Socialism now

We have just witnessed the annual political party jamboree, the annual conferences. Labour and Tory both have a record of backing oppression, and exploitation, and suppression by one means or another of the people’s struggles. They spend all their time attacking each other and blame one another for the conditions of the people. Between them they are covering up the fact that it is the capitalist system which is the real enemy. Both parties in their own way work to protect the system and the interests of the ruling class. The Labour Party claim to stand for “socialism” because they support nationalisation. Anyone who works in a nationalised industry knows what a farce that claim is! Nationalisation is nothing to do with socialism. At least nationalisation saves jobs we are told. Does it really!  In periods of crisis, capitalist competition and individual firms cannot raise the investment necessary. The state steps in feeds in the investment, combines the firms and closes large sections down to make the nationalised corporation more efficient and profitable. Thousands are thrown out on the scrap heap, while that section of capitalist industry is shored up ready for the next round.

The working class needs political power to build socialism. Socialists not only dream of the good day coming when the world shall know that men are brothers and that women are sisters to each other, but they are at work with all their hearts and all their heads and hands to make that dream come true. Think for just a moment of all the food there is in the world and all there might be and then tell me if socialists are wrong and foolish and wicked for saying that it is a terrible crime of which society is guilty that people go hungry and starve and for this there is no excuse on earth or in heaven.

We call on all workers, regardless of colour or sex, to organise politically and industrially, to win our emancipation from the chains of economic slavery that now bind us down and apart from one another. We, the people, have borne the burdensome yoke of our shameless oppressors too patiently and too long. Have we lost all power of protest? Have we been bent so low in servitude to the rulers of industry and commerce that we shall never again stand erect as free men and women? Millions dying of neglect, millions on the brink of starvation, millions on the hunger line, all help swell the increasing demand for liberation from the greatest evil of all ages — THE PROFIT SYSTEM.

The only hope of labour lies in the growing strength of the socialist movement. The social struggle is being waged the world over. But the duty of every worker is confined to his or her own neighbourhood. We can best win the world struggle by achieving victory in the voting constituency in which we live. Let the workers, wherever the right of the ballot is given them, shake the foundations of the capitalists’ thrones. The lesson is inescapable.The capitalist profit system itself remains the greatest obstacle and it stands in the way of satisfying the peoples’ needs.