Socialism is a new form of social organisation that grows within the womb of the old order, capitalism. Curiously, however, one of its parents does not want it to be born, and would prefer that it disappeared. It will make its coming into the world as difficult as possible. Capitalism depends on the existence of a working class that has nothing to sell but its labour power. And those who work for a living find their needs and fulfilment as human beings cannot be met by the system.

Capitalism is a relationship between classes. Ours is large, theirs small (Aaronovitch, 1961; Sampson, 2004; Hardt and Negri, 2005). The working class creates and produces everything, including the best and the worst ideas. To sustain yourself as a worker you need, food, shelter, healthcare, education, wages, civil administration and a capacity to organise together to defend your interests. You need to express yourself as a person and explore ideas without repression. You depend, in other words, on very collective, publicly supported things. You are part of a collective. The social relationships that you and your family depend on are collective ones.

Common wealth

The greater good flows from a sense of common wealth. Sharing and caring are the stronger values of a working-class world. In order to produce things that we need, whether food or clothing, it takes a collective organisation of the means of production. Yet these means of production are privately owned and therefore relationships within production are inherently unjust. We do the toil, they get the spoil.

The private nature of the ownership of production creates an overall structural injustice. Hence the continual resistance throughout the world by workers to attempts to privatise services, utilities and industries. Why should private wealth and ownership be amassed when its source is in the collective labour of the majority?