There is an alternative – people power.

The iron heel of capitalist oppression stomps upon us all. Capitalism is a fragmented, vicious and secretive world of internecine greed and strife. Socialism is a human family of equals

Advocating socialism is the work of socialists and only those. The Labour Party does not accept the principles of socialism. That is why it was left to us to do. The Labour Party does not stand for working-class principles, and is, therefore, not the party of the workers. Outside the Socialist Party, there are undoubtedly very many men and women who, while agreeing with the fundamental principles upon which the Party is based, yet, for one reason or another, cannot see their way to come inside and help within the organisation itself. There is a danger of our developing into beings whose sole idea is how to lessen hours of labour, how to obtain better conditions of life, and not much more. Something more than this, however, is needed. We would appeal to all men and women in sympathy with the aims and methods of the Socialist Party to join in the fight against the powers of inertion and decadence and in our equally strenuous fight for socialism and the upward movement of life, remembering that a little active help is worth a great deal of passive sympathy.

The road to co-operatives is paved with good intentions. Cooperatives would still need to produce surplus value to survive, even in the later "stages". They would still need to trade for resources and equipment. A cooperative in a capitalist world will never be able to be self-sufficient.  Due to competition from other capitalist entities, the co-operative will have to "rationalise" production which typically means giving yourself and your buddies a cut in wages or starting to hire wage-labourers to exploit them.  The cooperative is still subject to capitalism and therefore still needs to produce surplus value, and it needs to continuously increase the surplus value production since it still needs to trade and so on. It also removes the option for things like joining a union.

We say that the workers must organise democratically to control Parliament because this controls the State machine which, at the very least, must be taken out of the hands of the capitalist class before the attempt to establish socialism can be made. The democratic self-organisation of the working class, by the way, will not be through Parliament but in the socialist political party (and any economic organisations set up in preparation for the change-over to socialism) which will control Parliament.

We live in a capitalist society. The main feature of this society is property ownership, buying and selling. There are only two classes of people in capitalist society. Those who own, the capitalist class, and those who sell their skill, the working class. The popular view of a middle class is really a myth. The doctor is as much a worker as the bus driver. Observe how even doctors go on strike to support their demands for more pay and better conditions. The conflict between capitalist (to pay as little as possible) and worker (to secure as high a price as possible) is an inherent feature of capitalist society. Nothing that can be said or done can reconcile the opposing interests of these two classes. Those of the owning class have clear ideas as to their interest. They, however, with their power and wealth and control of the mass media use these to maintain and even widen the division within the working class. They have done this with great success. Their existence depends on this division.

Capitalism distorts the vision of a future society. We can only see a different system in terms of our present one. The Socialist Party advocates a system of society where each will contribute to production and partake freely of his or her need. The task ahead is difficult indeed. That is why we need your help, in whatever way you can.  We are right to be angry but at the same time, we must remember that there is work to be done, to set up the new society of abundance and hope.

When the Socialist Party offers a description of socialism, that is, of a money-free, wage-free a class-free society where the means of production belong to everyone and where each person works on a voluntary basis to produce goods for the satisfaction of human needs and not for profit, one is often greeted with the objection “That’s just a dream. You’re nothing but dreamers." This implies that the Socialist Party is pursuing an impossible goal and that our activities are therefore a waste of time. But there are in fact two kinds of dreams and two kinds of dreamers. Some dreams are no more than fleeting fantasies while others are prophetic so to prod them into action with a view to turning the dream into reality. This kind of dream has motivated humanity to some of its greatest achievements.

If men and women think themselves competitive, aggressive, lazy, selfish and incapable of living in cooperation and harmony, it is simply because the social system in which they are now living brings out these qualities in people: selfishness, in as much as the essence of capital is to add to itself; competition, because what goes to one owner of capital does not go to the other; aggression when rival capitalists, compelled to expand, come to clash with one another; laziness, since not having to work makes us, even if only momentarily, like one of the ruling class. What stands in the way of a radical transformation of the social system is not in fact our so-called human nature, but a realisation on the part of all workers, men and women alike, that their values and their lives are bound to be greatly influenced by the system they live in and that since they themselves, by their joint productive work, create that system, they can also change it if they so wish. The present system is of material benefit to a section of our society and this section, though very small (about ten per cent) has the power, thanks particularly to its control of the media and of the education system, to impose certain ideas and to stop the spread of others. And so it does its utmost to preserve the status quo. 

People who visualise the possibility of a different world and who try to capture the imagination of those who remain trapped in their everyday reality these people are not just dreamers but active, determined members of society who are doing all they can to change their dream into reality. The idea of socialism is as old as humanity itself and which has, perhaps, its roots in the social reality of long pre-history. The fact that this dream has not yet come true does not indicate that it is impossible but simply that men and women have not started seriously thinking about it and working to achieve it.