Common Ownership is Common Sense

Common sense should tell workers that the cause of declining wages and economic insecurity has nothing to do with which political party is the government. Common sense should tell workers that politicians don't decide when factories will close down or how many workers to lay off. Common sense should tell workers that in a capitalist economy those decisions are made by those who own the factories, mills, mines and other means of wealth production. Common sense should tell workers that capitalists make those decisions in their own interests, not in the interests of the working class.

Increased productivity, declining wages, massive elimination of jobs, spreading economic insecurity and the congestion of wealth proves that the capitalist system of private ownership and profit production is based on the exploitation of the working class. As long as this foundation of society remains this trend will continue regardless of the claims and promises of politicians. As long as the working class of the country tolerates the private ownership and control of the economy, workers will be used and disposed of to suit the profit whims of the tiny capitalist class. How bad must conditions become before workers take action?

Capitalism long ago developed the material conditions prerequisite for socialism. It has created production on a scale sufficient to banish forever want and the fear of want-the forces that historically have fostered class division. Moreover, necessary production is carried out by socialised labour - by a working class organised at the point of production by the very nature of capitalist production itself. At the same time, capitalism no longer works. It is no longer a progressive social system. Instead, its inherent contradictions stand in the way of further progress and disrupt the workings of the productive forces already developed. Yet there has been no revolution. Rather the working class, while angry, suffer confusion, uncertainty, and despair. Faced with economic crises, environmental dangers, workers cannot afford to wait for capitalism to collapse. Such fatalism spells apathy and inactivity. The Socialist Revolution depends, no longer upon material conditions alone; it depends on the clearness of a socialist vision to assist the evolutionary process. Socialism is not an automatic affair, workers as a class must play an active role in the socialist revolution. Capitalism will not disappear of its own accord. It will remain until it is overthrown. And capitalism can only be overthrown as the result of the class-conscious struggle of the people. If we permit capitalism to continue to exist, the likely result is the end of human civilisation.

Promoting class consciousness, however, is no easy matter. Workers are bombarded daily with capitalist propaganda. Politicians and economists obscure falsely predict a better future after a painful period of "adjustment” if only if we shoulder the burden on our backs for a bit longer. Some so-called socialists confuse workers with talk of reforms such as the Universal Income, raising false hopes that the political state and capitalism itself can solve the problems of unemployment and poverty. Such notions can only help convince workers that they have a future under capitalism and that capitalism is, at this late date, somehow capable of being reformed. In truth, ending the effects of capitalism requires ending their cause -- the capitalist system.

It is important that workers come to recognise that there is a genuine alternative to capitalism. For the sooner the people understand that the misery imposed by capitalism need not be endured, the sooner will people turn to socialism. Yet class-consciousness by itself is not enough for revolution. Organisation is required. On the political field, workers need to form a mass revolutionary party to challenge and defeat the political state for the purpose of ousting the capitalist class from the seat of its power and then dismantling it. That will clear the way for the workers' re-organization on the economic field to administer the class-free socialist society in the peoples' interests. It will not occur overnight nor as the result of a heroic act of will. It is the result of the interaction of class-consciousness and working-class organisation. Capitalism can be counted on to produce economic crises in superabundance. However, an economic crisis is not a sufficient condition of revolution. Although economic crisis produces social discontent and unrest which offers opportunities for effective socialist agitation and education, even if the economy should utterly collapse, the result would not necessarily be socialism. For in the absence of revolutionary working-class organisation, the ruling class would readily impose its own authoritarian alternative. It is up to us, the working class. Capitalism won't vanish. It must be overthrown.

The Socialist Party is the political party of the working class. This is so because the Socialist Party is the sole protagonist of the principles which the working class must adopt if it is ever to achieve emancipation from wage slavery and save society from catastrophe.  The Socialist Party is the only organisation demanding the abolition of capitalism and advocating the socialist reconstruction of society. It has been doing so for 114 years. It is, in short, the political organisation through which the workers can establish their power to reorganise society. Through its political agitation and educational activities, the Socialist Party seeks People Power.