The Socialist Party is organised to assist the working-class
movement by a dissemination of its literature, to educate the working-class
into a knowledge of socialist principles and to prepare them to co-operate with
the workers of all other nationalities in the emancipation of labour. The
Socialist Party affirms its belief that political and social freedom are not
two separate and unrelated ideas, but are two sides of the one great principle,
each being incomplete without the other. It seeks the democratic administration
of all the means of production and distribution, all the instruments of labour,
all social property in which all shall be co-owners, guaranteeing that right to
life without which all other rights are but mockery. The Socialist Party is pitted
against the whole profit-making system. It insists that there can be no
compromise so long as the majority of the working class lives in want, while
the master class lives in luxury. We share the Industrial Workers of the World
sentiment that "there can be no peace until the workers organize as a
class, take possession of the resources of the earth and the machinery of
production and distribution, and abolish the wage-system."
The class war for socialism is a fight between a slave world
and a free world. Poverty is not inevitable but it is inevitable so long as
capitalism exists, so long as the profit-economy reigns. An improvement of the
world standard of living is possible, but not on the basis of capitalism. The
elimination of race and sex discrimination is possible but not in a class
society where the reality of the social order increases discrimination and
antagonism as the means of keeping the ruling class in power. Genuine freedom
of speech, assembly and organisation are possible, but only in a free society.
Social change can be meaningful only on the basis of a fundamental alteration
of the economic system, by the transformation of society into socialism, by the
abolition of a private property in the means of production – the profit system
– and the establishment of genuine economic, political and social equality. In
other words, the workers in their collectivity must own and operate all the
essential industrial institutions and secure to each laborer the full value of
his or her produce. Isn’t it right that the creators of wealth should own what
they create? When shall we learn that we are related one to the other, that we
are members of one body, that injury to one is injury to all? Until solidarity for
our fellow-workers, regardless of race, colour, creed or sex, fills the world,
until the great mass of the people shall be filled with a sense of
responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice cannot be attained, and
there can never be lasting peace upon earth. The mighty movement of which we
are a part is discernible all over the world albeit in small numbers. Workers
are still far from being in possession of themselves or their labour. They do not
own and control the tools and materials which they must use in order to live,
nor do they receive anything like the full value of what they produce. Working
people everywhere are nevertheless becoming more aware that they are being
exploited for the benefit of others, and that they cannot be truly free unless
they own themselves and are in democratic control of their labour.
No comments:
Post a Comment