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The majority of people are disillusioned and have deep
questions about the prospects of life under capitalism. Our aim is to create an
independent, mass workers movement for socialism. Building up a mass workers’ movement for
socialism does not mean that every person must be an expert on Marxist
economics but only to be clear on the basic principles of socialism. People make
revolution out of necessity, not out of a theory, but out of a practical,
understanding of the need for revolution. The working class must emancipate
itself. No one can do it for them. The Socialist Party are not made up “social
workers” who try to patch up the problems of capitalism and make life “better”
for the workers, but instead are workers
organising with fellow workers to fight for our interests. We want the workers
to take possession of the means of production and abolish the wage system. The Socialist
Party’s task is to explain every aspect of the worker’s situation, every aspect
of their exploitation without exception. Our propaganda must reach out to the
majority and explain why socialism is the only solution. We must start from the
appearance of things and patiently explain again and again why capitalism is
the source of the workers’ misery. Capitalist society is built around the idea
that some people should profit off of others. We think that this is why there
are so many people living in poverty right now at the same time that there are
a few people with incredible wealth. Part of why capitalism continues to exist
is that we can’t get a lot of what we need and want unless we have money. Most
of us can’t get money unless we work for someone else. This means our bosses
have a lot of control over our lives. If we lose our jobs and can’t find new
ones, we risk losing our homes, losing access to health care, let alone being
able to spend money on the things we enjoy. Bosses know that if they fire us we
won’t have an income anymore. Many bosses use this to push people around on the
job. We basically give up our democratic rights on the job. We don’t have a
right to free speech at work, for instance. The boss can tell us what to say
and what not to say. We think that’s wrong too
We are not utopians. The struggle for reforms is a labour of
Sisyphus. Every gain extracted from capitalists and their state they will try
to take back. Capitalism cannot be reformed. It must be destroyed. We think
that all people should have their basic needs met – people should have enough
food, and safe secure homes, access to medical care, access to entertainment
and the arts, and so on. We think it’s terrible that our society wastes so many
resources on the lifestyles of a few super rich people while so many poor
people go without the bare necessities. We think if we did away with capitalism
this wastefulness would go away and there would be plenty for everyone. We want
to replace capitalism with a world that is more democratic. The very essence of
capitalism is slavery: the enslavement of workers by the capitalist class. Today,
all workers suffer under capitalist slavery: either wage slavery or physical,
chattel slavery. There are currently more than 35.8 million people physically
enslaved as chattel. Approximately 95% of the 6.4 billion persons now living
suffer under capitalist wage slavery: 6.175 billion. When you read the word
slavery, it may seem as though it couldn't possibly be that people are
literally slaves today--slavery seems like an outmoded form of life from
previous centuries. Whatever we feel, slavery is very much a fact of life for
all people in the world today. A person is a slave if he has lost control over
his life and is dominated by someone or something--whether he is aware of this
or not. Wage slavery is the condition in which a person must sell his or her
labor-power, submitting to the authority of an employer, in order to merely
subsist.
A capitalist slave is:
1.
Forced to work at a "job" owned by a
capitalist (owner of jobs, the means of production, and the profit from the
jobs) through necessity or through mental or physical threat
2.
Owned or controlled by a capitalist
"employer" (wages, hours, working conditions)
3.
Dehumanised, treated as a commodity: a faceless
entity filling a slot, a hired hand
4.
At the mercy of the capitalist: the capitalist
can--and now does so with a vengeance--destroy jobs by "staff
reduction," mechanize jobs (e.g. robots welding automobiles), or take jobs
to a cheaper labor location
5.
Without a voice as to how much profit the
capitalist can make from the worker's labor and cannot bargain for higher wages
or safe working conditions
6.
Unable to support himself and his family when he
cannot find a job
7.
Reduced to poverty or destitution or death by an
ever-reduced job "market"
Just as plantation owners in the American South and the
capitalists who made millions from the international slave trade in earlier
decades of our history brainwashed most Americans into believing that chattel
slavery was a "fact of nature." In the same vein, capitalists have
programmed most contemporary people into believing that the evils of capitalist
slavery are necessary to the smooth running of society. The capitalist system of
greed, selfishness, subjugation, and exploitation has camouflaged itself the
illusion of equal opportunity for all and has seduced people into ignoring its
contradictions, injustices, and malevolence. Just as the world attempts to rid
itself of chattel and debt slavery with the realization that slavery is not
"natural"—but in fact evil and unnatural-- workers throughout the
world must now free themselves from capitalist slavery. We must replace
capitalism with a socialist cooperative commonwealth society that ensures that
all people can live free from slavery of any kind and assure that every person has
the means whereby they can sustain themselves and lead a free and productive
life.
To overthrow capitalism, we must work hard to understand
just what has led to our enslavement and what kinds of actions will be
necessary to free ourselves from these insidious chains of servitude. We first
need to understand the basics of our present economic situation. You have
already endured the subjugation of a "boss" or "director"
or "committee," and you know that the coercion, even if masked as
"job description," "supervisor evaluation," or
"company directive" can be as repressive as if there were literal
chains fastened around your arms and feet.
Under the "wage slave" system you don't receive the full
compensation for your work. By the very nature of the employer-employee
relationship, you get less compensation than you should, because the employer
takes excessive profits. Let's take a look at how this happens by examining a
very simple example of an exchange:
The raw material to produce a sack of ground wheat, let's
say, costs $1.00. The means of production for this job costs $1.00. The owner
of the means of production (the capitalist) pays you $1.00 for your labour-power.
The capitalist sells the sack of ground wheat for $8.00. Your labour has turned
$1.00 dollar of wheat plus $1.00 in production costs plus $1.00 for your labour-power,
into a commodity which is sold for $8.00. The profit is $5.00. The owner of the
means of production (the capitalist) makes 5 times more in profit than you do
in wages, plus he owns and can sell the means of production whenever he wants.
And he can select cheaper labour as he pleases. A wage slave can't quit an
oppressive job to find a less slave-like job, because in our present society,
almost all jobs involve wage-slavery. So the options are obey and stay, die of
starvation, or become a vagrant, which is illegal. Yet another reason why to
oppose capitalism is because this economic institution acts as a parasite.
Every worker, no matter how much they must produce to feed themselves, must
produce extra to feed their boss, employer, or group of stockholders. The
income is split between the costs of industry, the employer, and the employee.
Fourth, fifth, and sixth cuts are taken out by the state, the middleman, and
the final distributor. Each one of these groups take their toll on the product
but contribute nothing. They simply stamp it as approved, living off of the
proceeds from the sales without producing or creating. If there is an initial
displeasure with capitalism, it is this: the many who work receive very little,
while those few who do not labour receive the greatest income. In a single
word, we socialists have called this exploitation, justified solely by legal
possession.
The ravages of wage slavery are becoming clear for all to
see and feel. We either overthrow this new slavery or we will continue as
slaves. We must realise that our economic situation at present--a very few
obscenely rich people owning companies and corporations and having illegally
seized state and federal political power--is one which we can and must change.
Our current economic and political circumstances are not written in stone;
humans have lived under very different political and economic conditions
throughout our history. We must begin to overthrow this present state of
affairs where all workers suffer under capitalist wage-slavery. The political
system and the economic situation should be directed toward the welfare of all,
not just a few. We can bring about these changes; it is not impossible. We must
first make all workers aware of our present plight and then begin in all
possible ways to overthrow the new slavery, producing material changes leading
to political freedom and economic equality of opportunity through building the cooperative
socialist commonwealth
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