Help build a new world

Few can deny that the world today is in a constant state of upheaval and that is reflected in the widespread turmoil and conflict. The fact that such conditions prevail generally throughout the world, and have prevailed for a long time, suggests the presence of a common social factor. That common cause, the Socialist Party has repeatedly demonstrated, is the capitalist system that does not and cannot work in the interests of the majority. It is a social system in which society is divided into two classes—a capitalist class and a working class. The capitalist class consists of a tiny minority—the wealthy few who own and control the instruments of production and distribution. The working class consists of the vast majority who own no productive property and must, therefore, seek to work for the class that owns and controls the means of life in order to survive.

The defenders of the capitalist economic dictatorship never tire of declaring it the "best of all possible systems." Yet, today, after decades of reforms, wars on poverty, civil rights legislation, government regulation, government deregulation and a host of other palliatives, capitalist society still depicts an obscene social picture. Millions who need and want jobs are still unemployed. Millions more are underemployed, working only part-time or temporary jobs though they need and want full-time work. Millions aren't earning enough to maintain a decent standard of living for themselves and their families despite the fact that they are working.  The education and health-care system still fails to meet the needs of most folk. Slums homelessness abounds. Racism and nationalism is on the upsurge with its contemptible discrimination against foreigners.

When the Socialist Party was founded, there was no particularly great concern regarding pollution of the land, air and water on which all species—humanity included—depend on for life. But there was widespread poverty, racial prejudice and discrimination, urban decay, brazen violations of democratic rights, and the material and economic conflicts that are the seeds of war, plus a host of other economic and social problems. All of those problems still plague the working class—but have grown to even more monumental proportions. These long-standing problems and the failure of seemingly unending reform efforts to solve or even alleviate them to any meaningful degree have imposed decades of misery and suffering on millions of families. Against this insane capitalist system, the Socialist Party raises its voice in emphatic protest and unqualified condemnation. It declares that if our society is to be rid of the host of economic, political and social ills that for so long have plagued it, the outmoded capitalist system of private ownership of the socially operated means of life and production for the profit of a few must be replaced by a new social order. That new social order must be organized on the sane basis of social ownership and democratic management of all the instruments of social production, all means of distribution and all of the social services. It must be one in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. In short, it must be genuine socialism. Accordingly, the SPGB calls upon the workers to rally under its banner for the purpose of advocating revolutionary change and building class consciousness among workers.

 Despite the growing poverty and misery that workers are subjected to, a world of peace, liberty, security, health and abundance for all, fully in harmony with the needs of the environment, stands within our grasp. The potential to create such a society exists, but that potential can be realized only if workers act to gain control of their own lives by organising for socialism. Help build a world in which everyone will enjoy the free exercise and full benefit of their individual faculties, multiplied by all the technological and other factors of modern civilisation. Join in the effort to put an end to the existing class conflict by placing the land and the instruments of social production in the hands of the people as a collective body in a cooperative socialist society.