“All for one and one for all”

Human nature is supposed to be such as to make socialism a mere utopia, a fantastic and unrealisable dream. Socialists explain that human ‘nature’ will reflect the character of the future society just as at present it assumes the competitive, selfish, grasping character of capitalist society. When you take into consideration the greed, the strife, the cheating and the violence that exist under the system of private property, you are amazed, not that the human animal is so bad but that, in spite of everything, man has not completely degenerated into a wild beast. Let no one imagine that we socialists assert that under socialism all men will be born with equal abilities. Just as at present there will be individuals with greater and lesser abilities, everyone will be educated to use his capacities to serve society and not to exploit others. For the person of greater talents, socialism, by doing away with the struggle for food and clothing, will mean a far greater opportunity for the exercise of those talents.

If the capitalists were to depend upon force alone to guarantee their privileged position, their situation would be precarious indeed. After all they represent only a small minority of the people. The overwhelming majority of the population would benefit by a change from the present system to socialism. Against such a decisive majority the instruments of force at the disposal of the capitalist class could not prevail. If the working masses would be aroused and determined to abolish capitalism, the police and the army would be helpless, even if we assume that all of the soldiers would be loyal to the capitalist class.

What the capitalist class must depend upon, more than on force, is deceit. All the force in the world would not avail the capitalists if they could not deceive and confuse the people. Even their police and their armies would not be reliable because the police and the army are composed of people who come from the working class and who permit themselves to be used against their class brothers simply because they do not know any better. The rulers of our present social order see to it that the workers are subjected to a system of schooling and training which succeeds in making them believe that the present system is the best possible system, and that if there is anything wrong with it, it is only of a minor character and can be easily cured by changing the people who are in control of things or implementing certain reforms. It is this deception, more than anything else, that assures the existence of a social order which brings so much misery and suffering to the vast majority of the people.

 What institutions exist for the purpose of deceiving the masses? There are quite a few, the most important being the church, the media, and the educational system. From early childhood every person is subjected to the influence of ideas which tend to make him or her respect authority, and to believe in things as they are. Obedience is the virtue stressed by religious teachers.

The members of the ruling class depend upon the schools, more perhaps than upon the churches, to instill into the minds of the working-class youth a proper respect for all the institutions and ideas which ensure the continuance of the present system. Above all, the educational system attempts to imbue the young people with an intense patriotism. To be ready to fight and die for one's country (which, of course, means the country owned by the capitalists) is pictured as the highest of all virtues. The average boy or girl is graduated from school firmly convinced that the economic, political and social ideas and ideals that they have been taught are correct and" necessary. They are prepared to fight, not in the interest of their class, but for things as they are, for the benefit of those who exploit them.

While the educational system, both religious and secular, molds the minds of the people in their earlier years, the   mass media is the chief instrument in the work of confusing and deceiving them in later life. Day in and day out the capitalist press TV and radio turns loose a veritable flood of lies and half-truths, the sum and substance of which is that capitalism is the best of all possible systems and that only people with vicious tendencies would want to change that
system. And there is very little that those of us, who want to establish a new social order, can do in order to counter-act the propaganda of the capitalism. To publish a paper,  to own a TV channel or radio station  requires tremendous capital. They are all owned by wealthy capitalists and depend for their advertisements on the big business people.  For every worker who has a
chance to read a paper advocating the ideas of socialism, there are tens of thousands who read nothing except the capitalist press. The cinema, too, subtly spreading the same poison that numbs the thinking workers.

Influenced by the false ideas propagated by the capitalist class the workers not only fail to struggle against their real enemies but actually permit themselves to be arrayed against one another. They allow themselves to be divided on racial, national and religious grounds. Prejudices are fostered amongst the workers and thereby the struggle against the common enemy is weakened. The best example of a prejudice that causes untold harm to the labor movement is the prejudice of the white and indigenous workers against the coloured and immigrant workers.

 Today the great majority of people imagine that in the last instance we can instill whatever ideas we may choose into a man's mind; that we can influence at our own discretion the development of ideas at any given time in any given people. But it is precisely this that is impossible. The fact is that we cannot and do not think what we please to think; we think what we must think. What obliges the individual to think in a certain way is the measure of his interests and opinions, which are in turn developed out of the social interests of a certain stratum or class in society. If our capitalist class stands opposed to Socialism, we socialists are the very last people to be astonished at it. No one can require a class to decide and act against its vital interests, nor do we in the least expect this.

It is only natural that people who sell their labour power and toil in servitude, who know that they are condemned without respite to this position which is anything but a pleasant one, for all their days that the thought must awaken in their minds: "Is this right? Is it reasonable? Is it to remain so for ever? Are we always to be the oppressed and expropriated, to the end that those who appropriate to themselves out of our labor all the wealth and enjoyment that this world can offer may live in opulence and ease?"

These, indeed, are very pertinent questions that produce the class consciousness of the worker and it is this  the socialist movement expand and develop. Not only must socialism be accepted as an ideal and the goal to aim for, it must also be understood as realisable, something that is feasible and achievable, as the practical solution of our social difficulties. Mankind can do all that it wills; but in order to will to do anything, we must first realise that it is necessary and possible.

It is not the object of the Socialist Party  to destroy civilisation. We do not desire to divide up and re-share out wealth as some  people suppose; we do not wish to throw humanity back into primitivism. Men and women should be free and equal without exception,and  they should be permitted to live their lives as civilised human beings. And in order to attain thisit is not just merely declaring it a  right but providing  the opportunity and furnishing the means of harmoniously developing and educating, in accordance with peoples needs, the physical and intellectual capacities which nature has given to them.

The socialist principle is “All for one and one for all”