The Passion of Freedom

Socialists keep hoping for the spark that will set a wildfire of workers in motion.  Some believe the worse our situation gets—economically, politically, ecologically—the more we yearn for a vast movement to erupt and transform the landscape. Others argue that it is only in times of a boom that workers have the luxury and confidence of political activity for something new rather than struggling to survive. We have felt the embers still glowing from past class  conflagration. In our lifetimes, we see sparks—but we haven’t seen them spread. We’re more connected than ever before, able to witness each other’s struggles in real time via the internet, yet mostly, the sparks haven’t leapt from one workplace to another,  city to city , one country to another country. The Occupy movement and Arab Spring were possibly the exceptions. Perhaps they were the dress rehearsal for something greater and the foundation for the next battle.

 In our workplaces, our collective task in the unions is to go up against the bosses, getting in fights, and by losing some and by winning some of them, we learn and acquire more experience for the next fight. Every day we must challenge those holding the power: over the daily indignities of pay, hours, grievances and injustices. We should be involved in community issues like pollution of the neighbourhoods we live in . Struggle teaches us that we have our own power—and teaches us how to use it. We begin by working to convince fellow workers that we have each other’s backs against a common enemy. We share the education about who our enemies are and how they’ve held onto power all these years when we outnumber them. We need to break down the fear many of us have come to phold when confronted by the State and employers. People have to create and own the vision and the strategy for power. They have to be the agents and organisers, not the props for professional politicians.  People will participate for things that really matter—things that captures their passion. It will take an immense effort by immense numbers to reverse the giant mess capitalism has made of everything which has brought our planet to the verge of eco-catastrophe.

The Socialist Party is the party of the interests of the working class, and is the enemy of capitalism which brings it into a fundamental opposition to all pro-capitalist parties. Its aim is the establishment of a socialist society in which the means of production will not be the private property of the few, a society which will not be based upon profit but on peoples needs.

 The problem before society to-day is not a financial problem as can be so easily mistaken by the attention given solely to one section of the capitalist class - the bankers.  It is a property problem. The banks belong to the superstructure of capitalism. Private property is the foundation. The financial crises, credit crises and the like are nothing more than the reflections of the fundamental economic crisis arising from the fact that the private ownership of the means of production has become an anachronism in a society where social methods of production have superseded individual methods of production. No amount of financial fiscal regulation, no amount of money supply manipulation which leaves the question of property ownership untouched, can do anything else but aggravate the crisis of capitalism.

Social ownership, which must supersede the private ownership of the means of production, can only come about through the political victory of the class without property over the class with property. The socialist task is one of abolishing capitalism altogether and founding an economy  based on a cooperative commonwealth and by commonwealth, we mean not a form of government rule, but an independent community holding its resources in common.

 The Socialist Party does not seek bloody revolution. But we do want the social revolution, i.e., a complete and fundamental change in the relation of the classes. It is a change which is only possible when a number of historical conditions exist. One of those conditions is that the majority of the workers must be ready to make the change. We foresee the advent of social conditions under which everyone will be relieved of the burden of material difficulty and distress; and under which, in consequence, mankind will be able, because its economic existence is assured, to devote itself to new and higher tasks. In this society of the future, personal freedom and the well-being of all without exception will, for the first time in history, become realities, and the individual will, at the same time, be able to develop fully his personal aptitudes and capacities.