A Socialist World

We are fighting to end once and for all the exploitation of man over man and to build a completely new society. Socialism will be won and built by the working class. The aim of the international working class is to replace the world capitalist system with world socialism.  Production for sale or exchange on the market, will not exist. The system of wage labour will be abolished and the guiding principle of labour will be “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The means of production will be held communally and private property will be eliminated. With the abolition of classes and class distinctions, all social and political inequality arising from them will disappear. The conflicts of interest between workers and farmers, town and country, manual and intellectual labour will disappear. As classes will not exist, the state will not be necessary as an instrument of class rule and will wither away. Humanity has not always been divided into classes. In the primitive communal societies all the members cooperated together to assure their survival.

The interests of the working class are the same in every country. After we have overthrown the capitalists we will establish socialism. Socialism will mean the rule of the working class. It will bring freedom to all those oppressed by capital and open up a new period of history.  The resources of society will be distributed according to the needs of the people, not to satisfy a few capitalists’ hunger for profits as is the case today. The enormous waste of capitalism will be abolished. Starvation in the midst of plenty is the distinguishing mark of the capitalist system of production. It is not “human nature” that is the cause of the problems people face today. It is the way society is organised, with a minority of people owning and controlling the wealth and industry and excluding the vast majority of the people from any real say in the running of society.  It is this that must be changed. The working people who have produced all the wealth around us must come into ownership and control, so that they can then build the society and produce the things they want. The vast majority of the people gain nothing from capitalism and would lose nothing with its passing. This capitalist society demands, not bandaged up and blood transfusions, but the death blow to enable the introduction of socialism, an order of society that can manage the technological revolution to the benefit of the working people. With the ending of capitalism the people would also decide how industry was to be run.

No individual, no political party can do the job for the people of ending capitalism and building socialism. This can only come about when the mass of the people engage in action themselves. It is in the course of taking part in the continuous struggles against the capitalist class that people learn the need for the fundamental change, the revolution that will end capitalism. Against  the ruling class, the working class has the potential weapons of unity and organisation. No power on earth can stop their advance if they are united and have the understanding of how a socialist world can be achieved. Socialism will enable us to overcome the brakes on progress of capitalism. It will release the creative energies of the mass of the people, making it possible to meet their needs in food, clothing and shelter. Men and women will be able to develop their own personality and talents to the full. With the harnessing of science and technology to industry, boring and repetitive work will be eliminated. Work for all will become as it is today for only a very small minority—interesting and satisfying. Life for all will be plentiful, secure, happy and interesting. It will may not mean the end of all problems, but the end of those worries about wages, housing, poverty, peace that dominate our lives today.

The building of this new society in our country is the aim of the Socialist Party. The interests of the exploited cannot be brought into harmony with the interests of the exploiters. We see the goal of socialism not as far-off, ultimate aim but rather as our immediate objective. We visualise a social system that would be based on the common ownership of the means of production, the elimination of profit in the means of production, the abolition of the wage system, the abolition of the division of society into classes. When we speak of the means of production, the world’s wealth, we mean that wealth which is necessary for the production of the necessities of the people. The industries, the railroads, mines, and so on. We don’t propose the elimination of private property in personal effects. We speak of those things which are necessary for the production of the people’s needs. They shall be owned in common by all the people. We hold that  workers in every country must collaborate in working toward that goal. We advocate the international organisation of the workers, and their cooperation in all respects. We believe that the wealth of the world, the raw materials of the world, and the natural resources of the world are so distributed over the earth that every country contributes something and lacks something for a rounded and harmonious development of the productive forces of mankind. We visualise the future society of mankind as a socialist world system which will have co-ordination between the various regions, a comradely collaboration between them for the  production of the necessities and luxuries of mankind according to a single universal world plan.