Wage Slaves Unite

 

The Socialist Party frequently encounter people who claim to be socialists, but who cannot understand that when Socialism is established there will be no wages system. They argue that, without wages, chaos would ensue. 

Wage-slavery is a fact. The most barbarous fact is the jobs market. They who buy and they who sell in the labour market are alike dehumanised by the inhuman traffic in the brains and blood and bones of human beings. Without this commerce in human life, this sacrifice of manhood and womanhood, this barter of people, the capitalist system of all lands and all climes would crumble to ruin and perish from the earth. The workers have but the one issue, the overthrow of the capitalist system and the emancipation of the working class from wage-slavery. The capitalist system is no longer adapted to the needs of modern society. It is outgrown and fetters the forces of progress. 

The very moment a worker begins to do his or her own thinking he or she understands the paramount issue, parts company with the capitalist politician and falls in line with our own class on the political battlefield. The political solidarity of the working class means the death of despotism and the birth of freedom. the struggle in which we are engaged today is a class struggle, and as the toiling millions come to see and understand it and rally to the political standard of their class, they will drive all capitalist parties of whatever name into the same party, and the class struggle will then be so clearly revealed that the hosts of labor will find their true place in the conflict and strike the united and decisive blow that will destroy slavery and achieve their full and final emancipation. In this struggle the workingmen and women and children are represented by the Socialist Party.

The Socialist Party stands squarely upon its principles and relies wholly upon the eduction of the working class. The Socialist Party buys no votes and promises no offices. All workingmen and women owe it to themselves and their class to take an active and intelligent interest in political affairs. Ignorance alone stand in the way of socialist success. The capitalist parties understand this and use their resources to prevent the workers from seeing the light. Intellectual darkness is essential to industrial slavery. Capitalist parties cunningly contrive to divide the workers. The Socialist Party is uniting them. The ballot expresses the people’s will and the people’s will is supreme. The ballot means that labor is no longer silent, that at last it has a voice, that it may be heard and if united shall be heeded. Centuries of struggle and sacrifice were required to wrest this symbol of freedom from the mailed clutch of tyranny and place it in the hands of ordinary folk as the shield of defence and a sword of attack. The abuse and not the use of it is responsible for its evils.

In every state of society, ancient and modern, labour has been exploited, degraded and in subjection. Civilisation has done little for labour except to modify the forms of its exploitation. Society has always been and is now built upon exploitation—the exploitation of a class—the working class, whether slaves, serfs or wage-labourers, and the exploited working class in subjection have always been, instinctively or consciously, in revolt against their oppressors. Through all the centuries the enslaved toilers have moved slowly but surely toward their final freedom. The call of the Socialist Party is to the exploited class to rally beneath the red flag and put an end to the last of the barbarous class struggles by conquering the capitalist government, taking possession of the means of production and making them the common property of all, abolishing wage-slavery and establishing the socialist co-operative commonwealth. The first step in this direction is to sever all relations with the capitalist parties. They are precisely alike, differing only in being committed to different sets of capitalist interests—they have the same principles under varying colours, are equally corrupt and are one in their subservience to capital and their hostility to labour. and we challenge their most discriminating partisans to tell them apart in relation to labour. The ignorant workers who supports pro-capitalist parties forges their own shackles and is the unconscious author of their own misery. They must be made to see and think and act with fellow-workers in supporting the party of their own class and this work of education is the task of the World Socialist Movement. Working-people who support the pro-capitalist parties are guilty, consciously or unconsciously, of treason to their class. They are voting into power the enemies of labour and are morally responsible for the crimes thus perpetrated upon their fellow-workers and sooner or later they will have to suffer the consequences of their miserable acts. Justice to labour means the end of capital. The capitalist parties can do nothing. They are a part, an iniquitous part, of the foul and decaying system. There is no remedy for the ravages of death.

The Socialist Party is not, and does not pretend to be a capitalist party. The overthrow of capitalism is the object of the Socialist Party. It will not fuse with any other party and it would rather die than compromise. It does not ask, nor does it expect the votes of the capitalist class. Such capitalists as do support it do so seeing the approaching doom of the capitalist system and with a full understanding that the Socialist Party is not a capitalist party but a revolutionary working class party, whose historic mission it is to conquer capitalism on the political battle-field, take control of government and through the public powers take possession of the means of wealth production, abolish wage-slavery and emancipate all workers and all humanity. The old order of society can survive but little longer. Socialism is next in social evolution. Soon that minority will be the majority and then will come the co-operative commonwealth. Society must be reconstructed by the working class. These are the principles and objects of the Socialist party and we fearlessly proclaim them. We know our cause is just and that it must prevail.