The capitalists class are a menace to humanity. Capitalists perform no useful function in society. The Socialist Party is the only party that stands against the present system. All forms of capitalist interest, rent and profit is a rake-off from industry and is sheer robbery. It is the only party that boldly avows itself the party of the working class and its purpose the overthrow of wage-slavery. So long as the present system of capitalism prevails, the toiling masses will be struggling in the hell of poverty as they are today. The Socialist party is absolutely the only party which faces conditions as they are and declares unhesitatingly for socialism. Private ownership has had its day. The Socialist Party stands for common ownership and co-operation. The workers who have made the world and who support the world, are preparing to take possession of the world. This is the meaning of socialism and is what the Socialist Party stands for. We demand the machinery of production in the name of the workers and the control of society in the name of the people. We demand the abolition of capitalism and wage-slavery and the surrender of the capitalist class. We demand the Earth for all the people. Ending the gigantic robbery which is the very base of the capitalist system will at once release vast resources for useful social ends. With the deadly limitations of the capitalist market with its terrible misery and suffering, removed, the way is open to satisfy the needs of the people.
Where there is no capitalist class to demand its profit production and distribution can take place for use, an enormous increase in efficiency. The socialist system of planned production, based upon social ownership of industry and the land, is incomparably more efficient than the anarchic capitalist system founded upon private property, competition and the exploitation of the workers. It will end the hundreds of useless and parasitic occupations and the entire crew of “middlemen,” real estate sharks, stock brokers, advertisers, sales-people, whole rafts of government bureaucrats, police, clerks, and sundry capitalist quacks, fakers, and grafters. It will turn to useful social purposes the immense resources consumed by these socially useless elements. Socialism will also conserve the natural resources of the planet which are now being ruthlessly wasted in the mad capitalist drive for profits. Socialism will put a stop to criminal environmental recklessness and have as one of its principal aims the careful conservation of all the natural resources.
It is characteristic of capitalism to justify all the robbery and misery and terrors of its system by seeking to create the impression that they are caused by basic traits in human nature, or even by “acts of god.” Thus they invent mysterious explanations for preventable disasters as to make them appear natural phenomena over which mankind has no control, like tornadoes and earthquakes. The same general attitude is taken with regard to war. War is put forth as arising out of the very nature of humanity. Man is pictured as a war-like animal, and therefore capitalism escapes responsibility. The ravages of warfare, too, will cease with the end of commercial rivalries between nations. Mankind is by nature a gregarious and sociable. We do not make war because he dislikes others who differ in language, religion, place of birth, etc. Wars have always arisen out of struggles over the very material things of wealth and power. This is true, whether we have been living in a tribal, slave, feudal or capitalist economy, and whether we have obscured the true cause of wars with a religious garb or with patriotic slogans about making the world safe for democracy. The cause of modern war is the policies of the capitalist nations to rob others in the global struggle for markets, raw materials, and territory. In a society in which there is no private property in industry and land, in which no exploitation of the workers takes place and where plenty is produced for all, there can be no grounds for war. Conflicts are not to be ended by peace conferences and disarmament treaties, but by revolutionary struggle of the working class against capitalism itself. It will be only when the workers have finally defeated capitalism and re-assembled the world on a socialist basis that universal peace can come.
The result of these consequences of the socialist revolution will provide the material base for a well-being of all in the world. The aim of technology will be to achieve the highest possible standards for working people, not the welfare of a few capitalists. Production will be scientifically calculated in advance. The needs of the people and the possibilities of the industries will be carefully studied, calculated and met. With a thoroughly organised industrial system the carrying out of the production plans will be easy and natural. A socialist society without planned production is unthinkable. A socialist world will be a unified, organised world. The economic system will be one great coordinated and interlinked network. The resources of the world will be at the disposal of all the peoples of the world.
A classical capitalist argument against socialism is that it would destroy incentive; that is if private property in industry and the right to exploit the workers were abolished the urge for social progress, and even for day-to-day production, would disappear. With no exploiting class to rob them of the fruits of their toil workers will welcome better technology because they shall get the full benefit of them. They have broken the chain of capitalist slavery and are building a new world of liberty, prosperity, and happiness for themselves and families. It is understandable why the producing masses under capitalism betray no such enthusiasm in their work. We are robbed of what we produce and for us, robotic and automated improvements in production mean wage-cuts and unemployment. With socialism no one will have the right to exploit another; no longer will a profit-hungry employer be able to shut factory gates and sentence thousands to starvation; no more will it be possible for a little clique of capitalists and their political henchmen to plunge the world into a blood-bath of war. The socialist revolution will create in the new and better development of the individual. Theirs will be an individuality growing out of and harmonizing with the interests of all. It will not have the objective of one’s getting rich by robbery.
The capitalists seek to justify their destructive behaviour by asserting that it is rooted firmly in human nature. Such appeals to “human nature,” however, must be taken cautiously. By that method of reasoning it would be quite easy to conclude that the rich capitalist who heartlessly casts workers out of his shops penniless and gives no thought as to their future has quite a different “human nature” than the hunter-gatherer who, with a higher sense of clan solidarity, before eating his kill, calls loudly in the four directions in case perchance there may be another hungry hunter nearby. Changed social conditions develop different “human natures.” Thus competition, a ruinous, anti-social thing under capitalism, becomes, will with socialism, become highly beneficent. Life in a socialist society will be varied and interesting. Individuals will vie with other individuals, as never before, to create the useful and the beautiful. Locality will compete with locality in the beauty of their architecture. The marks of individuality and originality will be found on everything. The world will become a place well worth living in, and what is the most important, its joys will not be the monopoly of a privileged ruling class but the heritage of all mankind.
The socialist revolution is the most profound of all revolutions in history. It initiates changes more rapid and far-reaching than any in the whole history of humankind. The millions of workers striking off their shackles of wage-slavery, will construct a free society and inaugurate a new era for the humanity, the building of a new world. The overthrow of capitalism will bring about the immediate or eventual solution of many great social problems. Some of these originate in capitalism, and others have plagued the human race for centuries. Among them are war, religious superstition, prostitution, famine, pestilence, crime, poverty, alcoholism, unemployment, illiteracy, race and national chauvinism, the suppression of woman, and every form of slavery and exploitation of one class by another. Socialism will liquidate these handicaps to the happiness and harmony. Capitalism, based upon human exploitation, stands as the great barrier to social progress. By abolishing the capitalist system, we release the productive forces strong enough to provide plenty for all and relegate the capitalist baggage of ignorance, strife, and misery to the past. Socialism frees humanity from the stultifying effects of the present essentially animal struggle for existence and opens up before it new horizons. The day is not so far distant when our children, will look back with horror upon capitalism and wonder just why it lasted for so long. For generations many have dreamed and planned their utopian societies and being mere speculations disconnected from actual life, they fell on deaf ears. Today, the socialist revolution is no longer an abstraction, a mere theory. The advance of the revolution is difficult but its direction is sure and its movement irresistible.
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