We must take the work of salvation into our own hands in order to guard against deceitful “friends.” The socialist movement is a “do-it-yourself” movement. There is one, and only one, revolutionary strategy. Help yourselves. We in the Socialist Party do not have a loose definition of socialism that which s everything and everybody and mean nothing to anybody. We laid down our definition and principles, based on our understanding of capitalism, which is fundamentally the same to-day as it was in 1904. We don’t want new definitions which will please all-comers and principles which don’t offend.
Marx and Engels said “The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves. We cannot, therefore, co-operate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic big bourgeois and petty bourgeois.”
Their ally Joseph Dietzgen explained, "If a worker wants to take part in the self-emancipation of his class, the basic requirement is that he should cease allowing others to teach him and should set about teaching himself."
Eugene Debs pointed out “I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition; as it is now the capitalists use your heads and your hands."
That is why socialist democracy requires the widest participation in decision-making at all levels. Workers cannot transform themselves unless they are free to do so. The objective of the Socialist Party is a society in which “the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all” as in The Communist Manifesto, and this cannot be achieved by authoritarian methods. If self-emancipation is the goal, it must be the means as well. Defenders of capitalism have been very happy to endorse dictatorial exploitative regimes that called themselves socialist as examples of socialism so to destroy the very concept of socialism in the minds of millions of people. Our job as socialists is to help people see through the illusions of capitalism, to understand that we are faced with this stark choice of socialism or barbarism, and to encourage a vision of self-emancipation. Capitalism rests on the domination of the overwhelming majority by a small minority. And one of the worst things about this domination is that it is experienced as such, without being understood as such.
The working class constitutes the majority of the population. The struggle against the capitalist class is a struggle against all who live by the labour of others, and against all exploitation. It can only end in the capture of political power by the working class, and the transferral of all land, transportation, factories, mills and mines to the whole of society under which all that is produced benefit the people themselves. The Socialist Party declares that its aim is to develop the class consciousness of the workers through our agitation in the class struggle. The Socialist Party stands for the self-emancipation of the working class, thus, we seek to be open about our goals with our fellow-workers.
Reformism accepts the basic structure of the system while striving to modify certain institutions and internal structures. The reformists fail miserably because of their basically unsound economic premise. Applying themselves to the treatment of EFFECTS, they leave untouched the CAUSE of poverty, insecurity and war: CAPITALISM. Capitalism has developed the economic resources of the world to that extent where socialism, from the economic standpoint, is a practical possibility NOW. The only barrier is the lack of a socialist majority, organised for the conquest of political power and the establishment of the socialist system of society. Consequently we consider that the task of socialists in the Socialist Party, is to use all means at their disposal for the making of socialists. We contend that it is impossible to change society through the medium of reforms, and that the change to socialism must be effected at the base of society, which is the ownership of the means of production (at present in the hands of the capitalist class). To convert these means of living into the common property of society and to create a class-free and wage-less society where 'each will give according to his ability and take according to his needs ’ is the only true perspective of socialists. Socialism, once established, will mean complete economic and social equality. Every one will stand in an equal relationship to the means of production, owning none of it as individuals but owning all of it by their membership of the community.
The Socialist Party, at and between every general election, points to the way out by replacing capitalism with socialism. All those who chose capitalism by voting Labour, Tory, LibDem or nationalist have only themselves to thank. They have got what they voted for. There have been innumerable Acts of Parliament aimed at ending the workers' problems. Only in socialism, where production of all things is solely for the satisfaction of people's needs, is a solution to be found. In socialism, where human needs will be the only factor governing production, when a point is reached at which a sufficiency of all things has been produced. it will simply mean more leisure time for the producers without the attendant hardships of today. The only way to end the economic anarchy that is capitalism was to institute a socialist society.
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