Be Moderate - Demand the Earth

We are socialists because we see the damage and the destruction wreaked by capitalism which inflicts harm and misery upon the world’s people. This system we live under, by its very nature, crushes working people, sets one group against another and divides people at home and abroad. We see in socialism the method of achieving a more just, more cooperative and more peaceful world. Our political convictions prompt us to promote class struggle and to take sides in industrial conflicts. Socialism is the alternative which can meet basic needs of people and which is based on cooperation. Socialism offers a future free from the fears of poverty, sexism, racism, dog-eat-dog competition, joblessness, and the loneliness of old age. Socialism is all about creating a society that allows each person to contribute according to her or his ability and to obtain whatever she or he needs. The primary task of the Socialist Party is the fight for socialism. From this task arises the character of our organisation. Without unity on essentials, no serious practice is possible. Members are our most precious resource and as we grow grows, its internal party life will become richer and stronger. All our members view capitalism as a destructive system that hurts, divides and exploits the vast majority of our people for the sake of profits and power for the few.  We advocate and work for socialism–that is, common ownership and collective control of the means of production (factories, fields, utilities, etc.). We want a system based on cooperation, where the people build together for the common good.

For many the mere mention of revolution is too terrible to contemplate. It means civil war, bloodshed, and anarchy – altogether too horrible a thing. Decent, respectable folk, family men and mothers with children, have no sympathy with revolution and are for law and order. There is something rather alarming about such phrases as “class war,” “social revolution,” and “the overthrowing capitalism,” especially to those who are accustomed to tinkering and tweaking the system. But how is it that although mankind possesses greater command over the forces of nature than at any previous period in the history, can produce an infinitely greater amount of wealth with less labour than ever before, those who do labour and produce all this wealth are thus crushed by the forces they themselves should command? Why is there over-production of food and other necessaries of life that many want but cannot get because they cannot buy? The reason is because the workers have no control whatever over what they do produce. There is no orderly cooperation, but anarchical, self-destructive competition. The very introduction of new technology and automation, which would lessen the toil and lighten the drudgery but, instead, enhances the anarchy and aggravates the uncertainty for the working class. As long as profit-mongers rule the roost, those that provide the profits cannot benefit. The very power of the State itself, as was in the Post Office, is used to screw extra work, more surplus value, out of the wage-slaves, in order to reduce the taxation of the owning-class.

Socialists know right well that all existing parties are banded together against them, they know that Tory, Lib-Dem and Labour form but one party when the enslavement of the workers is denounced. But that makes no difference. The forces of to-day and of the future are with us, the cause we fight for will inspire people. We take up the battle where it was left by the Chartists. From generation to generation workers have fought for the people as we are fighting to-day. We inherit the results of their self-sacrifice and heroic exploits. It is for us then, as socialists, to appeal to our fellow-workers in all lands to bring about, in our own day, that world social revolution which can alone give freedom and happiness to mankind. Socialists say plainly that mere reform of our existing society is impossible, or if possible, useless. Socialists wish to see people well-housed, well-clothed, well-fed, well-educated, with plenty of leisure time to enjoy the pleasures of life. We are most moderate in our demands.