For a world-wide co-operative socialist commonwealth.

Social interests shape ideas. Ideas serve social interests. We are not uncritical idol-worshippers of Marx or Engels. We have learned what to do and what not to do.

In capitalism production is carried on not for the purpose of supplying the needs of the people but for the purpose of sale in order to realise a profit. Only those who have something to sell can get a living. Only those can obtain things who can afford to buy. This is the commercial system, and this is how it works out. If things were produced for use, nobody would spend time in the manufacture of shoddy goods, jerry-built houses, or adulterated food. Commerce is the only purpose of industry.

The worker has nothing to sell but labour power sold to an employer for so many hours a day for a certain price, that is, wages. Since one cannot separate labour power from one’s body it comes to this, that worker actually sells themselves like a slave. We socialists, call the workers of capitalist countries, “Wage slaves”. Wages are determined by what it costs to maintain a family. How many working people do you know who can save out of their wages? Very few and only the most frugal. They may be able to put something by in good times, but bad times invariably arrive and the savings are gone. It is a fact that on the average a working person is no more than two weeks or so removed from penury.

What does capitalism offer working people? A life of toil, a bare subsistence. Always the dread fear of the sack. A drab, colourless existence in the slum districts of the towns and, when unable to work any longer, to be discarded on the muck-heap. There are riches and luxury for the few, sweat and toil for the many. Palaces for the wealthy, hovels for the poor. Capitalism can offer workers nothing but wage slavery.

The capitalist will only buy labour if he can make profit out of it. Just compare the value of the goods you turned out in a day when you were in the factory, and what you received for your work. The difference between the two is the employer’s profit. Profit is the result of the unpaid labour of the worker. Under capitalism, the workers are continually robbed of the results of their labour. The capitalist will compel the worker to work as hard and as long as he can, for as little money he can possibly impose; whole industries in which absolutely inhuman conditions of work and pay still exist. Even through the efforts of the best-organised trade unions wages never rise higher than the cost of living. And even this is not secured. In the endeavour to produce as cheaply as possible, the capitalist continually introduces labour-saving technology, which enables him to produce more goods in less time and reduces the standard of skill required. As a result unemployment is continually on the increase. The same hopeless outlook for toil for another person’s profit lies before every worker from the cradle to the grave.

The only thing that will free us from wage-slavery is to make ourselves the owners of the means of production and distribution. We need to abolish capitalism and take the land, factories, mines and transport into common ownership by the whole people. Everything which industries produce goes not to enrich a small parasitical part of the community but to satisfy the needs of the whole community. The world becomes a huge cooperative society, and the working man or woman, instead of slaving to enrich the idle capitalist, creates wealth for the whole community. The worker enjoys the results of his or her labour, without having to pay tribute to speculators and profiteers. For the first time in history the world really belongs to the workers.

People will take a direct part in the management of industry, no longer a slave of another but as an equal member of a great community. Together we shall form a world-wide co-operative socialist commonwealth.

Under chattel-slavery the slave was oppressed and exploited by the slave-master. The wage-slaves of today - the working class - are exploited and oppressed by the capitalist employers. Workers are constantly struggling for better conditions and for the ABOLISHMENT OF CAPITALIST SLAVERY. The emancipation of humanity from all forms of slavery and oppression is the historical task of the working class and can only be realized by this class. The working class has a historical mission to muster under one revolutionary banner and to overthrow the capitalist class. The capitalist system is incapable of dealing with the problems facing the working class as it is the cause of all problems. The capitalists are quite conscious and acutely aware of the potential power of the workers. The capitalist governments are passing anti-working class legislation in order to continue depriving the working class of the right to organise and the right to strike. The capitalists will only undertake reform in order to strengthen the capitalist system. The working,class is basically disunited. There are no united struggles of the entire working class, and the capitalists have been able to split the working class into as many sections as possible. The Socialist Party maintains that in order to fight any battle with the capitalists, the unity of the entire working class is absolutely necessary and essential. Socialism was not built automatically but through a protracted process of class warfare. The abolition of classes is not achieved by dissipating the class struggle, but by its intensification.