Servitude or Socialism?

The working class to-day is a slave class. They can only live by selling their labour power—working abilities—to a master class, who, by their ownership of the means of life, keep the workers in their enslaved condition. The Socialist Party proposal is to change the social basis of society from private ownership to a system to satisfy the economic needs of the community which are owned and controlled by the whole of the people. Socialism will provide all people with the full amenities of modern life. Present-day society does not provide for all now simply because the way it produces things is geared not to make available what people need but to create profitably. In a future socialist society, ownership and control of the means of production will be in the hands of the community as a whole. This will enable production to be directed in the interest of all on the basis of what we need. With modern methods of consumer research and information gathering, logistics and stock-control, already in use by many of the global corporations, the means by which the needs of society can be determined are already available.

There can be no common interests between those who own the offices, the factories, mines, shops, and land, with the workers who do all of the producing. One class does all the work, produces all, suffers all the hardships necessary to accomplish the task. The other class owns, but does not know, nor cares to know, how to produce wealth, yet persists by rights that it labels “legal” to live off what it does not produce. While our class performs no function in production but lives in plenty Our class works long hours under bad conditions established by and suited to the needs of masters of industry. We receive low wages, so that there may be high dividends and profits for the investors. For it must be borne in mind longer hours and low wages mean greater profits for the capitalists. The world needs socialism.  Even the most liberal vision is too conservative to resolve these contradictions. Capitalist technology has produced unprecedented wealth, yet threatens the very air and water, and embitters people. Helping people to adjust to capitalism, rather than engaging against it, has been the historic accomplishment of the Left, and it remains its primary goal 

It's up to workers alone to make a better world for ourselves. We can't wait for it to change of its own accord because it will never do that. Capitalism may well be sick but it will not, however, disappear on a given day, or in a given month or year. Its demise can only take place as a his­toric process by a class-conscious majority.

Religious and nationalist dogma is only blinding people to the realities of the intolerable present-day world system of society. But once you've begun to look at them in a historical context then you'll be able to begin looking at everything else in the same way. And you'll begin to question why the world is in such a state. You'll begin to question why there is so much misery and suffering and starvation when there is plenty of everything for everybody; why the majority of the world's population have to slave away all their lives at jobs they detest while a small minority live in splendour and luxury without having to work at all.  it's no use going to churches, chapels or mosques or even to Conservative or Labour politicians. There's only one real solution: a system of society based on common ownership of the means of living and democratically controlled by and in the interests of the whole world-wide community. A class-free, money-free world-wide system of society where poverty will give way to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom. Ours is a “participatory” socialism.

The struggle to change society from capitalism to socialism has nothing to do with barricades in the streets or organizing general strikes. It has to be a political one. The powers of government include and in the last analysis rest on armed force to maintain capitalism in each country. The only logical strategy to abolish capitalism is, therefore, for the working class — not leaders or an élite - but the socialist working class itself through its mandated delegates — to take control of those powers; so that the protection of capitalism has gone, and no-one can prevent the establishment of socialism.

In those circumstances, hypotheses about opposition by army officers etc. are not only improbable but define themselves out of existence. If a military-minded group seeks power, it must do so as a political party. For that, it requires the assent of the ruled-to-be, which is obtainable only in the absence of Socialist understanding. Even under capitalism, forcible rule without that assent does not work as the ruling class needs. An example is Northern Ireland, where the fact that military occupation achieved nothing is testified to by the search on all sides for “a political solution”, i.e. a régime acceptable to the population: which is what we were saying. What is much more likely than military resistance to the rapid growth of socialist consciousness is that the ruling class will offer sops and reforms galore to try to buy it off.

Socialism is the hope for industrial freedom. The Socialist Party is attempting to build a world socialist movement and endeavours to ensure some level of inspiration. But that doesn’t mean providing all the answers, it doesn’t mean detailing the blueprints of a utopia. It does mean that we’re laying out an idea about how change can happen and the difference that it actually can make. It is about offering our fellow-workers aspiration and a new ambition to think a lot bigger than they’ve been thinking for decades now.