Displace the parasite class

There is a revolutionary idea in the ongoing "battle of ideas" that has been struggling against great odds to make itself known, an idea that must win out if mankind is to be saved from the environmental threats to civilisation. Socialists have laid bare for all time the truth that the employing class is a parasite class, that it sponges off the wealth produced by the wage working class, moreover that this exploitation is a built-in feature of the wages system resulting in mass working class misery. No wonder that socialists everywhere are hated by the exploiters of wage labour.

Poverty represents a lack of the necessities for physical and mental well-being. It means having to skimp on food and clothing to pay a bill and having to make-do with second-best. Fear of poverty robs the day of joy and the night of peaceful sleep. Government figures place millions below poverty lines and despite politicians' recurring pledges of "war against poverty", the number of poor continues to grow. Unemployment or under-employment, like poverty, is found everywhere. It strikes the skilled as well as unskilled, professional as well as non-professional, affluent workers as well as the low-paid, with devastating impact on many of its victims, shattering morale and breaking up families. Increasing numbers of workers are not merely finding that "job security" is a myth but through no fault of their own are joining the ranks of the permanently unemployed. Increasing numbers of youth are learning that their help is not needed despite educational qualification.

Wage exploitation is the most subtle form of slavery. The chattel slave and feudal serf knew full well they toiled in bondage but wage exploitation is hidden and modern workers seldom suspect they are being duped. The fact is the capitalist class take possession of labour's product at the point of production in return for which workers on average get in wages or salaries just enough to maintain their families and keep themselves in an exploitable condition. Despite the most intricate evasions invented by economists, the case has long been proved that profit is simply unpaid labour and nothing but unpaid labour.

There exists a cruel paradox in the process of wage exploitation. It is that the harder worker toil and the more they manufacture, the more likely they sink in joblessness and the ensuing poverty. This paradox of the system ridicules all the schemes advanced to improve the worsening conditions of the working class. Under this head can be placed the rosy election promises by the major political parties, the empty rhetoric from the various so-called socialists of a "social democratic" persuasion (whose only aspiration is increased state regulation of the capitalist economy for more "welfare" band-aids to ease the misery and suffering among the exploited), also pseudo-socialists (who compromise the socialist goal by pandering to workers' illusions they can get "something now" under capitalism.

The cure for poverty and unemployment is SOCIALISM. The Socialist Party urges workers to make socialism their priority. We urge the working class to establish the common ownership of industry and services thus abolish economic classes and wage servitude. Socialism is industrial democracy, the most complete democracy yet conceived. Class-free administrations replace the political state of class rule. It unites all useful producers in the socially-operated production and distribution enterprises throughout the land into one inter-connected network, with local and regional subdivisions according to industry. It affords workers control through who they will elect (and at any time replace) as their industrial delegates in their factory committees or neighbourhood councils and finally, congress or communes to administer industry and the services for the good of all. By replacing production for sale and profit with production for the needs of the population, and by harnessing our ability to produce an abundance with a minimum of labour, socialism will cure poverty! By reducing the hours of the working day, instead of putting workers out of jobs, socialism will cure unemployment! Socialism waits only upon the understanding and determination of the working class majority to build it!

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the capitalist class constantly improved its labour-displacing machines in a mad rush to satisfy their insatiable hunger for profit. And to kill-off their fellow capitalists who lacked the means to compete in this claw and fang struggle. Karl Marx, noted: One capitalist kills many. The workers' attempt to resist these "monsters" led to the formation of the Luddites who rioted and smashed the textile machines in their vain belief that this would reduce the terrible unemployment they suffered. But they could not stop the relentless march of technology. The beginning of the 20th century accelerated the process. Mass production swept throughout the capitalist countries and the industrialists progressively improved the labour-displacing machine. Automation had become a household word.

In the last decade or so workers have become acutely aware of the frightening consequences of improving technology as they recognise the revolutionary implications of computers and the silicon chip. Modern computers are the latest extension of the Industrial Revolution and the same economic compulsions and motivation brought them into existence. Millions of workers will feel their full impact as more and more are forced into the ranks of the permanently unemployed, eking out an existence on the "dole."

In Capital, in the chapter dealing with "Machinery and Modern Industry," Marx wrote with prophetic insight: "But machinery not only acts as a competitor who gets the better of the workman, and is constantly on the point of making him superfluous. It is also a power inimical to him, and as such capital proclaims it from the roof tops and as such makes use of it. It is the most powerful weapon for repressing strikes, those periodical revolts of the working class against the autocracy of capital."

As if to confirm this truth with a vengeance, tireless, efficient and reliable, industrial robots are performing dozens of tasks. The robots work around the clock without demanding time off for coffee-breaks, meal-times or trips to the bathroom. They also never ask to be paid. Robot makers say the automatons pay for themselves in 12 to 24 months by reducing human labour expenses while increasing productivity, quality and yields.

And so the technological explosion leaves the workers hanging by a thread until they understand that what is desperately needed is a revolutionary change in our economic and social structures, a new and sane society of socialism, where the useful and productive workers will preserve their human dignity and enjoy the full fruits of these marvelous machines that will then become the collective property of all the people and a blessing to mankind.