Under Capitalism

Under capitalism, starvation, war, poverty and environmental destruction blight the lives of millions the world over. At the same time, the enormous wealth, resources and human talent that exist in the world are squandered. It is a system in which the three richest people in the world privately own more wealth than the combined gross national product of the world’s 43 poorest countries!

The over two billion people who do not have access to clean water could be provided with it for £40 billion – less than half the estimated cost of the war and occupation of Iraq. In Britain, one of the richest countries in the world, one in three children live below the poverty line!

These insane inequalities and waste continue because the existing mainstream parties carry out policies which defend the interests of the capitalist ruling class – the profit-making big businesses which exploit students, workers and the rural poor across the globe. As shown by the war and occupation of Iraq, this class is prepared to use brutal imperialist military force in order to get its hands on the natural resources in that region.

Socialist Students believes that we need a society which rejects the domination of profit and the madness of the ‘free’ market where capital rules. The only alternative is the public ownership of the world’s resources and the democratic planning and management of society by, and for the needs of, the majority on this planet. This alternative is socialism.