The Socialist Challenge

Masses of the people are being ruined by Big Business and their millionaires. Poverty, unemployment and insecurity threatens the majority. There is no need for a single worker to be overworked or in dread of losing his or her job; no reason why an unemployed worker should lack the necessaries of life. All over the world millions of workers are coming to realise these facts and to see that nothing except the existence of capitalism prevents them building up for themselves a decent and stable world. Everywhere the workers are becoming less and less willing to put up with an entirely unnecessary state of deprivation. They are showing themselves more and more determined to insist upon their right to food, clothing and shelter for themselves and their families. But to get this, capitalism must be overthrown. To get this, is only possible by the building socialism.


When the fight for their interests has reached the stage when capitalism is being overthrown, then, in order to do it, and in the doing of it, workers will create the required organisations necessary for this purpose. In the moment of need that will arise when the workers are getting ready to take over power, the working class will create its own instruments to hold and maintain its political power. Socialism, that co-operative commonwealth, which has been the aim of generations of working-class will attain its full meaning and realisation with the ending of capitalist rule. The needs of all will be met, and new needs and pleasures now denied to the working class will be created and satisfied by a socialist organisation of production. We have to-day ample resources for producing all the things we need. Moreover, the workers will naturally produce far better and more willingly under their own management than they do now. For the first time workers will know that greater productivity will no longer be a threat to their livelihood but will make it possible to raise the whole standard of living and shorten the hours of labour.

Capitalism is founded upon production for profit. Socialism is based upon production for use. If the owners of the means of production and distribution fail to make a profit, it is in their power to cease production or distribution and the world’s workers may starve.The owners of the means of production and distribution dictate the terms upon which the world may use that machinery. The Socialist Party calls upon fellow workers to join in the overthrow of capitalism by capturing the powers of government and transferring the ownership of the world from capitalism to socialism. With the power of our votes it is within our power to accomplish our own emancipation without the need of physical force.