A Write-in Vote for Socialism

 William Morris called upon the working class to acquire the "intelligence enough to conceive, courage enough to will, power enough to compel." 

The Socialist Party does not present policies for capitalism's salvation or offer a better more humane form of capitalism. It isn't just the this or that version we oppose, but capitalism itself. It isn't just who profits and by how much that we oppose, but it is the entire concept of profit making, which is always generated from the appropriation of surplus labour extracted from the working class by wage slavery.  

 It has to be conceded that only a tiny fraction of people understand the need for the alternative - socialism, a society with no private property, no classes, and no state. The real opposition to capitalism is still struggling to be born.

The Socialist Party seeks a revolution involving much more than a change of political control. We want a social revolution, a fundamental change in the basis of society. For Marx, the key task of the working class was to win "the battle of democracy". This was to capture control of the political machinery of society for the majority so that production could be socialised. Then the coercive powers of the state could be dismantled as a consequence of the abolition of class society. Marx said that you cannot carry on socialism with capitalist governmental machinery; that you must transform the government of one class by another into the administration of social affairs; that between the capitalist society and socialist society lies a period of transformation during which one after another the political forms of to-day will disappear, but the worst features must be lopped off immediately the working class obtains supremacy in the state. 

 The vote is revolutionary when on the basis of class it organises labour against capital. Parliamentary action is revolutionary when on the floor of parliament it raises the call of the discontented; and when it reveals the capitalist system's impotence and powerlessness to satisfy the workers wants. The job of the Socialist Party is to use parliament in order to complete the workers' education and organisation, and to bring to a conclusion the revolution. We do not regard political democracy in itself as sufficient to emancipate humanity. But we do recognise that it provides by far the best conditions for the development of the socialist movement. 

 The Socialist Party recognise parliament as an institution geared to the needs of capitalism, and therefore inappropriate as the means for a fundamental transformation of society, but we acknowledge that its electoral practices coincides, to some extent, with the democratic majoritarian principles steering that transformation, and to that extent provides a likelihood of a peaceful transition.

  Parliament, is to be valued not for the petty reforms obtainable through it, but because through the control of the machinery of government the socialist majority will be in a position to establish socialism.

 Our fellow workers, however, persist in choosing between different versions of the same discredited palliatives for capitalism’s problems. This is masochism. Our position is that politicians, whatever their intentions, actually retard the development of the organisation of the working class. By associating with capitalist representatives in both political and economic affairs they induce the idea (which capitalism does everything possible to foster) that the hostility does not exist. But until the reality of class war is clearly understood there can be scant improvement in the workers' condition. 

 If there were a working class committed to socialism, the method of achieving political power would be to fight general elections on a revolutionary platform, without any reforms to attract support from non-socialists. In fact, the first stage in a socialist revolution is for the vast majority of the working class to use their votes as class weapons. This would represent the transfer of political power to the working class. 

 We adopt this position not because we are mesmerised by legality and not because we overlook the cynical and two-faced double-dealing which the capitalists will no doubt resort to. We say, however, that a majority of socialist delegates voted into parliament would use political power to coordinate the measures needed to overthrow the capitalist system. Any minority which was inclined to waver would have second thoughts about taking on such a socialist majority which was in a position to wield the state power.

To those who still say that, while they ultimately want socialism, it is a long way off and we must have reforms in the meantime, we would reply that socialism need not be far in the distance and there need not be a “meantime”. 

 If all the dedication that has been channelled into reform activity over the past 200 years had been directed towards achieving socialism, then socialism would have been established long ago and the problems the reformists are still grappling with (war, inequality, unemployment, poverty in health, housing, education etc.) would all be history.

 It is only when people leave reformism behind altogether that socialism will begin to appear to them, not as a vague distant prospect, something for others to achieve, but as a clear, immediate alternative which they themselves can - and must - help to bring about.

 The Socialist Party’s task is to make a socialist society an immediacy for the working class, not an ultimate far-off ideal. Something of importance and value to people’s lives now, rather than a singular "end."

 Since there will be no local Socialist Party candidates standing for election, what those who are in agreement with ourselves should do is demonstrate their commitment to the electoral process by participating in it. Rather than vote for a capitalist party, fellow-workers should spoil their ballot paper by using it as a “write-in” vote for “World Socialism”