Now’s the Day and Now’s the Hour

The Socialist Party seeks to inaugurate a system of industrial democracy in place of capitalist autocracy and control to replace our current system of self-destructive capitalism. Capitalism has outgrown its usefulness and must be supplanted by a system of greater stability. Capitalism knows only profit, socialism knows only the exploitation by which profit is possible. To gain control of production and distribution for the benefit of mankind instead of capitalism is the object of the Socialist Party. Socialism is not getting more wages, lesser hours and better conditions but achieving social power. Socialism is the means to insure for workers their own free development and their own liberation. Socialism is non-bureaucratic. It is non-autocratic. It is an industrial democracy, by, for and of the workers, first, last and all the time.

State-capitalism (misleadingly designated as state-socialism) emphasises the fact of the state being an economic agency of the ruling class,  the government and ruling class, become one and indivisible. Socialism eliminates the state. Socialism rejects state-capitalism as a phase of socialism or a transition towards it. State-Capitalism is not socialism and never can become socialism. State-capitalism accentuates and sharpens class divisions. State-capitalism regulates and directs capital and labour; it seeks to realise peace between the classes, of the abolition (or at least suspension,) of the class struggle. State-capitalism is fundamentally and necessarily undemocratic; it cannot be democratised, it must be abolished by revolution.

Naturally, the coming of a socialist society would call for the adoption of new methods of running industry. The point to be decided is: How shall the workers organize? This question is of supreme importance. If the workers allow themselves to be misled and tricked into organizing in a way that will not only fail to free them from wage-slavery or even to better their condition but will put them more thoroughly in the power of the industrial masters, much valuable time will be lost and discouragement and despair will result. What is needed is unity of thought and action. Far better no organization at all than a fake form which divides the workers against themselves and misleads them in the interests of the employers. Socialists will overthrow capitalism and establish in its place a system of industrial democracy. Capitalism is world-wide. It pays little attention to national boundary lines. The modern wage worker has neither property nor country. Ties of birth and sentiment which connect him or her with any particular country are slight and unimportant. It makes little difference to him or her what country he or she exists in. Socialist organisation must not confine themselves to geographical divisions or national boundary lines but must follow the world-embracing lines of industry. The workers of all countries co-operate to carry on industry regardless of national boundary lines, and they must organize in the same way to control industry. When the workers are educated to the real nature of the profit system they lose all respect for the masters and their property. They see the capitalists in their true colours as thieves and parasites, and their "sacred" property as plunder. They see state and media as tools of the exploiters and they look on these institutions with contempt. They understand the identity of interests of all wage workers and realise the truth of the I. W. W. slogan: "An injury to one is an injury to all."

Socialism is merely an extension of the ideal of democracy into the economic field. At present, industry is ruled by the owners of the machinery of production and distribution, who have literally the power of life and death over the subjects. We know not what the people will do when they control the means by which they make their living, but we believe they will use them in their own interest and with a reasonable degree of intelligence. They can make it possible to banish want from the face of the Earth. They can make it possible for every family to have a home and to be immune from the fear of want for themselves and their children. They can make it possible for every child to have a good education, to be able to see the world, and to make its way without the least danger of losing out economically. They can make it possible for every woman to be free economically so that she may get along whether she marries or not. These are the ideas that the socialist cherishes.

The Socialist Party is democratic in principle. It tolerates no official autocracy within it. Officials are elected and all questions are decided by a referendum vote of all the membership. The Socialist Party is the result of the past experience of the labour movement. It has learned from the mistakes and failures of former parties. These are not mere visions but are things that may be brought into concrete form, whenever men and women shall have free access to the means with which things are produced and distributed.