A world family of humanity

The Socialist Party declares that life, liberty, and happiness depend upon equal political and economic rights. Capitalism, the private ownership of the means of production, is responsible for the insecurity of subsistence, the poverty, misery, and degradation of the ever-growing majority of the people. The present system of social production and private ownership created a society of two antagonistic classes — i.e., the capitalist class and the propertyless class. The Socialist Party declares its object to be the abolition of wage slavery by the establishment of a system of cooperative industry, based upon the social or common ownership of the means of production and distribution, to be administered by society in the common interest of all its members, and the complete emancipation of the socially useful classes from the domination of capitalism. The capture of political power by the Socialist Party will be tantamount to the abolition of all class rule. The solidarity of labour connecting the millions of class conscious fellow-workers throughout the civilized world will lead to world socialism.

Private ownership of the means of production and distribution is responsible for the ever-increasing uncertainty of livelihood and the poverty and misery of the workers. The possession of the means of livelihood givers to the capitalists the control of government, the media, and the educational system, and enables them to reduce the working men and women to a state of intellectual, physical, and social inferiority, political subservience, and virtual slavery. The economic interests of the capitalist class dominate our entire social system; the lives of the working class are recklessly sacrificed for profit, wars are fomented between nations, indiscriminate slaughter is encouraged, and the destruction of whole peoples is sanctioned in order that the capitalist corporations may extend their commercial dominion abroad and enhance their supremacy at home. Socialism, which will abolish both the capitalist class and the class of wage workers. And the active force in bringing about this new and higher order of society is the working class. The workers can most effectively act as a class in their struggle against the collective powers of capitalism by constituting themselves into a political party, distinct from and opposed to all parties formed of the propertied classes and their proxies.

The socialist movement is as wide as the world and its mission is to win the world. The world the socialist movement is to win from capitalism — will be filled with wealth for all to have and to enjoy in its abundance.

And why not?

Nothing is so easily produced as wealth. The earth is one vast mass of raw materials. Hidden in every passing breeze, in every wave, in the rays of sun are the natural forces to provide energy to produce the myriad forms of wealth, and in such fabulous abundance as to banish for all time the gaunt and hideous specter of want, and make the world fit for human habitation. An era of invention and new technology has brought us to this stage of human development. There are those of us who proclaim the machine has come to free, and not to enslave; to create and not to destroy. It can equalise burden of drudgery, bring joy and leisure for all, and, emancipated from toil, to rise mankind can reach heights of intellectual exaltation. To realize this great social ideal is a work of education and organisation. The working class must be aroused from its apathy. The means of production must belong to those who made use of it — whose freedom and very lives depend upon it. The worst in socialism will be better than the best in capitalism. With socialism a new power will be in control! The people! For the first time in history the working class will be free and no class will be in subjection.

 The trade union movement is the natural result of capitalist production and represents the economic side of the working class movement. We consider it the duty of socialists to join the unions of their respective trades and assist in building up and unifying the trade and labour organisations. We recognise that trade unions are by necessity should be organised on neutral grounds, as far as political affiliation is concerned. We call the attention of the trade unionists to the fact that the class struggle so nobly waged by the trade union forces today, while it may result in lessening the exploitation of labour, can never abolish that exploitation. The exploitation of labour will only come to an end when society takes possession of all the means of production for the benefit of all the people. It is the duty of every trade unionist to realise the necessity of independent political action on socialist lines, to join the Socialist Party and assist in building a strong political movement of the working class, whose aim must be the abolition of wage slavery and the establishment of a cooperative society, based on the common ownership of all the means of production and distribution. The World Socialist Movement proclaims its mission to win the world from capitalist barbarism and help to turn it into a genuine common family of humanity.