Socialism is the only alternative

What is the meaning of capitalism? Capitalism is an economic term. It is applied by political economists and sociologists to the economic system of our civilisation, by means of which men achieve economic independence and have the privilege of living idly upon the labour of others, who produce a surplus value above that which they receive for their own sustenance. Capitalism refers to the system. A capitalist is one who profits by the system. If he labours himself, it does not alter the fact that he has an income apart from his labour sufficient to sustain him for life without labour, and therefore his is economically independent.

Socialism was born of the class antagonisms of capitalist society, without which it would never have been heard of; and in the present state of its development, it is a struggle of the working class to free themselves from their capitalist exploiters by wresting from them the tools with which modern work is done. This conflict for mastery of the machinery is necessarily a class conflict. It can be nothing else.

Capitalism is responsible for the insecurity, the poverty, misery, and degradation of the ever-growing majority of working people. The Socialist Party declares its object to be to firstly organise the working class into a political party to conquer the public powers of the State now controlled by capitalists so to abolish wage slavery by the establishment of a world system of cooperative industry, based upon the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, to be administered by society in the common interest of all its members. The Socialist Party perceives clearly the nature of the class struggle and takes its stand squarely and uncompromisingly with the working class in the struggle which can end only with the utter annihilation of the capitalist system and the total abolition of class rule. We respect the honest effort of any, no matter however misguided, to better social conditions, but we have no patience with the frauds and quacks who in the name of “brotherhood” betray their trusting victims to the class that robs them without pity and without shame.

The Socialist Party opposes to the existing form of society, now known to everyone as the capitalist society. Why? Because a few people own the world and the factories and machinery of wealth production. These are the propertied class, including landlords, capitalists, and moneylenders (bankers). Most other people have to sell their brain-power or body-power, in short, their labour-power, to this class for a return in money called wages. This class is the wage-earning class or the wage-slave class. Wages are not based on the money value of the goods produced or services rendered by the slave-class, but on the cost of living. We have seen an unprecedented crash in wages, and wage-levels are still dropping. Workers, whether in town or country, are compelled to pay for permission to live on the earth; the houses, shops, factories, etc., which were built by the labour of our forefathers at wages that simply kept them alive are now owned by a class which never contributed an ounce of sweat to their erecting, but whose members will continue to draw rent and profit from them while the system lasts. As a result of this, the worker in order to live must sell himself into the service of a master – we must sell to that master the liberty to coin into profit the physical and mental energies.

A shopkeeper in order to live must sell his goods for what he can get, but a worker in order to live must sell a part of his or her life, nine, ten, or twelve hours per day as the case may be. The shopkeeper, if lucky, may get the value of his goods, but the worker cannot get under the capitalist system the value of his or her labour; we must accept whatever wage those who are unemployed are willing to accept at his job. This is what is call wage-slavery, because under it the worker is a slave who sells himself for a wage with which to buy rations, which is the only difference between this system and plantation slavery where the master bought the rations and fed the slave himself. There is only one remedy for this slavery of the working class, and that remedy is world socialism, a system of society in which the land and all offices, railways, factories, canals, workshops, and everything necessary for work shall be owned and operated as common property. There is only one way to attain that end, and that way is for the working class to establish a political party of its own; a political party which shall set itself to elect to all public bodies working men and women resolved to use all the power of those bodies for the workers and against their oppressors. In claiming this we will only be following the example of our masters. Every political party is the party of a class. What is wanted then is for the workers to organise for political action on socialist lines.

The Socialist Party points out that there is no alternative for the working class other than socialism. Socialism is rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is to work. This was how Marx and Engels defined socialism. To use the word “socialism” for anything but working people’s power is to misuse the term. Nationalisation is not socialism, nor does a mixed economy. Nationalisation is state capitalism, with no relation to socialism. The task of the Socialist Party is to help the transfer of power from capitalists to working people. The time is arriving when every man and woman of our class will have to make a great decision. We shall have to choose whether capitalism with all its attendant miseries and horrors is to remain or whether we intend to be free.