Mainly About Us

The transition of human society from capitalism to socialism will be the most profound change in human society in over 10,000 years. No other economic transformation, not even the rise of capitalism, can compare. For the first time since the earliest of human societies people have finally started to practically work toward a social order not based on exploitation. That is, they’ve actually started to strive towards a society in which a tiny elite will no longer have the power to use for its own benefit the labour power of the vast, impoverished producing classes. 

For the greater part of the 200,000 years since the appearance of homo sapiens, scholars have drawn a picture of societies often described as “primitive communism.” These were social orders where people lived in small groups (most often labelled tribes or clans) in a way where the work and the means of production were shared in common. There was what we would consider being an extremely low level of technology, necessitating constant movement to find food and water. At some point, approximately 10,000 years ago, social conditions changed. As a result of population growth, technological advance, and the end of the last Ice Age, there was the development of settled agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the rise of towns. Among these momentous changes came the rise of classes – a split between a majority who worked and a small privileged few who lived off the labor of that majority.

Over time, the system of shared economic relations was, for the most part, obliterated. The new systems of class society took many forms. Over the millennia, we have seen the division of society into two main classes: master/slave, lord/serf, and capitalist/worker. One master class replaced another. Any idea of economic and social equality became a distant dream – the reality of poverty, war, racism, male supremacy, and human aggression – were part of the “natural” order of things. People of course never gave up the struggle for a better life, though. 

The people of our planet are now standing together united with this goal: the 10,000-year era of class exploitation must be ended and a new society based on equality, justice, and peace should be our vision. When the working class gains political and economic power, the ill-gotten wealth, power, and influence of the exploiters will disappear. The domination of one class by another, a feature of human society for 10,000 years, will become a thing of the past.

 In 1904, some members of the Social Democratic Federation, having done their damnedest to steer that compromising, reformist organisation on to the socialist path, were expelled from it. With others, they set about creating a political party with which they could work for socialism. The founders of the Socialist Party were under no illusions. We do not want, within our membership, those who do not subscribe to its principles. Neither would it be honest for workers to be drawn into our organisation without fully realising the implications of the principles and the nature of the Socialist Party they were joining.  It has maintained its opposition to Capitalist wars during two major world conflicts, and although the first of these conflicts was a bad setback for the Socialist Party, it did not destroy it. We are not satisfied with our numerical strength, but we are certainly not ashamed of it. Of one thing we are extremely proud. That is the quality of our membership. It is the quality—the understanding and determination—of the members, that gives an organisation its strength. We have seen a number of so-called working-class political parties grow into mass organisations — then wither away to nothing.  The development towards Social Revolution is not to be measured strictly by the growth of the revolutionary organisation.

 The workers have been, and are, throwing off the capitalist ideas that have been instilled into them. Many of the arguments against socialism that the founders of our Party had to answer are seldom heard today. The socialist case, although it is not widely accepted, receives tolerant attention nowadays. The days when members of our Party had to defend their speakers from the fury of a jingoistic audience are passed. The process of discarding old ideas and accumulating new ones goes on all the time, and the numerical strength of the Party that gives expression to the new ideas can only be taken as an indication and not as a measure of the progress made. Mankind's ideas are not to be emptied from or crammed into their heads as one empties a sack of potatoes and refills it. Old and unsound ideas can only be removed when new ones drive them out. New ideas are continuously being accumulated until the equivalent of that breaking point is reached. Not until a man’s mind has been cleared of its capitalist notions by the introduction of socialist ideas does he embrace the Socialist Party. The minds of all workers in the capitalist world are undergoing this process and are progressing, in varying degrees, towards a socialist understanding. Our task is to assist the process.