Don't support something you don't want

The Socialist Party is an independent political party that has been going since 1904. We stand for socialism as a society of common ownership, democratic control and production for use not profit. Socialism has never been established anywhere and certainly not in Russia. We are a single issue party and try to put information out to convince people of the merits of socialism. We're going to parliament as rebels and not reformers, changing one law here or there is ineffectual, especially and until we have a mass movement for the abolition of capitalism and the wages system. All politicians assume that capitalism is the only game in town, although they may criticise features of its unacceptable face, such as greedy bankers, or the worst of its excesses, such as unwinnable wars. They defend a society in which we, the majority of the population, must sell our capacity to work to the tiny handful who own most of the wealth. They defend a society in which jobs are offered only if there is a profit to be made.

The Socialist Party urges a truly democratic society in which people take all the decisions that affect them. This means a society without rich and poor, without owners and workers, without governments and governed, a society without leaders and led. In such a society people would cooperate to use all the world’s natural and industrial resources in their own interests. They would free production from the artificial restraint of profit and establish a system of society in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation. Socialist society would consequently mean the end of buying, selling and exchange, an end to borders and frontiers, an end to organised violence and coercion, waste, want and war. You can support those parties who will work within the capitalist system and help keep it going. Or you can show you want to overturn it and end the problems it causes once and for all. When enough of us join together, determined to end inequality and deprivation, we can transform elections into a means of doing away with a society of minority rule in favour of a society of real democracy and social equality.

The most common reaction to elections is "it doesn't make any difference anyway who gets in". Which corresponds with our analysis and shows that workers are not stupid: a lot of them do realise what's going on. Only they don't think they can do anything about it, so they just abstain and don't bother to vote at all. It is highly likely that, tomorrow, the abstainers will be the absolute majority. So, why if it makes no difference who gets in, do we in the Socialist Party stand? First, to use a period of heightened interest in politics to put across our case for a society of common ownership, democratic control, production for use, and distribution on the basis of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs". And, second, because if workers use their votes intelligently in their own interest they could change things, they could use the vote to help get rid of the profit system and bring in socialism.  It's voting for leaders to try to run the profit system in the interests of the majority that makes no difference, not voting in itself. That's why, where there's no socialist candidate, instead of abstaining we go to the polling station and vote, even if it's only a write-in vote. A way of keeping a potential weapon sharpened for the time when a majority are ready to use it in their own interest. Where there is a socialist candidate standing, we vote for them. Remember, we are the party that makes no promises - it's you that makes the promise when you cast your vote to say "I am a socialist, I will work for common and democratic ownership and control of the wealth of the world between me and my fellow workers." We don't want passive voters, but people to join us, or at least join the debate. Politics should be a two way process, not the passive spectator sport of the professionals in the mass media.

It's no wonder that people feel no pragmatic connection between their voting preferences and the outcomes; and no wonder that people feel so little connection with any of the parties. All these become are technocratic career structures for advancing politicians, a platform from which to project policy ideas to be reflected off the undifferentiated mass, which has no control over what is projected, beyond passive reflection. This process of “mass culture” has, of course, been assisted by the spread of the mass media. The social relationship is the same, a few technocratic broadcasters/media barons, projecting images and ideas to be passively reflected by a land mass of consumers. Indeed, representative politics follows the same course. Instead of abstractedly measuring response in terms of money, it reads response in terms of flat votes, formally equal but failing to register differences in value or quality.

Socialism is a world-wide community with common interests. Where the land, and all the means of production will be owned by mankind as a whole, with democratic control. Where the sole motive for production will be the satisfaction of your needs. Simply put, bread will be baked because people want to eat it—just that. Money will play no part at all in this society because there will be no need for money. Decisions by the community will be taken on their merits. The wages system will be abolished along with all the other stupid trappings of the present system. Socialism will be a system of co-operation; where each will give according to ability and take according to need. Mankind with its knowledge, harnessed to the riches of the earth, is capable of producing abundance. Why be satisfied with a world of shortages? Socialism cannot be introduced by waving a magic political wand. It will be the outcome of understanding and hard work; your understanding, your hard work.