Saturday, June 23, 2018

Tremble, oppressors of the world!

The Socialist Party breaks with the deceptions of reformist politics and poses directly the central issue: the class struggle for socialism. Our success in an election campaign is not to be measured in votes won but in the extent and the depth to which they have succeeded in bringing the core issue before the consciousness of the masses. Demagogy means the adaptation of policy and campaigns to the prejudices of the audience to which it is hoped to appeal, without regard to the truth or correctness of principles.  Demagogy is the exploitation of ignorance in direct contrast to a principled position. The Socialist Party stands for its principles instead of pandering to prejudices. The issue for the working class is the CLASS issue. The working class must make its stand against the capitalist system – whose lust for profits and interest, for investments, markets, and expanded capital, for raw materials and cheap exploitable labour, can mean only exploitation and abject slavery. Then ALL the peoples of the world will indeed be free. For it must be understood that distribution is always ultimately controlled by those who own and control production. Today the bosses own. Tomorrow, the workers would own production, to control and direct distribution in the interests of the majority. It is us the task of the Socialist Party to take the anger and the hatred that our fellow-workers have toward this capitalist system and arm it with an understanding of why we have to live this way, whose fault it is and what we can do about it. It is only by understanding how capitalism runs against the interests of working people, of how capitalism must be fought by the working class and all others who can be united behind it and when the people can be armed with an understanding of capitalism as the enemy – then we can advance on the road to the socialist revolution. Only by completely getting rid of this system of wage slavery and its law of profits and the system in which the capitalists own and control everything, including us and our labour can we advance to socialism. We’ll sweep away the capitalist system and we’ll build our new future. A future where we workers will run the factories, produce for our needs and not for the profits of the capitalist bosses. There can be no gradual step-by-step process where we can win, it’s only by getting rid of the whole system of capitalism, that we can build a new society run by and for the working people.

Only when the stored-up labour is utilized for the social good, can we realize the full potentialities of human productivity. Only when accumulated labour belongs to those who produce it – to the worker who turns the wheels, instead of to the capitalist who reaps the dividends – will men and women be free. Hunger in the midst of plenty is the distinguishing mark of the capitalist system of production. The tremendous power of technology produces commodities far beyond the possibilities of control by the profit system. The anarchy of production for the market brings about the shutdown of plants, widespread unemployment, bankruptcies of businesses, disruption of world trade, disturbance of the monetary and financial system, the frantic search of capitalists for new outlets and new markets. Hunger, disease, and death stalk all the peoples of the planet. This is the capitalist world. This is the world of competition, of exploitation, of production for profit. The capitalist world remains an armed camp awaiting only the passage of a few more years before it is ready to plunge into another bloody carnage to determine which of the great powers shall dominate the world in the interest of profit. Capitalism outlived its usefulness long ago. It is no longer capable of progress, of raising the standards of living of the people. Capitalism is only capable of guaranteeing new misery. All capitalist enterprises are out to produce as much as it can, to grab as much of the market as it can, for it is in sales that it realises its profits. Capital is simply money and commodities assigned to create a profit and be reinvested. Profit is made by the "magical" addition of surplus value to the value inherent in the product. The "added value," the profit, is produced by workers. And this capital is born to expand or die. To be useful, the investment must result not only in a profit but at a growing rate of profit. The value of a commodity comes from the labor invested in it, including the labor that manufactured the machinery and extracted the raw materials used to create the item. And the boss' profits do not come from his smarts or his capital investment or his mark-up, but from the value created by labor - specifically, surplus-value.

Surplus value derives from unpaid wages. The worker is never paid for the value of the product, only for the value of her or his labour time, which is considerably less, and which meanders widely depending upon the historical, cultural and social conditions of a country. Labour-power is miraculous, like the Virgin Birth. You get more out of it than you put in. Workers produce a commodity which has more value than what they get in wages to keep them functioning. This differential is surplus value, which is the source of capital. The secret of value, the labour theory of value, that was unearthed by the classical economists and by Marx is what the money barons fear and hate. It is the secret that will set the world free. People will learn how to control the supposedly sacred, eternal, and inscrutable method of production and distribution that now controls us.

But the people of the world want an end to this system. They want jobs, peace, freedom, security. They want a new life; they want a change from the chaos of the profit system, that system of “free enterprise” which has proved its incapacity to maintain production in the interest of the people. A new life, a new social, system, that is, socialism, is the only hope for humanity. When we fight for peace, freedom, security and plenty for all, they are fighting for socialism, which alone can guarantee these blessings. Socialists will produce for use according to a reasonable plan and without a thought for the odious notion of profit. And with no insatiable parasitic class to maintain, socialist society will produce abundance for all. That's a fact. The global human family will arrange its standard of living as easily as affluent families do today.



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