FEBRUARY 24 — Recently, people have been bombarded with political terms which they are not familiar with. The actual meanings behind these terms were often misunderstood, raising a lot of questions among politicians and the people. Sometimes there are very strong reactions to these terms, which have an overall effect on the people’s composure. This often leads to afalse dilemma, where voters would choosea less viable candidate in order to protect some perceivedinterests, which actually do not exist at all.
A term which always becomes a source of such controversy is socialism,a term upheld by many smaller parties in Malaysia, especially Parti Sosialis Malaysia. Some would perceive that socialism is the ideology of the Democratic Action Party (DAP). In reality however, all the party’s policies do not appear to be socialist at all, but in fact the opposite. We will analyse this in a moment.
Socialism
First, we have to ask, what is socialism? Socialism is an ideology which gives emphasis to the equal distribution of the country’s source of wealth, for the benefit of all its citizens. This is the academic definition. The applications of socialism vary widely, and is unique to each country. The Scandinavian countries implement the Nordic model, which has high rates of taxation(up to 60 per cent) in order to provide free and high-quality basic facilities. There are also other models such as in Cuba, where various economic activities are done through direct government intervention, to maintain the people’s ownership over their own country’s wealth.
Socialism strives to claim the wealth generated by the workers and distribute them to the people fairly. This is done by providing facilities such as hospitals, education, public transporation, and public welfare systems. All these facilities must be widely and easily accessible, low cost, and of high quality. Socialism also makes it the government’s responsibility to protect the interests of the common people, from being oppressed by the wealthy elite.The government must also empower its people, by putting in placestructures such as the workers union,in which people can organise their own demands through demonstrations, discussions, or even campaigns tovote out the government itself, if they perceived it to be oppressive. Socialism also puts importance on the protection of natural resources,so that these precious heritage are not wantonly destroyed justto generate more profits.
Capitalism’s weakness
In order to understand why we need socialism, we must first understand the problem with the ideology running against it, which is capitalism. Capitalism is an ideology emphasising on individualism, which is the capability of an individual to generate one’s own wealth. Capitalism perceives that every individual is born equal, and freedom should be given to each individual, so that collectively the people can contribute to society in their own unique way. On the surface, the logic seems sound. However, it hides some important details. Mainly, we should understand that one’s life conditions are not the same as others. Some are born wealthy or privileged, some are born with disabilities, and some have to stop work in order to take care of their poor families.
Capitalism generally does not really care about these differences at their core. For example, many capitalist countries have welfare programs for individuals who need help. In Australia, there is a welfare system in place to help unemployed people. However, big companies take advantage of this system by offering only precarious jobs, with short-term contracts. These jobs are often without fixed salaries, but the workload is the same or more than permanent workers with fixed-salaries. The core issue of solving the people’s economic problems became largely forgotten. Instead, the system ended up assisting already very rich employers,to become even richer.
This is the fallacy of the capitalist system. In emphasising the individual’s profit, the concept of social inequality is forgotten, thus the gap between the rich and the poor keeps on widening. Welfare programs are short term and fail to solve problems the root cause of poverty, which is the oppression of the poor by the rich. Where is the logic behind Malaysia’s measly minimum wage of RM1,100, being fought against by employers who reap millions worth of profit? It has always been said that raising the minimum wage would force many companies to close down. In reality, however, when Malaysia introduced the minimum wage of RM900 in 2012, no companies went bust due to this act.
While the rich becomes richer, the poor are seen as lazy
Today, most governments of the world with capitalistic inclinations put more importance on the profits of their wealthier citizens. Their logic is that the rich will create lots of jobs for the common people, with the profits channeled back to the country, thus accelerating the local economy. However, in reality the profits are mostly taken and kept by the employers, typically frozen inside off-shore accounts, virtually untraceable, and thus untaxable. Workers who toiled in generating the profit end up with meagre salaries instead. When asked about such injustice, employers would answer that their workers were not productive, lazy, or did not deserve higher salaries due to lack of skills and expertise.
The government then has to raise taxes on basic goods such as food, clothing, and cleaning supplies, in order to sustain the country’s economy. The daily pressures of life suffered by the common people are “solved” using various government aid programs, which could only alleviate these burdens for the short term. The structures needed to solve the people’s problems at their roots are left abandoned.
For example, labour unions are needed to allow company workers to organise collective efforts for demanding better work conditions. Issues such as salary, number of leave days, total compensation upon termination, and workplace infrastructure facilities can be demanded if there exists a strong labour union. In capitalist countries, including Malaysia, the power and influence of these labour unions are controlled. Without collective bargaining power, workers are left at the whim of their employers. Now disempowered, they no longer have the will to demand their rights, and resort to part time work in order to gain extra income. Due to this reality, many Malaysians are forced to spend too much time working to make ends meet, instead of enjoying the fruits of their labour.
Taxes on the rich are also reduced. This is due to the power and influence of the wealthy over the government, often threatening to relocate their companies to other countries if their taxes are not reduced. The government then takes the easy way, by complying with whatever is requested by the wealthy elites, resulting in continued oppression of the common people. This is especially true when the government itself seeks to gain more profit, such as via the GLCs, or selling off the country’s assets to the private sector.
Between Harapan and Barisan, what is the difference?
All this while, the government led by Barisan Nasional had reduced taxes for the wealthy, took control of the labour unions, and had oppressed the people greatly. Do we see a different narrative in the Pakatan Harapan government? Apparently not. Malaysians are still labeled as lazy, the labour unions are urged not to hold demonstrations, and progressive tax increase is said to be not feasible, in order to pacify employers. From the economic perspective, both the Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Harapan governments carry the same narrative, and therefore inherently oppressive. Both are only interested in solving the poor people’s problems for the short term, such as giving away BR1M, which has now been changed to BSH.
Thus, we have seen how capitalist policies clearly oppress the people. Such principles are upheld by both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Harapan. The main political party upholding socialist principles is Parti Sosialis Malaysia. PSM is the one fighting for higher minimum wage, which called for employment insurance scheme until it became reality, keeps stressing the need for robust healthcare system servicing the common people, and is handling thousands of people’s cases ranging from land disputes to housing, oppressive employers, and environmental destruction.
Socialism is an ideology which can be simply described as having the people’s welfare at heart. Therefore, socialism can ensure that the country’s wealth is distributed fairly, and stop the oppression of the poor people by the rich. Only through socialism can we build a calm, peaceful and respectful community. This is socialism, the foundation of Parti Sosialis Malaysia, different from Barisan Nasional, and also Pakatan Harapan. Should it be respected and loved by the people, or scorned as a system which has lost its bearings? This question should be left open to the people.
Long live the struggle! Long live the people!
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
