As long as the experience of the disastrous mistakes of the past has not been applied, the working class won't escape exploitation. Lessons from the past must be absorbed for use in the future, otherwise, each generation has to drink from a poisoned well
The development of capitalism, particularly the industrial revolution, marked the entrance into history of the working class, a class that was totally propertyless, having no way to earn a living except to sell its ability to work for the capitalist or property-owning class. In return for selling its labour the working receives “wages” – only partial payment for the value it created, and barely enough to return back to work another day, to produce more value and profits for the capitalist. The nature of capitalist society is such that the capitalist always tries to minimise the cost of production and maximise profits. This can only be done at the worker’s expense, the worker that finds himself constantly the victim of attempts by the capitalist to lengthen the working day, or speeding up production and reducing wages. The workers and capitalist do constant battle over the level of wages, the price of labour. Our present society is founded upon the exploitation of the propertyless class by the propertied. This exploitation is such that the propertied (capitalists) but the working force body and soul of the propertyless, for the price of the mere cost of existence (wages) and take for themselves, i.e., steal the amount of new values (products) which exceeds the price, whereby wages are made to represent the necessities instead of the earnings of the wage-labourer.
Under the capitalist system, the, constant striving for profits from investments always endeavours to bring real wages down. Unless the workers engage in collective struggle to maintain their living standards they and their families would become destitute, and this type of struggle, trade union struggle, develops spontaneously among the workers. This economic struggle is allowed for by the capitalist system, and is even necessary for its continuation, for how else can the workers, whom the capitalist needs to exploit, how else can they survive? One thing capitalism must not do, at its peril—it must not kill the goose that lays the golden egg. We are all for militant trade unionism. It is fine as far as it goes. But it only goes so far and no further. The trade unions see their struggle as one waged primarily inside the capitalist system for the improvement of the worker’s condition. The trade unions fight around contracts serves as an excellent example of the limitation of the unions. But even a ”good contract” still simply means the worker has only won a better deal for the selling of his or her labour power, the fundamental causes of this problem still exists – the capitalist system. The working class needs unions, but much more, it needs a revolutionary socialist party. We do not win the workers to revolutionary politics simply by sloganising, but must educate and agitate in order to raise class consciousness. . The socialist party attacks the fundamental cause of the workers' problems - the capitalist system itself. This system is unjust, insane, and murderous. It is, therefore, necessary to totally end it. The position of the Socialist Party is agitation for the purpose of organisation and organisation for the purpose of social revolution. The Socialist Party proposes a system of common ownership of the means of production administered by society as a whole on a harmonious plan, ensuring from every person according to their capacity and to every person according to needs, under the motto “All for each and each for All”.
This social revolution is the essential objective of the Socialist Party, the end towards which every step it takes must directly tend towards. The task is no mere pastime; it is a grim fight. It can be solved by nothing short of the worldwide destruction of the capitalist system. For the immediate future, the main duty of the Socialist Party and of every member of it is to establish the widest and closest possible contact with our fellow-workers of all lands and to promote the socialist message among them, confident that if we play our part we shall see the robber and butcher class brought down. We hold aloft the crimson banner of world socialism when the class war shall be forever stamped out, when mankind shall no longer cower under the brutality of the oppressor, when the necessaries and amenities of life, the comfort, and the culture shall not be to him who exploits. Our new world one where none shall be called master and none servant, but all shall be fellow-workers in common.
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