We Can Win, We Shall Win

Forget six counties overhung with smoke

Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke

Forget the spreading of the hideous town;

Think rather of the pack-horse on the down,

And dream of London, small and white and clean,

The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green.

William Morris, ‘Earthly Paradise’

Socialism is not a social system in which everybody has been levelled down to a shared lower level of a so-called “equality”, but a society in which the classes have really been abolished, in which a rise has been accomplished in production that there can no longer be any comparison between the living conditions of the workers (i.e., of the whole population) under the new society and under the most highly developed capitalist state, and above all, in which the state power and coercion have died out, replaced by the administration of things. This assumes a tremendous rise in the productivity of labour.

Socialism does not propose to take the clothes off your back, to evict you from your home and commandeer your car. Capitalism is based on capitalist private property – not on personal possessions. It means the ownership by a minority of the population of the means of production and exchange. And when we say expropriate private property we mean nothing else but that. This ownership is what gives the capitalist class power of life or death over the working class and over society as a whole. To live, you, the working men and women, must not only work for the owners of the means of production and exchange – you must guarantee them a profit. Working for them is not enough; a profit is absolutey required for you to get your job; and that profit can be obtained in no other wise except by exploiting that which is your only real possession – namely your physical or mental capacity to work. That is all the worker has. 

Ownership on the one hand, non-ownership of the means of production on the other hand tht is today’s society and it is why two classes are hostile. To survive economically, the capitalist must accumulate; not that he wants to or doesn’t – he must accumulate in order to prosper. To accumulate, he must be assured profit. To profit, he must exploit labour. There is no other way. No one, no genius, not the greatest, has discovered another way. Capital always seeks to intensify exploitation; labour always and necessarily seeks to resist exploitation. Capitalism seeks what is rightfully its own, from its point of view: the maximum that it can get out of the worker. Labour seeks what is rightfully its own: that’s why it forms class organisations, labour unions. We, in the Socialist Party, argue that capitalism, which is founded upon and cannot exist without the ownership and control of the means of production and exchange by a minority, has brought society literally to the edge of a precipice, where it cannot guarantee security to the people, cannot guarantee peace to the people, cannot guarantee brotherhood to the people, cannot guarantee abundance to the people or protect the planet from ecological ravages. Any social system which cannot guarantee those to the masses of the people stands condemned. 

The only way to replace capitalism is to build socialism. Socialism demands not only the collective ownership of the means of production and distribution but the control of the working class. Anything less than that may be anything you want; it is not and never will be socialism. We declare with them that the most important work that men and women can engage in is that of helping on the overthrow of capitalism, and the creation of the socialist co-operative commonwealth. The truth in socialist utopianism is what shows the potential in the capabilities of workers. Socialism cannot be introduced without the actions of organised public opinion supporting the socialist ideal. Whether that support is won at the ballot box or through workers councils is not as important as that it be won. As long as the ballot can be used, even under difficulties as it is today, it should be used. That is why we look forward to bigger and better Socialist Party election campaigns. If that method is withheld from us in the future, we shall still have to go forward until we do gain the socialist commonwealth by the best means at our command. One thing seems evident. If we cannot get people to vote for our idea, there is little hope of getting them to take up arms on behalf of our cause. If the people who vote for a socialist do not do so because he is a socialist or because they do not know what socialism is, what earthly use can that be for achieving the socialist goal? The answer is “none whatever.” 

 On every occasion we state our socialist position and our socialist objective. The Socialist Party is and must be a political party throughout the year, and not only during election campaigns.