The Socialist Party works for the continuation of a policy by which socialist men and women and their ideas penetrate more and more the elective bodies, and this implies constant education and propaganda among fellow-workers. We declare that the present capitalist system is based upon the legalised robbery of the real producers of wealth producers and the undoubted object of socialism is to get rid of these social parasites, the capitalist class. By socialist co-operative commonwealth, we mean the common ownership by the whole people, of the raw material and machinery of production in the common interest. The centralised nation would give place to a federation of communities who would hold all wealth in common and would use that wealth for satisfying the needs of each member, only exacting from each that he should do his best according to his capacity towards the production of the common wealth.
It is to be understood that each member is absolutely free to use his share of wealth as he pleases, without interference from any, so long as he really uses it, that is, does not turn it into an instrument for the oppression of others. This view intends complete equality of condition for everyone, though life would be, as always, varied by the differences of capacity and disposition; and emulation in working for the common good would supply the place of competition as an incentive. This social transformation means the emancipation not only of the proletariat but of the whole human race.
The battle of the working class against capitalist exploitation is necessarily a political battle. The working class cannot carry on its economic battles or develop its economic organisation without political rights. It cannot effect the passing of the means of production into the ownership of the community without acquiring political power. To shape this battle of the working class into a conscious and united effort, and to show it its naturally necessary end is the object of the Socialist Party. The interests of the working class are the same in all lands. With the expansion of world communications and production for the world market, the condition of the workers in any one country becomes constantly more dependent on the state of the workers in other countries. The emancipation of the working class is thus a task in which the workers of all countries are concerned in a like degree. Conscious of this, the Socialist Party feels and declares itself one with the class-conscious workers of all other lands.
The Socialist Party fights thus not for new class privileges, but for the abolition of class domination and of the classes themselves, and for the equal obligations of all, without distinction. Setting out from these views, it combats in contemporary society not merely the exploitation and oppression of the wage workers, but every kind of exploitation and oppression, whether directed against towards on the basis of gender, sexual orientation or nationality. The Socialist Party strives on behalf of the whole people without distinction of nation, race or sex for emancipation from the fetters of economic dependence and political oppression.
The cause of these unsatisfactory conditions lies, not in particular political arrangements, but in the fact essentially conditioning and dominating the whole state of society, that the means of working are monopolised in the hands of individual possessors. Society is thus divided into two opposite classes, one, the capitalists and their sleeping partners, the property owners and the financial loan-mongers, holding in their hands the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and being, therefore, able to command the labour of others; the other, the working-class, the wage-earners, the proletariat, possessing nothing but their labour-power, and being consequently forced by necessity to work for the former. The working class, suffer and endure the most oppressive dependence upon the owning class in possession of the means of working, which include land whose political domination is expressed in the class state of today. Just as all the citizens have and handle in common, democratically the political power, so they must have and handle in common the economic power, the means of production.
Children are dying by the millions, mothers are weeping because they cannot command life’s necessaries for their children, and millions of men barred by unemployment from getting life’s necessaries, this in the midst of an abundance of wealth the like of which the world has never known before.
The times are ripe for great changes not the mere trifling of reforms but definite deep-rooted drastic changes, the dethroning of the capitalist class and the people themselves becoming the owners and controllers of the wealth they produce. This is not the time to ask for peace but to declare class war. The Socialist Party will always declare in favour of the solidarity of the interests of the workers of every country. The future of the world is to be co-operative, and not competitive. There must be free access. The object of the Socialist Party is to secure economic freedom for the whole community, ie, that all men and all women shall have equal opportunities for sharing in wealth production and consumption untrammeled by any restriction. The only possible basis for advance and progress that will admit of all sharing in the advantages of new technology is the co-operative basis. Many people now feel deeply the urgent necessity for a revolutionary change in the basis of human society.
Workers of all countries, unite. You have the whole world to win and nothing but your chains to lose.
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