Beyond Resistance – Establishing Socialism

What is needed to be made is a fundamental change in the direction of society. Our compass for where we are headed should have socialism as its destination. We need to keep this end in view not to lose our way.

Today the capitalist class through its ownership of wealth holds economic power. Apart from perhaps small personal savings and maybe a house, the vast majority of people in Britain and elsewhere own nothing but their labour power, their ability to work. Wealth is produced by those who work by hand and brain, far in excess of the wages they are paid. The surplus goes to the capitalist owners or shareholders as profit. This is capitalist exploitation, the basis of all forms of rent and interest. The capitalist system is inevitably marked by gross inequality of opportunity. Driven by the urge for higher profit and in fierce competition, capitalism has developed from small-scale production in its early years, to present large-scale production, in which a few giant corporations dominate all branches of business. The drive towards further centralisation of capital by mergers is an economic law of capitalism. It results in greater and greater concentration of economic power in fewer and fewer hands, and the interlocking of industrial and financial capital. Huge conglomerates are created which do not confine their activities to one country, but straddle national frontiers. The process continues regardless of which political party is in office. It is not only economic power that is in the hands of the capitalist class. Political power is in the hands of the same class. The State is under the control of the same groups who control the wealth of the country and it serves their interests. The capitalist class does not only hold political and economic power. The same small elite controls the instruments of ideas through control of the mass media and whatever else that influences the minds and attitudes of the people. So there you have it, what we are up against, class power - economic, political, ideological.

The ruling class makes every effort to put the burden of the capitalism's problems upon the shoulders on working people. The rich few grow richer while the living standards of the majority are under constant attack. The capitalist purchaser of labour-power has only one object, viz., to enrich himself by making his money breed or expand, by the process of making commodities containing more labour than he pays for. This insatiable thirst for and headlong pursuit of surplus-value by employers has been for the workers and their families the cause of an exploitation more onerous than any form of exploitation previously known. So long as the means of production and labour are not joined together same hands, the production will retain the character of capital, and capital will inevitably exploit the workers and wring from them extra sweat and toil for which it will not pay.  The harder we work the more power we give the capitalist class to expropriate and enrich themselves. In contrast, with socialism for the first time in history, the individual will have the opportunity of real freedom, of real self-development, an opportunity one can never possess under the sordid struggle which characterises the capitalist society in which we live.

The Socialist Party through its activity and campaigns sharpen the weapons against the old society and build the confidence and strength of or fellow-workers. Socialism must always be the revolutionary idea to transfer of economic power from a small, greedy elite to the democratic control of the majority or it means nothing. Socialism means nothing unless it means control of society. It cannot be too strongly stressed that socialism means but one thing, and that is the abolition of capital in private or state hands. Anything else is not socialism. Socialism is not the establishment of a 30-hour week, not the abolition of zero-hour contracts or the creation of minimum wages. None of these, nor all of them together, is socialism. They might all be done by the government tomorrow, and still, we would not have socialism. They are merely reforms of the present system, mere band-aid patches on industrial servitude. While not opposing any reforms or improvements which may be secured under capitalism, the Socialist Party steadfastly declines to take time and resources away from its main battle, for revolution, in order to carry on the struggle for reform.   The one demand of the Socialist Party is unadulterated and undiluted socialism and the unconditional surrender by the capitalist class.  The Socialist Party claims the mantle of being the most humanitarian movement on the planet, more so than any philanthropic foundation or charity organisation. The Socialist Party - it and it alone - promotes the highest humanitarian hopes of humanity. The Socialist Party stands out unique as the only body based on the material programme which will make the realisation of those aspirations an accomplished fact. Socialism alone will supply the basis for permanent improvement in the condition of mankind.