Organise with the Socialist Party

Abolition of the wage system? Yes, we’re for it. Let’s organise to manage industry, eliminate private profit, plan production to suit the needs of the people – for peace, prosperity and plenty. But there is a war raging between the capitalist class and the working class. The capitalist class is easy to identify, they are the handful of millionaires and billionaires who own or control and who milk the factories, mines, and fields of our world. They are the class that owns and sells the products that we make and often can’t even afford to buy. We sell our labour to this class for a living wage, and very often less than that. The boss’s appetite for profits is looked after and protected by the State. The government is run by the capitalists for the purpose of maintaining the flow of profits. This is done in a lot of ways. Bail-outs for the corporations who also receive tax breaks and subsidies. A system of courts and police guard the property and the profits of the capitalists from the working class by injunctions against strikes and picket lines and strikes enforced by police who escort scabs into work. The government protects the boss’s right to practically dictate the terms of employment to us.

The war between the capitalist class and the working class is due to the system of wage slavery. For the young workers, first looking for a job, the middle-aged workers with families feed, and the older workers who are just clinging on until retirement, the capitalists have what we can’t live without. Jobs. We have to eat. To eat we have to work. To work we have to work for the capitalists. To work for the employing class we have to accept their terms. We are slaves of the wage system. The trade union aims to organise the working class and challenge the capitalists “right” to squeeze us, to give the screw one more turn. Through the unions, the workers wage a united struggle of resistance, confront the capitalists with one voice, demand better wages and working conditions, test their strength through downing their tools, and wring concessions. The trade unions can bargain with the capitalists over wages, but they cannot bargain away the wage-system. They cannot touch the foundations of capitalist exploitation. Workers cannot end exploitation without putting an end to the whole of the capitalist system. The Socialist Party’s purpose is to challenge the system of wage slavery itself. The fight to end wage slavery is our purpose. Our task is not to fight for better terms in the sale of labour-power but to fight for the abolition of the capitalist system that compels the working class to sell themselves as wage-slaves. As socialists, we believe that only by the whole of the working class ridding ourselves of the employers, their policies, their parties and their system, can the people build socialism so we can begin to control our lives. Socialism is based on a constructive and basically optimistic view of social progress.

There are many people who say that they are for socialism and claim to be in favour of the emancipation of workers. However, we mustn’t be taken in by these “socialists”. The function of the Socialist Party is to educate the people by criticising all attempts at so-called reforms, whose aim is not the realisation of socialism, but the hindering of it; and by encouraging the unity of the working class towards revolution and the abolition of capitalism. As socialists, we base our political policy on the class struggle of the workers, because we know that the self-interest of the workers lies our way. We raise high our unsullied banner, and with principles inviolate and ideals undimmed, we stand forth as the representatives of the Socialist Party, appealing to the toilers and producers to join us in building up the party of their class. We all hope and work for the co-operative commonwealth of socialism.

In the wage system you and your children, and your children’s children, if capitalism shall prevail until they are born, are condemned to slavery and there is no possible hope unless by throwing over the capitalist and voting for socialism. What you want to do is quit voting for every capitalist party of every name whatsoever. What you want to do is to organise with your class and assert your class interests. Why cast your ballot for a thing that will do you no good, a thing that you do not want? The Socialist Party teach the fellow-workers that their fundamental economic interests can only be satisfied by the destruction of the entire capitalist system and the creation of a socialist society.

The Socialist Party affirms as a fundamental principle that the class which creates the wealth of the world are entitled to all they create. Thus they find themselves pitted against the whole profit-making system. They declare that there can be no compromise so long as the majority of the working class lives in want while the master class lives in luxury. They insist that there can be no peace until the workers organise as a class, take possession of the resources of the earth and the machinery of production and distribution and abolish the wage system. In other words, the people as a whole must commonly own and operate all the essential industrial institutions.