“There is a principle which is a bar against
all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to
keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to
investigation.” ― William Paley
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, and it divides society into two
hostile classes — the capitalists and wage workers. The once powerful
middleclass is rapidly disappearing in the mill of completion. The struggle is
now between the capitalist class and the working class. The possession of the
means of livelihood givers to the capitalists the control of government, the
press, the pulpit, and to schools, and enables them to reduce working people 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 races is
sanctioned in order that the capitalists may extend their commercial dominion
abroad and enhance their supremacy at home. But the same economic causes which
developed capitalism are leading to 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. All
other classes, despite their apparent or actual conflicts, are alike interested
in the upholding of the system of private ownership of the instruments of
wealth production. The Conservatives, the Labour Party, the other bourgeois
ownership parties such as the nationalists, which do not stand for the complete
overthrow of the capitalist system of production, are alike political representatives
of the capitalist 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 by the propertied classes.
Working people have been impoverished. Poverty is necessitated
by an economic system based upon individual ownership of the means of
production and distribution utilised for exchange and private profit. It is
fully understood that low wages, long hours, and scarcity of employment — that
is, poverty — can only disappear with the disappearance of the capitalist
system of which these things are the inevitable outcome. Political parties,
like individuals, act from motives of self-interest. The platform of a party is
simply the political expression of the economic interests of the class it
represents. The Tory Party differs from the Labour Party as the manufacturing
capitalist differs from the large financier capitalist; it is a difference in
degree only. We find by an examination of their manifestoes that substantially
the same statements are made. Both the Tories and Labourites are in favour of
competition, the existing system. They condemn its anti-social tendencies, its
fraud, but they still favour the system itself. Corporations are organised
purely for private profit; the rights of the corporations to exploit the working
class and exact tribute from the people are to be respected.
The Socialist Party differs from them both as the exploited
wage worker differs from his or her exploiter; the difference here is not in
degree but in kind. The Labour and Conservative parties are in favour of the
private ownership of the means of production and distribution. They are in
favor of the existing wage system. There is absolutely no difference between
them. Upon the other hand, the Socialist Party, standing upon principle
declaring in favour of common ownership of the means of production, declaring
to the world that there is no other solution of this economic problem. The
Socialist Party will do whatever it can to hasten to coming of the day when war
shall curse this earth no more. We are pressing forward step by step until the
minority becomes the majority, and inaugurates the system of the cooperative
commonwealth. We ask you to join and cast your lot with socialism to stand side
by side with us. It is infinitely better to vote for economic freedom and fail
than to vote for continued wage slavery and succeed. Cooperative industry
carried forward in the interest of all the people that is socialism. Real
liberty for every human being on earth; no person compelled to depend on the
arbitrary will of another for the right or opportunity to create enough to
supply his or her material wants. There will still be competition among men;
but it will not be for bread, it will be to excel in good works. Every person
will work for the society in which he or lives, and society will work in the
interests of those who compose it. We look into the future with absolute
confidence we will enjoy a land without a master, a land without a slave.
The trades union movement and independent political action
are the emancipating factors of the wage working class. 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 occupations to
assist in building up and unifying the labour organizations. We recognize that
trade unions are by historical necessity organized 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 responsibility of every trade unionist to
realise the necessity of independent political action on socialist lines, to
join the Socialist Party and assist in building upon a strong political
movement of the wage-working class, whose aim and object must be the abolition
of wage slavery and the establishment of a cooperative commonwealth, based on
the common ownership of all the means of production and distribution
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