Let us summarise key features of our conception of mature socialism:
1.
2.
3.
The economy is based on the deliberate and conscious application of the
labour theory of value as developed by Adam Smith and Karl Marx. It is
a model in which consumer goods are priced in terms of the hours and
minutes of labour it took to make them, and in which each worker is paid
labour credits for each hour worked. The consistent application of this
principle eliminates economic exploitation.
Industry is publicly owned, run according to a plan and not for profit.
Retail enterprises for example, work on a break-even rather than profit
making basis. We envisage the transition to publicly owned enterprises
as being a gradual process that will occur after rather than before the
abolition of the wages system.
Decisions are taken democratically, at local, national and Union levels.
This applies in particular to decisions about the level of taxation and
state expenditure. Such democratic decision making is vital to prevent
the replacement of private exploitation with exploitation by the state.
In addition we take seriously Marx’s aphorism that the liberation of the
working classes must be the work of the working classes themselves. This
is reflected in our advocacy of direct participative democracy rather than
cabinet or party government and also affects our philosophy of how a
transition to socialism has to take place. Instead of the old Social Democratic
emphasis on the direct action of the state in nationalising and taking over
private companies, we advocate the establishment of positive legal rights for
labour. These rights will, when collectively exercised by workers, bring to an
end the exploitation of labour by capital.
2 Money and exploitation
The European economy will still based on money at the point at which the
socialist movement comes to power. In Capital, Marx showed how money
was at the root of the evils of capitalism. The essence of capitalism is to start
out with a sum of money at the beginning of the year and end up with a
larger sum at the end. Marx denoted this by M->M’ where M might be £”£”
1,000,000 for example and M’=£”£” 2,000,000.
Transition to 21st Century Socialism in the European Union
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