The Socialist Party - For Socialism

A certain section of the Left never tire of hailing all demands for state ownership as a sign of the growth of the socialist spirit among the working class and therefore worthy of support. Reformists generally accepted that the State represented society as a whole; that its parliamentary institutions provided the means for popular opinion to express itself; and when that opinion became "socialist", or at least the majority of it, the State would become socialist automatically. 

The Socialist Party would point out that to call such policies socialist is highly misleading. Socialism properly implies above all things the common ownership and the co-operative control by the workers of the machinery of production; without this the public ownership by the State is not socialism – it is only state-capitalism. Those who worked most and hardest would still get the least remuneration, and the rank and file would still be deprived of all voice in the ordering of their industry, just the same as in all private enterprises. We repeat, state ownership and control is not socialism. The aim of socialism is to take the means of production out of the hands of the capitalist class and place them into the hands of the workers.  Common ownership mplies, first, that the entire community is master of the means of production and works them in a well planned system of social production. It implies secondly that in all shops, factories, enterprises the personnel regulate their own collective work as part of the whole. Socialism is achieved not through nationalised public corporations, but through a fundamental change in class relations. Let there be no ambiguity about the use of the word socialism. We mean by it, and so does every revolutionary socialist entitled to the name, the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution, a class-free society. The unambiguous aim of the Socialist Party is the cooperative commonwealth in which the supplying of human needs and enrichment of human life shall be the primary purpose of our society. Unprecedented scientific and technological advances have brought us to the threshold of a second industrial revolution. But by bringing men and women together primarily as buyers and sellers of each other, by enshrining profitability and material gain in place of humanity and spiritual growth, capitalism has always been inherently alienating.

Socialism will yield the maximum opportunities for individual development and the maximum of goods and services for the satisfaction of human needs. However, if the status quo is maintained the problems of capitalism will be multiplied in the future. The technological changes will produce even greater concentrations of wealth and power and will cause widespread distress through unemployment and the displacement of populations. The challenge facing our fellow-workers today is whether future development will continue to perpetuate the inequalities of the past or whether it will be based on principles of social justice. The Socialist Party holds firm to the belief that our society must build a new relationship among mankind--a relationship based on mutual respect and on equality of opportunity. In such a society everyone will have a sense of worth and belonging, and will be enabled to develop his capacities to the full. The Socialist Party will not rest until every person is able to enjoy equality and freedom, a sense of human dignity, and an opportunity to live a rich and meaningful life as a citizen of the cooperative commonwealth. 

The achievement of socialism awaits the building of a mass base of socialists, in factories and offices. The development of socialist consciousness, on which can be built a socialist base, must be the first priority of the Socialist Party which can be seen as the parliamentary wing of the workers' movement dedicated to fundamental social change. Capitalism must be replaced by socialism. Rather than the current sense of  insignificance and impotence, a socialist transformation of society will return to mankind to its sense of humanity, to replace the sense of being a commodity.