We live in an insane world, one that becomes more and more insane with every day that passes. To pick up a newspaper is to find a daily catalogue of wars and threats of wars, hatreds and atrocities, murder and violence.
We know that capitalism cannot be blamed for everything wrong with the world, the fact is that it is responsible for most of them. Capitalism’s wars maim hundreds of thousands and undermine the health of countless others. But you know all this. As long as capitalism lasts, there is little chance of society ever really tackling the problem of ill-health and wars. We know, for example, that cancer research comes a long way behind arms production in the priorities of modern society. Why is this? Simple answer: arms are more immediately important to the capitalist class than finding a cure for cancer. Arms can be used to defend their commercial interests. Curing cancer would only save a few million lives a year. Who, other than cancer sufferers, would care?
Nationalism is a great aid to the capitalist class, so it is probable that they will continue to spend millions to enhance it. Our only hope for a peaceful and humane world is for the workers of all nations to overcome their nationalism, and unite and organise to create a world without borders, armies, and wars. To achieve peace we must understand the real cause of war. To be effective a peace movement must direct itself to the task of replacing the economic system that causes war. Since this can be done only through the organised action of the great majority, the movement must work to inform itself and the working class at large about the program for establishing a socially-owned, cooperative economic system. Telling people what they already know, that war is bad, is not enough. What needs to be said is how to change society so war will no longer be necessary. If the social revolution is the only way to eliminate war, the sooner we begin organising for that the sooner will we arrive at our goal of peace. Tinkering with the capitalist system can never alter its fundamentally anti-social character.
When the oppressed are weary from the hopeless struggle for existence, and might be moved to rise and throw off the yoke of oppression, the deadening hand of religion stretches out to them, bids them to be of good cheer and be patient, all will be well in the hereafter, where “all good people” will live in a heavenly rose garden. Many rise to the bait, as it is so comforting to think that this vale of tears is but a path to paradise. And so places of worship have arisen, palatial, beautiful and impregnated with incense; their pulpits have resounded with the mocking cry, “Come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” The promise has meant a good deal to those who looked for no rest on this side of the tomb, and has helped to blind them to the possibilities of rest in their real life. Religion has not been a giver of rest but a scourge to drive the masses on to toil compliantly.
Reformism has failed us. Reformist proposals promise to treat the symptoms of commodity production -- without challenging commodity production itself. The inability of reformist measures to tackle the root causes of our present crises should be evident to all. Only when the systemic causes of our social crises become common knowledge, will reformist measures that fail to tackle causes become delegitimised. despite constant tinkering, economic crises, boom and bust cycles, dispossession and hunger not the exceptions, but the rules of capitalism. For years we have been told by Labour Party supporters (who had never tried to teach or even to understand socialism) that the working class did not want socialism, they wanted ‘something now’. We return the jibe and ask when the Labour government is going to give it to them. We were told that ‘half a loaf is better than no bread’ and that the way to get socialism is to build it up piecemeal, adding one gain to another until some day we shall wake up and find that capitalism has imperceptibly changed into the cooperative commonwealth. May we ask how many such half-loaves will be required to produce socialism? The principle which above all distinguishes the Socialist Party from the Labour Party is our realisation that there are no short and easy cuts to Socialism. Only a party whose members understand and want socialism can work to that end, and the growth of such a party cannot proceed faster than the work of spreading socialist knowledge. It was against the view we hold that the Labour Party were formed. They have always proclaimed their belief in the possibility of building up a party on a non-socialist basis, becoming the government of the country and introducing large measures of reform thus retaining the support of the electors while leading them, almost without their knowledge, on the road to socialism. The fallacy of that position, briefly stated, is that until we have socialism, we shall continue to have capitalism and capitalism can be run only on capitalist lines. You cannot keep capitalist private ownership and control, and yet administer the system in a way which will prevent it from producing its normal effects. You cannot have capitalism without a subject class of wage and salary earners struggling incessantly against the pressure which tends to make them more insecure and badly paid, drives them to harder work and reduces them in greater numbers to unemployment. The success of their theory rests upon the ability of a Labour Government to satisfy the electors, but the electors want results which they were led to expect and Labour cannot deliver the goods.
The mass socialist party that we require for change is the fusion of movements. Against this background of tragedy and folly, which might be expected to reduce us only to apathy and despair, we record with pride that, far from being discouraged, the Socialist Party remains active in its propaganda, and its members enthusiastic to end capitalism. In an insane world, the issue is more than ever—Capitalism or Socialism. Let us hold fast to sanity and campaign for socialism. The capitalist system is continually giving itself away; continually giving indications of the growth of that seed of its own destruction which is inherent in it.
"Forward together! Not one step back!"
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