Come rally, comrades…

Since Marx first called for a society "from each according to ability, to each according to need" this vision has been a driving force in history. But it has also raised the problem: how do we win, how do we build a revolutionary movement capable of creating socialism? Despite the many setbacks, we remain convinced the working class will understand its revolutionary potential. Socialism is closer today than we recognise. If there is a single word to characterise our time, that word is change.

Everyone knows the economy is undergoing a profound change. This change is fundamental and irreversible; it is so great it is causing great change in every aspect of life. The content of the change in the economy is the replacement of human labour by new and ever expanding automated technologies, the core of which is computer-controlled robotics. Every employer understands that the surest way to increase profits is to have the worker produce more for the same amount of wages. Huge sections of the population are locked into “McJobs” or permanent joblessness. The new poor includes the throw-away workers — temporary staff with no benefits, the part-time workers on zero hour contracts.

In the history of this planet such fundamental changes in the economy have always forced revolutionary changes in the social system.  Economic revolution has always precipitated political revolution. Social reorganization becomes inevitable because basic necessities of life must be paid for with money. We make money by going to work. If the robots do the work, then how will we get the food, housing and clothing we need? If there is going to be production without wages, then there must be distribution without money! We must guarantee that the change result in a better life for the people. We must guarantee the new technological revolution reach the potential for common good through common ownership. Can we who understand today visualise tomorrow with enough clarity to accept the historic responsibilities of revolutionaries?

Under capitalism, the capitalists own the means of production. Workers are forced to sell their labour power and the capitalist exploits them. In socialism, the means of production are owned by the working class. The technology exist to produce all that we need. For the first time in history, a true flowering of the human intellect and spirit is possible. The Socialist Party fight is to reorganise society. Our vision is of a new, cooperative society of equality, and of a people awakening. Important in understanding socialism is understanding what it is not. Distortion upon lie upon distortion have been piled so high that genuine socialism is now buried underneath a pile of deceit. There are now so many people with diametrically oppose socialist ideas who nevertheless claim to be socialists that the term has become almost meaningless. Socialism is not a movement of reformist social legislation while the workers play either a passive or merely supportive role. The real socialist tradition rejects the identification of socialism with the actions of small minorities in which a few hundred or even several thousand armed insurrectionists liberate the masses on their behalf.

Socialism rejects the establishment of one-party state bureaucracies, or the gradualist approach that asks the working class to put its faith in well-meaning politicians. Ordinary people must themselves organise, creating their own institutions of struggle and of administration. The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves is a principle which means our class needs independent organisations it controls in order to secure its liberation. Self-emancipation requires that the working class gain power in society. A self-managing society needs a structure through which the people make and enforce the basic rules of the society and defend their social order.