Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Yes, we can, If we want to.

If all the owners of capital were to disappear, the world would be exactly the same—you would have the same farms, the same factories—but if all the workers disappeared, then everyone would starve to death. Some hold that capitalism is in a state of collapse, or at least is imminent, and look upon every recession as the harbinger of the collapse. It is of no use waiting for the system to collapse, nor preparing a new economic structure to replace it. It will not go until the workers determine that it shall go, and the pressing service revolutionary organisations can perform is to prepare the workers' minds for the possibility of the immediate establishment of socialism. When the workers understand Socialism they will take the direct and simple steps necessary to give them control of the political machinery of society for the purpose of introducing socialism. Until that time, the only useful action possible is the act of speaking and writing about socialism. It is true the Socialist Party has not succeeded in organising large numbers, but have our critics done any better? We have at least assisted materially in giving a correct understanding of socialism which is by no means insignificant.

Under capitalism, there are no "good times" for the working class, but just so long as the working class does not see through the capitalist "work hard now and wait for reward" fairy story. Capitalism, in the pursuit of profit, is an inhumane society. Capitalism cannot let the people of the world prosper in peace, but socialism will ensure it. Capitalism breeds economic rivalry, hatred and destruction. Only socialism is based on the international community of interests of the working class of all lands. It is the workers who keep capitalism going, for the benefit of the capitalists. It is the time the workers determined, by international socialist action, to refashion human society on a socialist foundation. The productive power and the administrative ability already exist for the making of a new world. Do not delay the decision to use them. The Socialist Party teaches the way to working-class emancipation and the happiness and well-being of humanity. The problem is that people are so used to the existence of capitalism, they’re so used to the idea that you have to work for somebody else, that they don’t see that they can just take it over. The role of the working class under capitalism is to be exploited so that the capitalists can get rich. In parliament, representatives of the robber class run the system and if members of the robbed class want to see the capitalists and their political agents at work we are confined to the "strangers' gallery'  — highly appropriate, seeing as workers are strangers to any real power. There can be no economic or political justice for the workers within the framework of capitalism which cannot be reformed, despite its continually rebranding itself. The Left, seduced by identity politics, largely ignores the primacy of capitalism and the class struggle.  Capitalism, at its core, is about the commodification of human beings and the natural world for exploitation and profit. To increase profit, it constantly seeks to reduce the cost of labour and demolish the regulations and laws that protect the common good.  capitalism by its nature lurches from crisis to crisis. This makes our current predicament similar to past crises. But it unleashes uncontrollable yearnings among an enraged population that threatens capitalism itself. We don’t have conversations about capitalism. How many times can you turn on a mainstream news and expect to hear the system of ‘capitalism’ discussed?  

The Socialist Party takes the view that it is impossible to solve the major problems of modern society in isolation. The social problems from which the working class suffer all have their roots in the very basis of the capitalist system. They can only be solved when the workers rid themselves of the confusion and equip themselves with socialist knowledge.  Instead of focusing on the plight of all of the oppressed, oppressed groups seek representation for their own members within capitalist structures.  We in The Socialist Party aim at building a world community — without frontiers, based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production where things will be produced for use. A world without war, world hunger or racialism. A world that has no need of money and has abolished rent, interest, profits, wages, and prices. A world fit for human beings. We think such a society can be brought into being only when it is technically possible for abundance to be produced (as it is now) and when a majority of the population understands the implications of such a socialist reorganisation, desire it and take the necessary democratic action to establish it. We insist that any attempt to make such a revolutionary change, except by organised democratic political action will never succeed. We are opposed to the efforts of Leninists, Trotskyists, Maoists and other elitist groups which set out to disrupt the democratic process or to seize power following deliberate provocative actions aimed at manipulating workers in the interests of the self-appointed ‘revolutionary' vanguards. Fortunately, although they do not share our revolutionary socialist view, most workers have sufficient political insight to reject the roles intended for them by these would-be leaders.

Season after season we teach socialism: the possession by a community of workers the world over, of the things needful for human existence. The end of production for profit; the abolition of slave-jobs and subsistence wages; the end of commercial rivalry and the struggle for political supremacy on the part of rival groups of bosses; the end of the wholesale slaughter of the workers by the machines they themselves produce; the death of blinding superstition and the birth of rational hope; the end of all things capitalistic and the beginning of a real society; the beginning of production for social use, of co-operation for mutual welfare, of universal brotherhood.


 If we envision a world where communities work together to ensure that our basic needs are met, then our movement can't operate like secret societies. The Socialist Party has been committed to full transparency since its foundation. Even our Executive Committee meetings are open to the public so they can scrutinise our decision-making process if they wish.


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