Under Capitalism …

… the world has around 500 dollar billionaires, owning between them well over the combined incomes of the poorest half of humanity.

… the three richest people in the world privately own more wealth than the combined gross national product of the world’s 43 poorest countries.

… over two billion people who do not currently have access to clean water could be provided with it for under half the total cost of the first year of the war and occupation of Iraq.

These insane inequalities exist not for any good reason, but because the big corporations and the super-rich have a stranglehold on economic and political life. The mass of natural and human resources in the world are squandered in the chase after profits rather than democratically allocated to where they are needed.

So long as capitalism persists, there will be poverty, war and terror. The environment will continue to be destroyed while the wealthy travel in private jets, protected by bodyguards.

Socialist Students is fighting for the alternative – a democratically planned economy, in which the monopolies are brought under democratic workers’ control and management. We believe in the power of working people, youth and students to overthrow this rotten system, and involve ourselves in campaigns and struggles against all the injustices of capitalism.

This issue of the Student Socialist outlines many of our ideas and campaigns. We hope that you agree with enough of them to come to one of our meetings and discuss with us. But really we want you to join us in the fight to change society.

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