Towards a Socialist Co-operative Commonwealth.

There seem a great many persons, calling themselves socialists nowadays but who foremost fancy themselves before all things as sensible and level-headed so the immediate prospect of building a socialist society is placed on the back-burner for some time in the indeterminable future. The members of the Socialist Party are no utopians. They are not are impractical visionaries. The Socialist Party claims to possess an adequate explanation of the present economic facts (and of a great many other things besides), and also to show the only way out of the present situation. Capitalism – production for profit – presupposes a class of property-holders, who monopolise the means of living, and a class who have only their labour-force to offer in exchange for the necessaries of life. The capitalist, as a capitalist, must seek to intensify the working day and to keep down wages, in order thereby to increase his share in the product of labour – his profit.  The worker has to defend him or herself against the capitalist and soon finds that the only way to do this is by organisation. Hence the trades union. But we ask you to consider that the great aim of socialism is the abolition of capitalism, itself and the transformation of the divided world into communal world. Capitalism must be abolished. Working people need to throw the capitalist parties out of office and form their own administration committed to fundamentally transform society. The needs of working people can only be met by creating a planned economy, where ownership and control of production and distribution are taken from the tiny minority of capitalists and placed in the hands of the working people, to be run democratically. When the vast resources available to us are used to serve the needs of all instead of the profits of the few, in a world socialist commonwealth, then the way will be opened for unparalleled growth in culture, freedom and the development of every individual. Such a society is worth fighting for.

The capitalist mode of production has posed before humanity the alternatives: Socialism or Barbarism.  Capitalism has long been the central obstacle to social progress and can promise the world’s peoples only further economic crises, famine, war, oppression, and the destruction of the environment. The world capitalist economy remains shaky and unstable. The relatively good economic activity still observed in a number of capitalist countries is due in large measure to the arms drive and other transient factors. However, the capitalist economy is bound to encounter deeper slumps and crises.

The only definitive solution to these problems is the elimination of capitalism and its institutions, and the establishment of common ownership of the means of production with rational social planning.


Thus, the fundamental task of revolutionary Marxists is to build a mass socialist party capable of overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism. We in the Socialist Party, desire above all things to advance the case for socialism, and by socialism we mean, the common ownership of all the agencies of wealth production, and this involves the complete supercession of the capitalist system and the conducting of all industry on a co-operative basis. The abolition of the present system of production means substituting production for use for production for sale. Ownership by the workers in common of the instruments of production; that means a co-operative system of production and the extinction of the exploitation of the workers, who become masters of their own products and who themselves appropriate the surplus of which, under our system, they are deprived by the capitalist.

 Capitalism has developed as a world economic system. It is illusory to believe that the much higher development of the productive forces that socialism entails can be achieved within the framework of a single country. The division of the world into different nation-states imposes a definite form on the revolutionary process. The working-class must and can take power in the territories defined by different existing states. But the construction of socialism can be completed only on a world scale. The Socialist Party wants not only a society in which people’s needs are provided for by an abundance of goods and better social services but in which their great and varied capacities can be fully developed. Changing the economic system is not an end in itself. It is a means of creating conditions in which human beings will be able to realise their full potentialities and work together for the common good, instead of being divided by class, sex, or race. Capitalism distorts human individuality, subordinates men and women to the needs of the profit system sets them against each other. Socialism aims to develop their individuality by creating a society in which exploitation and poverty are ended, and the resources of science and technology used to reduce the time spent in monotonous and mechanical jobs to a minimum, and vastly increase the amount devoted to leisure and creative work. It is the people themselves who have to build socialism, become involved in government, and be responsible for the development of society. In the process, new attitudes to society, to work and to culture will develop. New relations, based on co-operation instead of domination and exploitation, will come into being between the sexes, between generations, between races, and between nations.

We declare that the most important work that men and women can engage in is that of helping on the overthrow of capitalism, and the building of the socialist co-operative commonwealth.