Fan The Flames of Revolution

The aim of the Socialist Party is to replace world capitalist economy by world socialism.  To change the world and to create a better one has always been the goal of the Socialist Party. The hope that tomorrow's world can be free of today's inequalities, hardships and deprivations, The people can shape the world to come. But clearly, everyone's image of an ideal world is not one and the same, nevertheless, throughout history certain ideas have always come to the fore such as principles of freedom, equality, justice and prosperity. Socialism  is the movement for changing the world and setting up a free, equal, human and prosperous society, a movement that reflects the vision, ideals and protest of a vast section of the people.  Socialism is the revolutionary movement of the working class for overthrowing the capitalist system and creating a new society without classes and exploitation. The history of all societies has been a history of class struggle. An uninterrupted, now open and now hidden, struggle has been going on between exploiting and exploited, oppressor and oppressed classes in different epochs and societies. This class struggle is the chief source of social change and transformation. Modern capitalist society, has greatly simplified class divisions. Present society as a whole is organised around two main opposing class camps: workers and capitalists. Capitalism is based on the exploitation of direct producers — the appropriation of a part of the product of their labour by the ruling classes.   Under slavery not only the slave's product but he himself belonged to the slave- owner. He worked for the slave-owner, and in return was kept alive by him. In the feudal system the peasants either handed over part of their produce to the feudal lord, or performed certain hours of forced and unpaid labour. Under capitalism the workers, are free; they don't belong to anyone, are not appendages of any estate or lord. They own and control their own body and labour power. But workers are also 'free' in yet another sense: they are `free` from the ownership and possession of means of production, and so in order to live, they have to sell their labour power for a certain length of time, in exchange for wages, to the capitalist class — i.e. a small minority that own and monopolise the means of production. The workers have to then buy their means of subsistence — the goods they themselves have produced — in the market from the capitalists. The essence of capitalism and the basis of exploitation in this system is the fact that, on the one hand labour power is a commodity, and, on the other hand the means of production are the private property of the capitalist class.

In capitalism labour power and means of production are shut off from each other by the wall of private property; they are commodities and their owners must meet in a market. On the face of it, the owners of these commodities enter into a free and equal transaction: the worker sells his/her labour power for certain periods, in exchange for wages, to the capitalist, i.e. the owner of the means of production; the capitalist employs this labour power, uses it up and makes new products. These commodities are then sold in the market and the revenue begins the production cycle anew, as capital. However, behind the apparently equal exchange between labour and capital lies a fundamental inequality; an inequality which defines the lot of humanity today and without whose elimination society will never be free. With wages, workers only get back what they have sold, i.e. the ability to work and to show up in the market once again. By its daily work the working class only ensures its continued existence as worker, its survival as the daily seller of labour power. But capital in this process grows and accumulates. Labour power is a creative power; it generates new values for its buyer. The value of the commodities and services produced by the worker at any cycle of the production process is greater than the worker's total share and that portion of the products which goes into restoring the used up materials and wear and tear. This surplus value, taking the form of an immense stock of commodities, belongs automatically to the capitalist class, and increases the mass of its capital, by virtue of the capitalist class's ownership of the means of production. Labour power in its exchange with capital only reproduces itself, while capital in its exchange with labour power grows. The creative capacity of labour power and the working class's productive activity reflects itself as the birth of new capital for the capitalist class. The more and the better the working class works, the more power capital acquires. The gigantic power of capital in the world today and its ever-expanding domination of the economic, political and intellectual life of the billions of inhabitants of the earth is nothing but the inverted image of the creative power of work and of working humanity.  Exploitation in capitalist society takes place without yokes and shackles around the ankles of the producers,  through the medium of the market and exchange of commodities. This is the fundamental feature of capitalism which distinguishes it in essence from all earlier systems. The surplus value obtained from the exploitation of the working class is divided out among the various sections of the capitalist class essentially through the market mechanism and also through state fiscal and monetary policies. Profit, interest and rent are the major forms in which the different capitals share in the fruits of this class exploitation. The competition of capitals in the market determines the share of each capitalist branch, unit and enterprise. This surplus pays whole cost of the state machinery, of its ideological and cultural institutions, and the upkeep of all those who, through these institutions, uphold the power of the master-class. By its work, the working class pays the cost of the ruling class, the ever-increasing accumulation of capital and the bourgeoisie's political, cultural and intellectual domination over the working class and the entire society. With the accumulation of capital, the mass of commodities which make up the wealth of bourgeois society grows. An inevitable result of the accumulation process is the continual and accelerating technological progress and rise in the mass and capacity of the means of production which the working class sets in motion in every new cycle of the production process. But compared to the growth in society's wealth and productive powers, the working class continually gets relatively poorer. Despite the gradual and limited increase, in absolute terms, in the workers' standard of living, the share of the working class from the social wealth declines rapidly, and the gap between the living conditions of the working class and the higher living standards that is already made possible by its own work widens. The richer the society becomes, the more impoverished a section the worker forms in it.

Technological progress and rise in labour productivity mean that living human labour power is increasingly replaced by machines and automatic systems. In a free and human society, this should mean more free time and leisure for all. But in capitalist society, where labour power and means of production are merely so many commodities which capital employs to make profits, the substitution of humans by machines manifests itself as a permanent unemployment of a section of the working class which is now denied the possibility of making a living. The appearance of a reserve army of workers who do not even have the possibility of selling their labour power is an inevitable result of the process of accumulation of capital and at the same time a condition of capitalist production. The existence of this reserve army of unemployed, supported essentially by the employed section of the working class itself, heightens the competition in the ranks of the working class and keeps wages at their lowest socially possible level. This reserve army also allows capital to more easily modify the size of its employed work force in proportion to the needs of the market. Massive unemployment is not a side-effect of the market or a result of the bad policies of some government. It is an inherent part of the workings of capitalism and the process of accumulation of capital.

A socialist society will abolish the class division of society, i.e., simultaneously with the abolition of anarchy in production, it will abolish all forms of exploitation and oppression of man by man. Society will no longer consist of antagonistic classes in conflict with each other, but will present a cooperative commonwealth of labour. For the first time in its history mankind will take its fate into its own hands. Work will cease to be toiling for the benefit of a class enemy. The road to the emancipation of the workers, and with them, of mankind, is the social revolution. Humankind will be organised into a free federation of producers’ and consumers’ communes. 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 experience of mankind. The workers striking off their age-old chains of slavery, will construct a society of liberty and prosperity and intelligence. Socialism will inaugurate a new era for the human race, the building of a new world. The overthrow of capitalism and the development of socialism will bring about the immediate or eventual solution of many great social problems, among them war, superstition, famine, pestilence, crime, poverty, drug and alcohol addiction, unemployment, illiteracy, race and national chauvinism, the suppression of woman, and every form of slavery and exploitation of one class by another. The revolution will eventually liquidate these handicaps to the happiness and progress of the human race. Only socialism can fully uproot and destroy all these social evils. As long as there have been class divisions there will be struggles for social mastery. Socialism would prevent the evils of class division, subjection, and exploitation. Although there is little hatred for the capitalist system in the abstract many workers hold a burning anger and disgust for every successive calamity which comes to them as a matter of course. It is a call of every worker who has heart enough to feel a hatred for the wrongs and agonies of the capitalist system to realise the possibility of an alternative.

The capitalist system is behind all the ills that burden humanity today. Poverty, deprivation, discrimination, inequality, political repression, ignorance, bigotry, cultural backwardness, unemployment, homelessness, economic and political insecurity, corruption and crime are all inevitable products of this system. No doubt pro-capitalist philosophers will respond that these have not been invented by capitalism, but have all existed before capitalism, that exploitation, repression, discrimination, women's oppression, ignorance and prejudice are more or less as old as human society itself. What they disguise is the fact that, firstly, all these problems have found a new meaning in this society, corresponding to the needs of capitalism. These are being constantly reproduced as integral parts of the modern capitalist system. The source of poverty, starvation, unemployment, homelessness and economic insecurity at the end of the 20th century is the economic system in place at the end of the 20th century. The brutal dictatorships, wars, genocides, and repressions that define the life of hundreds of millions of people today draw their rationale from the needs of the system that rules the world today and serve specific interests in this world. Women's oppression today is not the result of medieval economy and morality, but a product of the present society's economic and social system and moral values. Secondly, it is the capitalist system itself continually and relentlessly resists people's effort to eradicate and overcome these ills. The obstacle to workers' struggle to improve living conditions and civil rights is none other than the capitalist class and its governments and political parties. Wherever people rise to take charge of their lives, the first barrier they face is the armed force of the local and international ruling class. It is the State, its enormous media and propaganda machinery, the institution of religion, traditions, moralities and educational system which shape the prejudiced attitudes among successive generations. There is no doubt that it is capitalists who stand in the way of the attempts by the people, more or less in possession of a clear outline of a society worthy of human beings, to change the system.

At the height of capitalism's globalisation and in the midst of the greatest technological development, humanity finds itself facing bare physical survival. The dream has given way to the permanent nightmare of war, hunger, and disease.  The miserable promise of the welfare state has resulted in massive U-turns with the resurgence of austerity policies and the abandoning of the livelihood of millions, old and young, to the mercy of the free market. The capitalist system and the primacy of profit have exposed the environment to serious dangers and irreparable damages. This is the reality of capitalism today, boding a horrifying future for the entire people of the world.