Our task in the Socialist Party

Vague and misunderstood, or meaningless, phrases have proved useful weapons to the ruling classes, or would-be ruling classes, throughout history as means to rally to their support the mass of the population. Every class that has risen to power has exploited its own particular catchphrases to blind and mislead the rest of society. The antidote to the blind following the blind is to arm yourself with the necessary knowledge that will acquaint you with the road you must travel to achieve your freedom from wage slavery. Once you have grasped the fundamentals of your position in society you will lay down the policy to be carried out and you will not require ‘‘leaders” and understand the futility and foolishness of trusting in "leaders.” Socialism will not be possible until the mass of the workers understand it and are prepared to vote for it. If a working class that did not understand socialism were to vote for it, the result would only be chaos, as the first attempts to put it into operation would bewilder the majority of people and leave the way open for a counter-revolution. When the workers understand socialism they will know what to expect and what will be involved in putting it into operation.

The Socialist Party views the imposition of poverty in any of its aspects (jobs, housing, education etc.) on any grounds whatsoever as a feature of capitalism. Within the ambit of that system’s production for profit ethos, scarcity is an inevitable feature. Capitalism cannot exist without poverty, without unemployment and without penalising those who, for whatever reason, do not offer the profit system the maximum surplus value. The failure of good intentions, Keynesian 'magic' and reforming zeal to remove the social ugliness of capitalism should drive people to consider an alternative form of social organisation, such as socialism.  The abolition of poverty and the abolition of capitalism shall be accomplished at one and the same time.

 Until the workers arrive at that stage in the development of their knowledge of their own position in Society, which we, in the Socialist Party, term “class-consciousness.” The Socialist Party must carry on the work of education and agitation, to help in producing that knowledge or consciousness of the fact that their misery and poverty is due to one class in society owning all the means of life—as the land, machinery, factories, railways, etc., and the wealth when it is produced—while the working class owns only the energy, ability or power to work—inseparable from the workers themselves—which they have to sell day by day or week by week, in order to obtain the necessaries of life. With every improvement in technology, with every fresh application of science to industry,— the number of workers required to produce a given amount of wealth, or number of articles, continually decreases. We thus get the apparent paradox that while the amount of wealth produced increases the number of unemployment increases also. This antagonism of material interests causes a struggle to arise over the share which each is endeavouring to obtain of the wealth produced. And the only way out of this vicious circle is for the working-class to recognise this opposition of interest between themselves the producers—and the capitalist class the appropriators and to end this intolerable system by taking bold of the means of life to be owned and controlled by the workers in their social capacity. There can be no crying of peace where only the conditions of war exist, and any assistance given to the capitalist class, either politically or economically, is a direct injury to the working class.

 Parliament cannot make something happen simply by passing laws: otherwise, there would be no crime. And some laws are widely ignored. But Parliament has the power to enforce its decrees and to punish those who go against them; if Parliament chooses not to use its powers, that is not evidence that that power does not exist. Parliament controls the state machine, which means the armed forces, the police, the prisons, and so on. If socialists were to ignore this and seek to seize power by some means other than capturing Parliament and so controlling the state machine. we would be courting disaster. If there are cynicism and scepticism about political activity and about the power of Parliament (which is not borne out by the large turn-out in important elections) this is a side effect of the evident futility of what Parliament does. And far from glossing over the problems of persuading the working class to see through the propaganda for capitalism and to consciously opt for a new society, this is our preoccupation as a socialist party. Whatever the circumstances surrounding former revolutions, the fact is that they have all been in the interests of one minority against another. The overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by socialism must be the act of a conscious majority of the working class and will, therefore, be democratic and not based on violence — although, if a minority were to try to obstruct the will of the majority, they would, of course, be dealt with.

Workers who are in the police and armed forces are as susceptible to the case for Socialism as anyone else. With the development of socialist consciousness the state machine’s power will progressively decline to the point at which, when the majority are socialists, it will disappear. The few policemen or soldiers who are left may well prefer to play football to trying to defend a discredited inhuman system at death’s door. The case for socialism is based on a materialist interpretation of the evidence of history. Idealism, well-meaning or otherwise, it certainly is not.

What then is our alternative to voting Labour (or Tory or Nationalist for that matter)? A vote for the set-up Labour (and the other big political parties) stand for is a vote to remain enslaved. Enslaved by the wages system and the world market which, regardless of government action, decree unemployment, slumps, trade wars sometimes leading to real wars, destruction of food “surpluses”, mental anxiety, the wreckage of the environment, adulterated food, shoddy houses and ugly cities. The only worthwhile vote is for a political party having as its sole aim the replacement of this system by another, one which we call socialism and define as a world of common ownership, democratic control, production for use and free access. In this country, this means voting for the Socialist Party of Great Britain where it presents candidates and, where not, registering your view by writing the words WORLD SOCIALISM across your ballot paper.