Capitalists – A band of brigands

“At the founding of the International, we expressly formulated the battle cry: The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. We cannot, therefore, go along with people who openly claim that the workers are too ignorant to emancipate themselves but must first be emancipated from the top down, by the philanthropic big and petty bourgeois.” - Marx

Profits are made not primarily by cheating in the market or arbitrarily adding a “profit margin” to the price of a commodity. Nor is it under-cutting your competitors and stealing their share of the market. Instead, they come from appropriating at the point of production the greater portion of the values labor creates. By measuring things like unit labour costs, output per hour, etc., productivity figures help keep tabs on this process of exploitation. Though usually presented as a simple measure of efficiency and output, productivity figures are in fact yardsticks of labour’s exploitation. The value of any commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor time consumed in its production. Some of this value is already crystallised in the raw materials and other capital goods needed for a new product. For example, if £1,000 worth of steel is used in the making of a car, that value reappears in the price of the automobile. But in the process of turning steel and other materials into a car, another quantity of value is created. The labour expended by workers adds values to the materials used. This added value is the crucial quantity at any given step along the production process. It’s out of the added value that both workers’ wages and capitalists’ profits come. If a capitalist must supply £1,000 worth of steel, he generally has to pay that much for it. There is no new value created in this even exchange and nothing to divide. But if his workers add another £1,000 of value in the course of their labor, the capitalist pays only part of the new value back to his workers as wages, keeping the rest as what Marx terms surplus value. The wages workers receive come as no gift from the boss, but are just a portion of the wealth workers produce.

Technological development clearly dictates the course that must be taken. Modern industry is thoroughly socialised in its organisation and operation. It has outgrown private ownership of industry and production for sale and the profit of the owning few. We are now at a point where we can produce an abundance for everyone. By establishing a new society we can prevent worsening crises and ultimate catastrophe toward which our present society is taking us. What we are saying is that we can and must establish a socialist society. Let us explain briefly what socialism is and the kind of life we can have under it.

The Socialist Party’s task is to build a society called socialism, the co-operative commonwealth. We readily admit that so far the working class has not shown any marked tendency towards such a society. Are we then to abandon the idea as false? By no means, the results so far merely show that our fellow-workers have not yet become politically conscious of their own interests. But will so in the future begin more and more completely to understand his economic and political situation. Many workers are already beginning to show signs of independent life. Events will confirm the need for independent working class political action. The message of socialism, which, for years was spurned by people, falls today upon eager ears and receptive minds. Their prejudices are melting away. They are now prepared to give a hearing to the only political party that proposes a change of system.  The Socialist party is the only party of the people, the only truly democratic party in the world. We are not here to play the filthy game of capitalist politics. The Socialist Party as the party of the working class stands squarely upon its principles in making its appeal to the workers. It is not begging for votes, nor asking votes, nor bargaining for votes. It is not in the vote market. It wants votes but only of those who want it - those who recognise is as their party, and come to it of their own free will. To be sure, we want all the votes we can get but only as a means of developing the political power of the working class in the struggle for industrial freedom, and not that we may revel in the spoils of office. The workers have never made use of their political power. They have played the game of their masters for the benefit of the master class - and how many of them, disgusted with their own blind and stupid performance are renouncing politics and refusing to see any difference between the capitalist parties financed by the ruling class to perpetuate class rule and the Socialist Party organised and financed by the workers themselves as a means of wresting the control of government and of industry from the capitalists. The Socialist Party clearly states that the time has come for the workers of the world to shake off their oppressors and exploiters, put an end to their age-long servitude, and make themselves the masters of the world. To this end the Socialist Party has been organised; to this end, it makes its appeal to our fellow-workers workers.

In the name of the workers the Socialist Party condemns the capitalist system. In the name of economic freedom, it condemns wage-slavery. In the name of modern technology, it condemns poverty and famine. In the name of peace, it condemns war. In the name of civilisation, it condemns the starvation and deaths of children from preventable disease. In the name of enlightenment, it condemns religious ignorance and superstition. In the name of humanity, it demands social justice for every man, woman, and child. The Socialist Party points out clearly to our fellow-workers why their situation is hopeless under capitalism, how they are robbed and exploited, and why they are bound to make common cause with other workers in the mills and factories of the cities, along with the railways, and in the mines in the struggle for emancipation. The education, organisation and co-operation of the workers is the conscious aim and the self-imposed task of the Socialist Party. No power on earth can prevail against the working class coming into consciousness of itself in its complete awakening. In the coming socialist system based upon the common ownership of the means of life and the production of wealth for the use of all instead of the profit of the few, for which the Socialist Party stands, peace will prevail and plenty for all will abound in the land. The brute struggle for existence will have ended, and the millions of exploited poor will be rescued from the clutches of poverty and famine. The social conscience and the social spirit will prevail. Society will have a new birth and a new destiny. There will be work for all, leisure for all, and the joys of life for all. Competition there will be, not in the struggle for survival, but to excel in the common good work and in social well-being. Every person will have an equal chance to rise to its full stature and achieve success in life.

The members of the Socialist Party are the party and is organised and administered from the bottom up. There is no leader and there never can be unless the party deserts its principles and ceases to be a socialist party. The party is supported by a dues-paying membership. Each member has not only an equal voice but is urged to take an active part in all the party committees. Each branch is an educational centre. The Party relies wholly upon the power of education and knowledge.