm. This means that cash flow becomes increasingly important as fertilisers replace natural nitrogen fixers, irrigation replaces the broken hydrological flows and storages of water, and also because pesticides replace natural enemies of pests and hybrid seeds must be bought. Dependence on external inputs increases the vulnerability to price instability and politically motivated trade policies.

6. It debases food quality as regional specialisation increases storage and transport time and crops and techniques are chosen for quantitative yield. Specialisation makes even farmers dependent on buying food.

7. It increases the gap between rich and poor. The rich are able to buy, or get credit to buy, the new inputs, establish the marketing connections and average their returns across years. The poor, however, need to be successful every year. Modern agriculture especially undermines the economic independence of women. The new technologies are usually given to men, even in places where women traditionally did most of the farming. The new technologies make the domestic chores of women, such as gathering firewood and fetching water, more time consuming. Womens diverse activities in the home conflict with the extreme seasonality of commercial monoculture.

8. It poisons people, first the farm workers who handle pesticides, then their family members who handle the pesticide soaked clothing and drink water where pesticides and fertilisers have run into ground water. Finally it reaches those who eat the crops produced with pesticides and animals raised with antibiotics and growth hormones.

9. It also poisons other species, and the environment as a whole, with eutrophication of our waterways from fertiliser runoff, accumulation of pesticides in the body tissues of fish and birds, and nitrification of the air.

The final conclusion, therefore, is that the commercialised, export oriented, high-tech agriculture is a non-sustainable successional stage in the ecology of production, like the shrubs that squeeze out the grasses and herbs of an abandoned field only to create the conditions for their own replacement by trees.

...all creatures have been turned into property, the fishes in the water, the birds in the air, the plants on the earth; the creatures, too, must become free. These are the words of Thomas Mnzer, the leader of the German Peasants Revolt in the early sixteenth century quoted approvingly by Marx in On the Jewish Question What attracted Marx was Mnzers view that under the dominion of private property and money, nature is treated in such a contemptuous way that it is debased. For Marx, humanity is always part of nature In the third volume of Capital he speaks of humanity achieving freedom within the realm of natural necessity, whereby the associated producers govern the interchange with nature in a rational way under conditions most worthy and appropriate for their human nature. Human society must therefore build upon our natural inclinations in formulating a social order that will bring both peace and prosperity to our species.

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Socialism or your money back