What we need is members!

The world about us is falling to pieces. The need for revolution is being increasingly widely realised. The world today is characterised by a growing awareness of the widening gap between rich and poor with popular outrage at the massive salaries and share option schemes awarded to those who run various industries has become a journalistic commonplace. We live in a world dominated by capitalism, a system which allows a small minority of capitalists to oppress and exploit the great majority of humankind. It is capitalism that brings about great inequalities in living standards with more poor people now in the world than ever before, starts murderous wars to steal the resources of less developed countries and causes the growing devastation of our natural environment. Either we get rid of this outmoded and increasingly decrepit system or it will devastate humanity. The hour is late and urgent action is necessary. People know that capitalism is no good but few can see a way forward to a better type of society. The only viable way forward is revolutionary struggle to achieve a class-free and state-free society on a world scale where people do not oppress and exploit each other and where we live in harmony with our natural environment.  To create world socialism it is necessary to overthrow the rule of capitalism and this can be done only through a social revolution. The working class depose the capitalist ruling class and establish socialism, a system of real, popular democracy that sets about the reconstruction of society

The working class is defined as all those who:

1) Do not own the means of production; 

2) Have to sell their labour-power to the capitalist class to make a living; 

3) Directly, or indirectly, create surplus value... which is expropriated by the capitalist class.

In a capitalist society, that which the worker sells — labour power — his or her physical and mental skill, takes on the character of a commodity. This exploitation, or expropriation of surplus value, creates an irreconcilable, antagonistic class contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie. Only the emancipation from capital itself can liberate the working class. Its mission, therefore, is to overthrow the bourgeoisie, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, and replace capitalism with socialism, a classless society. The working class is not a small, narrow class but constitutes the majority of the population. 

Socialism is rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is to work. This was how Marx and Engels defined socialism. The revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system is the historic mission of the working class. To use the word “socialism” for anything but people’s power is to misuse the term. State ownership of mines, railways, steel, etc. is not socialism.  Nor is the “Welfare State” socialist. Although the Left claims to have for their object the ultimate establishment of a new social system, their immediate aim is the reforming of the present social system. Their appeals are mainly made to those workers who desire to improve their lot within the confines of the capitalist system.

The task of the Socialist Party, therefore, is to help the transfer of power from the capitalist class to the workers. The Socialist Party's aim has to be not a better wage, but people’s power. We have to remember that all politics is about power. Capitalism is maintained by class power and will only be displaced by other class power. The Socialist Party calls for power for the working people. The reformists exercise power on behalf of the oppressor, and who claims to do a little good on the side. The Socialist Party is not a reform party. Its avowed purpose is the abolition of the present social order, the ending of the exploitation of labour by an idle parasitic class. It makes its direct appeal for the support of the workers as propertyless wage-slaves, not as “tax-paying” citizens, nor as charity chasers, seeking a handout, or dole, from the capitalist state. It points to the necessity for the conquest of political power from the capitalists and the reorganising of society upon a class-free basis. Certain economic laws govern the capitalist system, which is a commodity-producing one. A knowledge of those laws is imperative if the workers are going to participate intelligently in the daily struggles against their exploiters.

The Socialist Party has pursued the policy of reaching as large numbers as possible with a sound elementary advocacy of socialist principles. This work has been carried out through public meetings, literature, lectures, and personal contact “on the job” and elsewhere. In fact, everywhere that workers gather it has been our aim to keep class issues before them. It is only through studying history from an economic and class viewpoint that the real facts reveal themselves. A knowledge of history is useful to the workers, but they are often encumbered with it, not enlightened. The mode of interpreting history, as taught by the Socialist Party, the Marxist materialistic conception of history, is an illuminating method that clarifies historical research. The capitalist class and their servants dare not divulge history as a history of class struggles. Yet upon close examination that is all that we find it to be. The State upholds the power of the owning class, the capitalists, and represses (when necessary) the producing class, the workers when they resist the rule and robbery of their masters. The State, or government, is the real organised force that confronts the masses of the people, the exploited proletarians. Organisation must be met with organisation, and ultimately the workers must triumph. Without this course being pursued, the workers and their children, and their children’s children will remain the wage-slaves of the capitalists forever.

The hour is late. Join with us now.