Socialism is the remedy

Nationalism is one of the most powerful props of capitalism. As long as the ruling class can continue to obscure the lines of class struggle, the policy of divide and rule will pay dividends to the small class that remains unchallenged. The capitalist system is inherently nationalistic, imperialistic and militaristic. Its ruling class has material incentives to divide workers by race, ethnicity and religion.  There are a thousand ways the profit system keep workers fighting each other, competing for scraps. It keeps workers whose children go to bad schools fighting with workers whose schools are worse. It pits low-paid workers against lower-paid workers, those with bad housing against those with terrible housing. In each case it is workers who suffer when they fight each other instead of the system that is their common enemy. To fight nationalism effectively requires two things -- a clear exposure of the capitalist roots of nation-states and a class-conscious unity of workers to oppose it. Only a class-conscious position can cut through decades of propaganda.  It is impossible to work for a socialist society without fighting against divisions among workers. But it is equally impossible to mount any really effective campaign against xenophobia that is not at the same time a fight against its capitalist cause.

The Socialist Party advocates the organisation of the working class for the capture of the political machinery in order that a new social order may be established in which the means of life will be owned in common by all.  Our method, and the only effective method of building up a genuine socialist party, is to base our organisation on socialist knowledge, and the clear grasp of socialist principles by each member.  the Socialist Party advocates a world of free access to all goods and services with everyone giving according to their ability and taking according to their need.  It recognises that there are two classes in society: the ones who need to work and the ones who don’t; the ones who make the profits and the ones who take them; the ones who can say "This world belongs to us" and the rest of us — the overwhelming majority who have world to win. What is needed to achieve the socialist alternative is a socialist party composed solely of convinced socialists, a party which does not go in for reforms of capitalism. When the majority of wage and salary workers become socialists and are organised, they will be able to use their votes to send to Parliament and to Local Councils delegates with a mandate to use their political power for the single revolutionary act of dispossessing the capitalist class through converting the means of wealth production and distribution into the common property of the whole of society.

The system of production for profit can never operate in the interests of the majority. Many workers have a sense that this is the case, even if they are not yet conscious of production solely for use as a feasible alternative. But there is still workers who are deceived, not least by their own illusory ambition, into thinking that capitalism will allow them a place in the sun, those who trust in the “reality” of the American Dream. The harsh fact which they must learn is that the difference between the most affluent "middle-class" worker and the poorest of wage-slaves is smaller than the difference in power, security and privilege which divides the richest worker from the poorest capitalist. It is of vital importance that the antagonism between socialism and reformism should be made clear to the workers.

What, then, is the remedy? It is so plain and reasonable that the slowness of the workers to accept it is a matter of constant amazement. Abolish the capitalist ownership and control of the means of production and distribution. Rid society of this institution which has now become a fetter for the mass of the population. Let society itself, through its own democratic control, utilise the land to produce food for the needs of the whole community, and the factories and railways, etc., likewise. Let us have our means of life turned into means of producing the requirements of humanity, not the profits of a class. Let us turn our two hostile communities into one real community, freed for ever of the rivalry of interests between those who own and those who do not own, a rivalry which restricts the production of useful and beautiful things, condemns vast masses to sordid poverty, excites class hatred and international war, and poisons human relationships in a war of the jungle instead of a co-operative endeavour to enrich life.