Capitalism: they win, we lose

The Socialist Party contests elections on the single issue of capitalism (class ownership and production for profit) or socialism (common ownership, democratic control, and production to directly meet people's needs). Socialism is our priority and the only basis on which we want people to vote for us. In other words, we don't make promises to support particular measures within capitalism however desirable as we don't want people to vote for us on that basis -- even if, should we be elected, we might well vote for certain measures judged to further the cause of socialism or the interest of workers and their dependents.  Having said this, there is one pledge that, according to our Rulebook, all our candidates have to make:

"Candidates elected to a Political office shall be pledged to act on the instructions of their Branches locally, and by the Executive Committee nationally."

This, to ensure that any Socialist Party councillor or MPs remain mandated delegates, not leaders.

The Socialist Party stand in elections to raise awareness of the possibility of democratically establishing common ownership of the means of living. Enough resources, know-how and skills exist already to provide comfortably for everyone. It’s the profit system that prevents this. We need to do away with it and instead produce and access goods for needs. At a time when all other political parties are saying they have to make us all worse off in order to protect the wealth of the 1%, it's important that we each stand up to fight against this unnecessary impoverishment. The candidates of the Socialist Party if elected whilst quite prepared to use the powers for such small temporary benefits as may be forced from the capitalists' hands for the workers in those districts, nevertheless do not seek votes for this, which can only be a secondary business of the political party of the workers. The Socialist Party enters contests as a step in the work of capturing the whole political machinery. Fully realising, and pointing out to the workers, the strict limitations of the power, making no promises that are beyond our power to fulfil, we ask the members of our class, when (but not before) they have studied these facts and realised their correctness, to cast their votes for the candidates of the Socialist Party who alone stand on the above basis. Our candidates stand on a straight programme of socialism and nothing else and have no programme of ear-tickling, side-tracking, vote-catching palliatives and have not climbed into prominence on the backs of the workers, by posing as 'leaders'. We leave that to others.

What’s the point in complaining about the system and then voting for it to carry on? You’ve heard the Occupy people – you are the 99%, but the system is run by the 1%. The rich don’t create jobs and wealth, they create poverty. For the rich to be rich, millions of people have to be poor.  To get rich, they cut corners, rip off the world, fiddle, connive, cheat, lie and bribe. That’s the money system for you. That’s capitalism. There’s no such thing as an honest millionaire. There’s no such thing as honest business, or ‘fair trade’, or an ‘equitable share’. They win because you lose.

We have the technology and the know-how to run the world collectively, so that everybody can eat, have a place to live, and get access to a decent standard of living, but it is the money system that is making this impossible. If money makes you free, how come you’re tied down with debts, rents, mortgages, loans and bills, and doing some job you probably hate just to make ends meet? What kind of freedom is that? Is that a freedom you’d want to vote for?

The planet is being turned into a toxic waste dump, with poisoned air, warring factions and vanishing species, just so manufacturers can sell you more glossy trash that will break tomorrow, stuff you think you want because you can’t have the freedom you really want. Humanity is staring into the abyss, and our do-nothing politicians still cry ‘forward in the name of growth!’ Is that progress? Is that worth voting for?

This is a not an easy thing to explain to protestors but the fact is that under capitalism there is nothing that can be done to stop the cuts. All that can be achieved is a few concessions here and there and robbing one service to finance another. Of course people should protest at things getting worse but they shouldn't have any illusion that they can stop this. At most they can only slow it down a bit. Cuts are what the economic laws of capitalism require at the present time and no government can defy this. In fact they have to enforce it, as they did in 1984 when Ted Knight and Lambeth Council refused to make the cuts. Knight and the others were surcharged and bankrupted and banned for being councillors. Same in Liverpool with Derek Hatton. The cuts went through.  What this shows is that capitalism is a system that is not geared to meeting people's needs and ought to be replaced by one that is, one based the common ownership and democratic control. We are stand in elections with a view to raising awareness of this. Our candidates point out that capitalism can never be reformed so as to work in the interests of those who depend on having to work for a wage or a salary to live. We will advocating socialism as a society where there will be no banks and big business, and no profits, but where all productive resources will be commonly owned and democratically controlled by the whole community in the interests of all. This is the only basis on which to provide decent public services, transport, housing and education as it means there can be production geared to satisfying people's needs instead of for profit. People Not Profits, that's the real socialist slogan.