Muster under our Banner

"A uneducated worker in revolt is infinitely wiser than the learned philosopher who tries to forge an apology for his chains."

Blessed will be the day that we do away with wage labour. Wage-slavery is the fact. They who buy and  sell on the labour market are alike in that they are brutalised by its inhuman traffic in  human beings. Without this commerce in human life the capitalists of all lands  would  perish from the Earth.

The union movement has proven itself to be a powerful instrument of a defensive character and as a force that poses the possibility of a fundamental transformation in socio-economic relations  from wage labour to a free association of labor and common ownership of its product socialism.  labor has won through battles on the picket lines and through the enforcement of the contractual But what benefit have been gained has often been lost, due, not only to the operation of the laws governing the capitalist system itself, inflation for instance, but to counter attacks by the employers as a class and those it controls in parliament. The employing class, through their agents in control of the entire state apparatus, have erected a whole network of laws and regulations designed to hamstring the labor movement. The result being a reduction in  union membership. Organised labor is not only weaker in relation to the growth of the work force but it is weaker from a strategic point of view. Trade unionism hasn’t yet really broken out of the basic industries or state sector into the service industries.  Large layers of these workers, poorly paid and helpless before the onslaughts of inflation, the dangers of sickness, all the insecurities that are products of capitalist society, have fallen prey to the capitalist- inspired propaganda that the union movement is a narrow, a sectional power bloc, insensitive to their needs and concerned only with its own welfare. Labour has suffered a series of setbacks.There is an element of truth in the claim that current unions have alienated the younger workers and failed the youth. The situation has led some to see the key problem as being largely organizational and to project structural changes as the solution. However, regardless of largeness or smallness or whether expressing an syndicalist, anti-political-orientation, has had little bearing on union success.

As Big Business attempts to narrow the area of collective bargaining, the trade unions must fight to widen it and to open up the entire process of capitalist production and distribution to their scrutiny. The workers have the right to know the secrets of a factory, of the corporation , of an entire industry, of the whole economy, built by their labour.

The working class and the employing have nothing in common. One class does all the work, produces all, suffers all the hardships necessary to accomplish the task. The other class owns, but does not know, nor cares to know, how to produce wealth, yet persists by rights that it labels “legal” and otherwise to live upon what it does not produce. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people, and the few who make up the employing class have all the good things of life. One class works long hours under conditions generally and necessarily established by and suitable to the masters of industry, receives low wages, so that there may be high dividends and profits for the masters. For it must be borne in mind longer hours mean greater wealth produced, low wages mean greater profits for the capitalists. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production and abolish the wage system. As long as one class performs no function in production only as parasites and social sponges, is too lazy and impotent to work, but lives in plenty—and our class, the wealth producers—produce all, makes all, mines all the minerals; in a word, makes life worth while and brings into being by its labor and travail all that life necessitates, and yet lives in want, is paid wages which at best and highest only represents a part of the entire product; a struggle is inevitable.Those who are serious and who respect themselves and their education will not dispute that labor with its hands and brains produces all wealth. As stated labour produces all wealth. Capitalism is based on the robbery of the workers. Those who own industries but do not work in them, pay wages to the workers and keep profits to themselves. But both, profit and wages, are only the product of Labor. Wages are part of the total product paid to labor. Profit, generally the biggest part, capitalists appropriate to themselves and call it their “legal share.” Socialists know nothing of “legal share” nor of “reasonable profits,” as all wealth acquired through capitalism is robbery.

The employers well realize that once the workers begin to seriously organise as a class, with class hopes and ideals, and look out for themselves as a class, with interests distinct and opposed to all other classes, that once the spirit of solidarity takes firm hold in the hearts and minds of the workers, their (capitalists) occupation as parasites will be gone. The danger and fear of having to go to work to live is an ever recurring night-mare that occurs to them ever in their hours of great revelry and riot. They would if reduced to extremes, be willing to make any concession always with the feeling that they can successfully juggle matters so as to keep their privilege. Compromise and reform to maintain power has been the one great weapon of the capitalists. It is a weapon and a means whereby they seduce the rebellious spirit of the workers. A time serving policy. They have much to fear and dread from a workers movement that declares ‘No Quarter’. You,  members of the working class, have witnessed the blood of your fellow workers spilled , it seems,  to grease and spur the machines in the mills of our masters. Their lives sacrificed all because human beings are cheaper than the application of health and safety which cost money and would reduce profits. Human life destroyed.  It is now time lose our chains, to end our miseries, and to  gain the world for all the workers, a world fit for men and women to live their lives in freedom of love and leisure.

The Socialist Party bids all workers rally to its standard.