SOCIALISM—OUR AIM

The Socialist Party visualises a social system that would be based on the common ownership of the means of production, the elimination of private profit in the means of production, the abolition of the wage system, the abolition of the division of society into classes. The aim of the party is to popularise the principles of socialism and to aid in the work of transforming society from a capitalist to a cooperative commonwealth. We don’t propose the elimination of personal possessions. We speak of those things which are necessary for the production of the people’s needs

They shall be owned in common by all the people. Our Declaration of Principles forms a clear statement of our ideas to inform the world where our party stands, and to guide the party activities. The Socialist Party runs candidates wherever it is able to get on the ballot. We conduct campaigns during the elections, and in general, to the best of our ability, and to the limit of our resources, we participate in election campaigns. We believe that the modern world is an economic unit. No country is self-sufficient. It is impossible to solve the accumulated problems of the present day, except on a world scale; no nation is self-sufficient, and no nation can stand alone. The economy of the world now is all tied together in one unit, and because we think that the solution of the problem of the day—the establishment of socialism—is a world problem, we believe that the advanced workers in every country must collaborate in working toward that goal. We have advocated for the international organisation of the workers, the World Socialist Movement, and the cooperation and mutual assistance of its companion parties in all respects. The Socialist Party is opposed to all forms of national chauvinism, race prejudice, gender and sexual orientation discrimination, 

Capitalism is a society that did not always exist. Like preceding social systems, it went through a period of gestation in the womb of the old feudal society. It grew and developed as against feudal society, eventually overthrew it by revolutionary means, raised the productivity of mankind to undreamed of heights. Capitalism operates by certain internal laws which were analysed and laid bare by Marx in the Communist Manifesto and then in Capital. Primarily, the private ownership of the means of production and the employment of wage labour at wages less than the value of the product produced by the wage labourer. This creates a surplus which the capitalist proprietor has to sell in the market. It is obvious that the wage worker, who receives for his labour less than the total value of his product. can be a customer only for that amount of the value that he receives in the form of wages. The balance is surplus value, as Marx explained it, for which the capitalist must find a market. The workers are exploited by the capitalists. There is a constant conflict of interests between them, an unceasing struggle between these classes.

As long as the capitalist system remains recurring wars are inevitable. The Socialist Party has always stated that it is impossible to prevent wars without abolishing the capitalist system which breeds war. It may be possible to delay a war for a while, but eventually, it is impossible to prevent wars while this system remains. That does not eliminate the possibility of incidental and accidental attacks being caused by this or that country but fundamentally wars are caused by the efforts of all the capitalist powers to expand markets and spheres of influence The only way they can get them is by taking them away from some other power, because the whole world has been divided up among a small group of imperialist powers. That is what leads to war, regardless of the will of the people. We do not maintain that the ruling class (in general) actively seeks and desires war but they can not avoid it and retain the rewards of the capitalist system in their country. The Socialist Party does not give any support to any war, (other than the class war) We do not vote for it; we do not speak for it; we do not write for it. We are in opposition to it. Within socialism, there are no longer capitalists who profit by war, who see in war the way to secure more markets and a chance to dominate the world. 

The law of competition between capitalists results inevitably in the bigger capitalists, the ones with the more modern, more efficient, and productive enterprises, crushing out the small ones, either by destroying them or absorbing them until the number of independent proprietors grows continually less and the number of pauperised people increases by leaps and bounds, until the wealth becomes concentrated in the hands of a very few people, and the great mass of the people, especially of the workers, are confronted with ever-increasing difficulties of an economic and social nature. The real revolutionary factors, the real powers that are driving for socialism, are the contradictions within the capitalist system itself. All that the Socialist Party campaigning and agitation can do is to try to foresee theoretically what is possible and what is probably in the line of social revolution, to prepare people’s minds for it, to convince them of the desirability of it, to try to organise them to accelerate it and to bring it about in the most economical and effective way.

The social revolution “is a movement of the immense majority in the interests of the immense majority” to distinguish it from previous revolutions which had been made in the interest of minorities. Socialism cannot be imposed on the people from above. Capitalism by itself does not “evolve” into socialism. It has to be transformed into socialism by the conscious action and struggle of men and women. No longer can the capitalists by virtue of the fact that they own the means of production, live off the labour of the working class. No longer are the workers compelled to sell their labour power to the capitalists in order to live. The workers are no longer property-less proletarians. They now own the means of production and work them in their own interests and in the interests of society. For society is now composed or workers by hand and brain, i.e. free associations of wealth-producers.