The social democracy movement

There have always been people curious about what the future holds and other people are willing, for due reward, to satisfy that curiosity. Prophets, astrologers, and psychics claim some special power of prediction. Nowadays politicians now employ economists and scientists to foretell the future. What can we expect for the future? The answer is simple. Within the prevailing class-divided society there can be no paradise, only a parasite/host mode of existence for capitalist and working class respectively.

Capitalism is a system of society in which the wealthy property-owner lives without working if he so wishes, and the poverty-stricken worker toils to provide the wealth of the propertied class. If the working class want to abolish war, if they want to get rid of the poverty which degrades and distorts their lives, they can do so. Sentiment is a fine thing. But it is no substitute for knowledge. Sentiment by itself is a fine ally of our masters, for it does not need education and study. And sentiment is used by the so-called patriots and clergy to chain us to the slavery of to-day. All they have to do is to accumulate some knowledge of capitalism and of how socialism, by abolishing the basis of capitalism, will also abolish its problems. When they have got that knowledge the working class will reject all the political parties which stand for the continuance of capitalism. They will opt for socialism—a world of abundance in which humanity, for the first time, will be free.

The Socialist Party is not like the Left out to steal the leadership of the Labour Party. We are out for socialism and therefore stand for the capture of political power by a socialist working class. Then, and only then, will the butchery by capitalism and its agents be impossible? Many so-called socialists say that we are on the same road. That is true. But we are travelling in opposite directions. The Socialist Party is going forward along the road on which the human race has evolved. The left-wing goes backward. Socialism is not the result of schemes and dreams. It is but a convenient name for the stage in social evolution made possible and inevitable by the economic tendencies of our time. It is not built up out of vain yearnings and longings for liberty, equality, and fraternity. It seeks to adapt the methods of owning and enjoying wealth to the co-operative system of production already reached by economic advance. Modern technology and global production is an advance.  Although this cooperatively worked such as by division of labour, industry is under individual and class ownership and it breeds poverty among plenty. The Socialist Party, therefore, seeks to commonly own and democratically control that which the workers commonly produce.

Socialists study history and find that the material conditions, the forces used in social production, the natural and social surroundings of the population, form the foundation for the life of the people. Methods of ownership, exchange, and distribution, depending upon the kind of material conditions existing. Ways of government, states of law, and all the political and civil regulations of humanity follow from the industrial habits and economic institutions of men. To denounce the State, the Law, and the social institutions because they do not fit in with some ideal principle does not help to change society. The Socialist Party understands that many things called “bad,” and most institutions called “evil,” once served society as methods of advance. We do not indict the entire past of the human race as wrong, forgetful of the truth of evolution that what is “bad” and useless now was “good ” and useful at some previous time. The materialistic explanation of history involves the truth that a given system of production leads to a definite and corresponding method of distribution and ownership. Hence, the common ownership of the resources of life cannot be controlled by varying and conflicting individuals at their own sweet will but must be democratically controlled by and in the interest of the whole working population. In social and therefore important matters the majority must decide if all do not agree.  The Socialist Party is directly opposed to every agency of privilege and every office of domination. But we realise that a central authority arose when the division of labour took place and it filled a useful function in the life of primitive but progressing society. The administration of affairs and the regulation of civil life was its chief function. Private property and class division gave rise to a State machine controlled by each ruling section in turn—chattel slave owner, patriarchal lord, a feudal baron, or industrial capitalist. Knowing how these institutions have grown out of and adapted themselves to each period of society, we do not demand their instant abolition. They are part of the existing society and to remove them we must change the economic and social system as a whole. The modern State, Law, Authority, police, and punishment are but the results of class rule and are integral parts of a rotten system. Rotten because it is over-ripe economically.

Democracy means more than holding up hands or saying “Aye!” To open all channels of knowledge and information, to give everyone leisure and a chance to understand and learn of the facts of life, to offer to all the advancement modern “democracy” keeps for a few— this is the social and political expression of democracy. When men vote and discuss and delegate their opinions under these conditions they will know what they are doing. And then, if all do not agree, social matters can be decided by majorities until the minority convinces the majority. The Socialist Party, however, understand that the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. Unless we can convince and convert the majority of workers, socialism is an idle dream. If you bring about a revolution with an ignorant, uninformed or hostile working class, defeat sooner or later faces you. Emma Goldman in her book on “Anarchism and Other Essays” says the majority is always wrong. The anarchists, therefore, will either rule with a minority or be wrong if they become a majority. She further states the great mass of the people never were and never will be the ones to progress. Just the intellectual few. Such views mean that the great body of the people will depend upon the kindness and wisdom of the anarchist intellectuals to guide and mother us. These reactionary ideas follow from their conception of the all-importance of individuals. They believe society is just a collection of individuals, not an organic whole as the Socialist Party and most social scientists understand.