Palliatives do not remove the cause of pain, they only temporarily abate its intensity. The great table of nature is a bountiful spread, abundantly overflowing with delicacies as well as necessaries of life. The capitalist class are in possession, we, the other class, possess nothing but our ability to labour, and we spend our lifetime in work producing. We produce all that exists while you, the capitalists, spend your time gambling on the stock-market to see which of you shall become possessed of a greater share of the results of the workers’ toil, extolling its competition. Capitalism is an ulcer festering upon the body of humanity. Notwithstanding the reform measures to sooth the suffering, the pain is becoming more unbearable. It is the mission of the Socialist Party to excise that festering sore. We abhor slavery in every form. The Socialist Party in its wider activities argue what is required is to emancipate ourselves from wage-slavery.
The most inspiring oratory and impressive eloquence is the voice of the dispossessed , the oppressed and the suffering; it is the voice of poverty and misery, of those living in rags and living on crusts, of wretchedness and despair; the voice of humanity crying out; the voice that resounds throughout the earth ; the voice that awakens the conscience and proclaims the truth.
The capitalist theory is that labour always has been, and always will be, mere “hands” that needs a “head,”; the head of a capitalist, to hire it, set it to work, boss it, drive it and exploit it, and that without the capitalist “head” labour would be unemployed, helpless, and starve. Sad to say, a great number of wage-workers, in their ignorance, still share in that opinion. They use their hands only to produce wealth scarcely conscious that they have heads of their own and that if they only used their heads as well as their hands there would be no “bosses” and no “hands,” but instead free men and women, employing themselves co-operatively under regulations of their own, taking to themselves all the products of their labour. The idle stockholder and the callous CEO would disappear. With the introduction of labour-saving technology we would enjoy the shortened working week, have comfortable homes to live in , plenty to eat and enough leisure time to enjoy life fully. That is what the Socialist Party members are fighting for. It is no mere fanciful theory but a vital living force steadily, unceasingly, transforming society and at the same time preparing the workers for the change. All the workers have to do is to recognise this force, become in harmony with it by self-education for social freedom.
The Socialist Party, which is made up of wage-slaves with their brains in working order, do not underestimate the magnitude of the struggle. Workers cannot wait for some so-called “great man” or the right party-line to do something for them, but they are preparing to do all things for themselves. The workers are in a great majority and without them every wheel would stop, industry would drop dead, and society would be paralyzed. All they have to do is to unite, think together, act together, strike together, vote together, always remembering that they are one, and then the world is theirs. But to reach this point requires education and organisation—these are the essentials to emancipation. The workers must organise their emancipation to achieve it and to steer its limitless opportunities and possibilities. They must unite as one in the same industrial union and one and the same political party. And both the union and the party must be controlled and directed by themselves, not from the top down, but from the bottom up. The workers have had their fill of the “great man”. A worker should be ashamed to follow leaders.
AJJ
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