The Real Fight for Real Socialism

The Socialist Party proposes, in brief, that all resources, all land, and buildings, all manufacturing establishments, mines, all the means of transportation and communication, should be, not private property, but the common property of all. We propose that production will be made to serve the needs of those who work, rather than to serve the needs of a few parasites. We hold production and distribution of goods can be planned to avoid anything resembling the crises in capitalist society. Planned production on the basis of common ownership without any class division is what we call socialism. Experience has proved that planning under capitalism is impossible. When the Socialist Party speaks of a society organised on the basis of planned production and distribution we mean do away with production for profit. Make a survey of all available resources, plant and man-power. Figure out how much of the products of each industry can be produced, say, in a year. Fix the annual consumption of the population at this rate. When you do so you are sure that nobody will go hungry or without a roof over his head. But this is not sufficient. Make it your purpose to increase production. Use the best scientific minds to improve your machinery and your methods of work. Encourage research to advance technology for the purpose of improving life. Extend this improvement not only to industry and agriculture but to all realms of life. The output of industry is sure to increase. Distribute the fruits of increased production among all the members of society. Improve their well-being. Increase production still more by further improving machinery and methods according to the latest research. Distribute the benefits of the increased production again among the population without exception, always improving the technology to enrich the economic and cultural life of all the members of society and to ease their labour. Continue this process indefinitely. When you do so there will be no crises, no unemployment, no exploitation, no wars, no fear of the future. Socialism builds and encourages scientific advance on a colossal scale. It makes mankind complete master of the social system. It reduces human labour to the easy task of supervising machinery a few hours a day. It leaves mankind free to engage in the higher intellectual pursuits. It makes every worker a highly cultured being and everybody responsible for the welfare of all. It inscribes on its portals: Let everybody contribute according to ability; let everybody receive from the common stock of goods according to needs. There is no exploitation, no oppression, no insecurity, no poverty, but everybody is working, the badge of honour. Life is made humane. With this begins the great ascent of man.

Isn’t all this utopia, socialist dreams? Yes, socialists are dreamers. But we are practical dreamers. We see the forces of present day society at work. We see the trend of this work. We realise the absolutely unavoidable outcome of the clash of social forces. We realise what has to be done in order to hasten the unavoidable outcome. We have in our mental eye a complete picture of the fundamentals of society to be erected on the ruins of capitalist society. We see the social instruments whereby this stumbling block of a capitalist system can be cleared away to give room to a new socialist society. We do not expect people to sit idly by and wait until a socialist society has fallen into their lap like a ripe apple off a tree. How can it be done? Once you agree that capitalism is your enemy the answer to the question is not difficult. The working class is placed in this capitalist society in a position where to live it must fight and fight begins in factory, mine, and mill. It is, first of all, a fight for higher wages, for shorter hours, for better working conditions. History has proved, however, that they never grant anything to the working class unless forced to do so by the fight of the workers. This is why the very existence of the working class is under the slogan, Fight. The working class has long created agencies for the economic struggles: the trade unions. Their main purpose is to secure for the workers a larger share of the products created by their own labour. They challenge the economic power of the ruling class. The more the workers fight, the more their strength grows. The stronger they become, the more successful is their fight. m must be fought for and this fight cannot wait. It is a matter requiring action right now and every day. Your employers try to prevent you from organising: organise! They will try to fire your organisers: stand firm and defend them! They will try to discharge you, so answer with a strike call and picket the plant! They will send police to break up your picket line, they will send in union bureaucrats to persuade you to accept arbitration but call other workers to help you in your struggle; make your struggle the solidarity struggle of great numbers of class-conscious workers. There are many more struggles. Each day brings its own tasks. Every day the capitalists and their State demand new struggles from the workers. These struggles are not separated from each other. They are intertwined into a united whole. One struggle helps another. One victory makes others more easy. All of them strengthen the working class. These struggles have not been invented. They are a necessity. They are an outcome of existing conditions. They are vital to the very existence of the workers. These struggles will be the more effective, the greater the masses that participate in them and the stronger their unity and will to fight. We, therefore, appeal to the workers to unite. We explain to them the vital necessity of unity. We say: You may belong to any party, or to any union or you may belong to none; what we urge you to do is to unite and fight on the issues that are of basic importance for the working class. In calling you to join together we have no other interests at heart but the interests of the working class.

We, the Socialist Party, are in favour of the unions because every kind of struggle requires its own organisation. But we also hold that every class struggle is a political struggle.  The overthrow of the capitalist system, grows out of the everyday struggles of the workers. One is historically inseparable from the other. These struggles are the reaction to the misery wrought by capitalism. There comes a time when people say that this simply “cannot go on”. Politicians seem to be entirely inept to cope with the political and social difficulties. The belief in the wisdom and omnipotence of the “men higher up” is shaken and people are losing their confidence while all the time growing more confident in their own strength. The struggles of the people is becoming broader and deeper. The Government cannot stem the tide. The clearer the class-consciousness of the workers, the more steeled they are in fighting and the more capable they will be to deal the final blow. Capitalism creates a situation where large numbers of the population are dissatisfied, embittered, emboldened by intolerable hardships. Capitalism itself prepares the conditions for a social revolution. The guiding golden rule to be established is “from each according to ability, to each according to need” Each person will contribute to the collective welfare they best they can and each person will receive from the common stock of goods what they require. This is socialism. Humanity itself will change from such conditions. Soon the State is no more needed. In a classless society, there is nobody to suppress or keep in check. Men and women, bred in a spirit of collective life, running their own affair of their own society, do not need the big stick of the State. They manage their lives without the State force. Mankind is free, forever.