It’s Not Complicated

The Socialist Party is the tangible expression of the socialist movement, and the socialist movement is based upon the modern class struggle in which all workers of all countries, regardless of race, nationality, creed or sex, are called upon to unite against the capitalist class, their common exploiter, and oppressor. In this great class struggle the equality of all workers is a foregone conclusion, and he or she who does subscribe to it as one of the basic principles of socialism is not a socialist, and if a party member must have been admitted through misunderstanding or false pretence, he or she should be speedily set adrift to return to the capitalist parties with their racism and sexism. Someone who seeks to arouse prejudice among the working class is not their friend. Someone who advises workers to look down upon others is the enemy of both. Socialism will give all men and women economic and political freedom. The door of the Socialist Party will never be closed against any human being on account of the colour of his or her skin, their nationality, their gender or sexual orientation. When Marx said: “Workers of all countries unite,” he issued the call to all the workers of the globe, regardless of race, sex, creed or any other condition whatsoever. We are the party of the working class, the whole working class, and we will not suffer ourselves to be divided by any specious appeal to prejudice. Socialism must be an inspiration to all in bondage. The Socialist Party, the political wing of the labour movement, is absolutely free from prejudice. We have nothing special to offer minorities, and we cannot make separate appeals to all by identity politics. The Socialist Party is the party of the working class—the whole working class of the whole world.

The owning class is necessarily the ruling class. It dictates legislation and in the case of doubt or controversy has it construed to its own interest.

The Socialist Party is a revolutionary party and its basic demand is the common ownership of the means of production and distribution and the operation of all industry in the interest of all the people. Economic freedom can result only from common ownership, and upon this vital principle, the Socialist Party differs diametrically from every other party. Between private ownership and common ownership there can be no compromise. One produces for profit, the other for use. One produces millionaires, the other economic equals. One gives us palaces and hovels, robes and rags, the other will secure to every man and woman their full product of his or her toil, abolish class rule, wipe out class distinction, secure the peace of society, and make of this earth for the first time a decent habitable place. Socialism was born of the class antagonisms of capitalist society, without which it would never have been heard of. We count everyone against us who is not with us and opposed to the capitalist class, especially those reformist chicken hearts who are for everybody, especially themselves, and against nobody who are not offend the capitalist exploiters, for their revenue depends upon their treason to the exploited slaves over whom they mourn dolefully and shed crocodile tears. They are “socialists” for no other purpose than to emasculate socialism.

Let the capitalists, large and small, fight among themselves. The working class must get rid of the whole brood of masters and exploiters, and put themselves in possession and control of the means of production that they may get the wealth their labour produces, all of it, and enjoy with their families the fruits of their industry in comfortable and happy homes, abundant and wholesome food, proper clothing and all other things necessary to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ It is, therefore, a question not of “reform,” the mask of fraud, but of revolution. The capitalist system must be overthrown, class-rule abolished and wage-slavery supplanted by the cooperative industry. No sane person can be satisfied with the present system. Corporations are organized purely for private profit; the rights of the corporations to exploit the working class and exact tribute from the people are to be respected, according to the capitalist. On the other hand, the Socialist Party, standing for common ownership of the means of production, declares to the world that there is no other solution.

Socialists are organising for the purpose of securing control of the government. Having conquered the political power upon the platform that declares in favour of common ownership in the name of the people, they will take possession of industry. It will be organised to be cooperation, that is to say, self-operation. It will be cooperative in every department of human industry. The badge of labour will no longer be the badge of servitude. Everyone will gladly do their share of the world’s useful work. Everyone can then honestly enjoy a share of the world’s blessings. Every machine will be a blessing to mankind because it will serve to reduce the number of hours constituting a day’s work, and the workday will be shortened. Labour will no longer be bought and sold in the markets of the world. We will not make things for sale, but will make things to use. We will fill the world with wealth and everyone can have all that they can rationally use. Rent, interest, and profit, three forces of exploitation, will disappear forever. Every man and woman will be economically free; life will no longer be a struggle for bread; then mankind can begin the march to the highest type of civilization that this world has ever known. The abolishing of the capitalistic system does not merely mean the emancipation of the working class, but of all society. It will level all upwards. This planet will be fit for men and women to live in. The existing system is unspeakably cruel. Capitalist society is blotched with the effects of disease. Cooperative industry carried forward in the interest of all the people — that is the foundation of socialism; economic freedom for every human being on Earth; no man or woman compelled to depend on the arbitrary will of another for the right or opportunity to create enough to supply his or her material wants. There will still be competition but it will not be for bread, it will be to excel in good works. Everyone will work for the society in which he lives, and society will work in the interests of those who compose it.

The members of the Socialist Party look to the future with a vision of the cooperative commonwealth, a world without a master and a land without a slave.