Capitalism isn't working, so what is the alternative? This question must have at least crossed the minds of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, around the world as they watched the credit crunch, financial meltdown and recession unfold over the past few months. The problem, of course, is that for those same millions most of their conditioning - from politicians, media, education and a good deal of their experience - will have been to answer that there is no alternative. No alternative to capitalism as such at any rate; no alternative that goes beyond a modified version of capitalism as represented by the "new" Keynesian, Gordon Brown, or perhaps Barack Obama.In fact, a definite and clearly articulated alternative - socialism - has existed for at least 160 years (Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848). Socialism is very straightforward and, compared to capitalism, extremely simple. It means social (or collective) ownership and control of the main means of production (land, factories, businesses, banks, etc) and production for human need, not profit, and with this the abolition of class divisions.
The trouble for many people is not that this is very complicated, or hard to understand, but that it just sounds too good to be true. Many of us get so ground down and demoralised by living under capitalism that we become convinced that nothing as evidently sane and good as socialism could possibly ever really happen - life just isn't like that, so there must be a catch somewhere.
In this article I intend to argue that socialism is not too good to be true, that it is a perfectly reasonable and practical way of organising society, and that the various objections to it which spring into our minds, because they have been planted there by the dominant capitalist ideology, are illusory or even downright silly. I say silly because when people are deeply prejudiced they often think arguments are obvious, because they are based on their prejudices, which are in fact absurd and which disappear like a puff of smoke the moment the matter is tested in practice.
For example, in Bristol in 1963 there was a dispute about whether black workers should be allowed to drive buses and some of the racists argued that black people lacked the speedy reactions needed for bus driving (like Pele and Mohammed Ali had slow reactions!). Another example: before Angela Rippon started reading the news in 1974, it was actually maintained by some sexist dinosaurs that the public wouldn't take the news seriously if it was read by a woman. Obviously such arguments evaporate as soon as the colour or gender bar is breached.
