People’s thinking is controlled today is by confusing them and creating muddled and disordered double-speak, illogical reporting filled with “fake news” in a merry-go-round of conflicting reports. So is it surprising that the world appears astoundingly incoherent, totally absurd, and completely irrational for reasons we can’t seem to comprehend? The mainstream media do this daily, reducing the average person seeking to stay informed to bewilderment over world events. One is left one baffled, devoid of any sense of truth.
Bill Clinton’s misinformation led to the air onslaught against Serbia in 1999. In 2003, Bush blatantly deceived in order to wage a barbaric war against Iraq. Later Obama and Hilarity Clinton misled the world and launched air strikes against Gaddafi's Libya. And political parties exist to delude.
The Labour Party and the Tory Party fight for political office and in order to get votes both make promises of better times to come, though both sides know full well that whichever government is elected, the future holds in store nothing but a continuation, if not a worsening, of present hardships. What the working class of Britain and of the whole world need is the abolition of capitalism and the creation of socialism. They need it but do not yet understand their need. We are therefore faced with the tragedy that millions of workers listen to and accept the willful lies of their political leaders. For those workers who in the past have voted for the Labour Party in the mistaken belief that it was in some way moving towards a new form of society, it is tragic indeed, for the leaders of the Labour Party have now ceased to have faith in anything except the cynical belief that they do the day-to-day job of running capitalism no worse than the Conservatives. In the past, the Labour leaders believed in state capitalism (or nationalisation,) but now this has proved to be so unpopular with the workers that the leaders are soliciting votes by letting it be known that there are to be no new nationalisation schemes in the future. Among bread-and-butter questions, they laid great emphasis on being able to raise wages and reduce the cost of living, but the steady rise of prices and the lagging behind of wages during the past few years has reduced them to the Tories are juggling with the facts to deceive the electors. There is little to choose between Labour Government and Tory Government, but unlike them, we have a message of hope and action to give to the working class. In their own interests, the working class should choose neither Labour nor Tory. Labourism has failed as Toryism failed. The urgent need of the working class is to establish socialism. A Corbyn Labour Government will not escape the economic crises and war preparations thrust on it by capitalism and in spite of all its efforts to make life less burdensome it will not make capitalism palatable. So end all attempts to operate capitalism “in a different way." It will be predoomed to failure.
There is an aspect of vastly greater importance for the working class than the internal bickerings of the Labour Party. This is the question of what it is that has failed. It is Labourism that has failed, not socialism. The Labour Party never at any time in its history aimed at or tried to introduce socialism. Labourism aimed to carry on Great Britain as a capitalist unit in a capitalist world; seeking only to modify its social evils at home and its predatory nature in the international sphere. Of course, it had to fail. Socialism is an international conception which will involve the end of capitalist production and distribution for profit, the end of the wage-system and price system and of the international conflict over markets and raw materials. Socialism is not concerned with turning private capitalism into state capitalism. Socialism requires the conversion of the means of production and distribution from private ownership to common ownership and democratic control by the whole of society, with resulting abolition of property incomes and the carrying on of production solely for use. Socialism has not failed because it has never been tried here or in any other country.
Capitalist production is concerned with the realisation of a profit, not the satisfaction of human needs. No profit — no production, is the criterion, though millions of people are ill clad, ill housed and hungry. This is something we have said many times. There would then be harmony of interests and full cooperation between people everywhere, for the sole criterion of production would be the satisfaction of human needs. Society would apply this acid test when considering productive resources, whether these were fields, factories, or gas and oil plants.
The Socialist Party does not condemn the workers' attempts to defend their standard of living. On the contrary, we unreservedly support the use of trades and industrial action to defend or improve standards of living (without, however, supporting tr advocating strikes on all occasions, irrespective of whether the time and circumstances are well chosen).
What we wholly condemn is “reformism," that is, the Labour Party policy of building up a political party on a programme of reforms, and gaining seats in Parliament on such a programme. We say that the only party which can be of service to the socialist movement is a party built upon the principles of socialism and nothing else, a party composed only of socialists.
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