TOWARDS WORLD SOCIALISM

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one that is hacking at the root.” - Henry David Thoreau

Socialism has not triumphed yet the Socialist Party has not given way to despair even if our numbers are decreasing. Now, more than ever, there is a chance, and an urgent need, to build a party to end capitalism, not to run it. The failure of socialist parties claiming to be based on Marxian principles to win the support of the workers has been and. is the primary factor in the success of reformist parties. Many have expressed the opinion that the name “socialist” has kept the workers away have advocated a change of name. We remain firm to the Communist Manifesto that we disdain to conceal our views and aims.

Trade unions arose because working people needed organisations to defend themselves and their standard of living against their employers. Trade unions are still key organisations of the working class. It should be clear that the trade unions are absolutely necessary to the workers under capitalism. The worker’s trade union is the only organisation which stands between a worker and the capitalists. In a class society, the dominant economic class makes and enforces the rules. The Socialist Party is against capitalism because it does not provide the majority of world’s population with the basic necessities of life and is based on inequality and theft and. We intend to replace it with mutual aid and a cooperative commonwealth where society democratically controls the means of production. We go by the maxim: To each according to their need, from each according to their ability. We, in the Socialist Party, want to replace the rule of a handful of exploiters, the monopoly capitalists, with the rule of the working class, the producers of the wealth of society. We seek to replace the anarchy of capitalist production, with its recessions and insecurities with a planned socialist economy, based on the needs of working people. We stand for the fullest democracy for the many over the few. We seek to subvert the domination of the employers over the workers and resist the idea that workers should cooperate with management for their mutual betterment. The capitalist system can only survive by enslaving and exploiting the vast majority of people. We must change the material basis upon which the exploitation and enslavement of people exists by destroying the capitalist system.

Capitalism is a pretty good system for those in charge: a small number of immensely wealthy men who have convinced the vast majority of the population – those of us who work our entire lives away making them rich – that they have the right to decide how the world will be run. A socialist revolution differs from all previous revolutions for a number of reasons. The socialist revolution is the first revolution aimed at a consciously planned overthrow of existing society. Like other revolutions, the socialist revolution grows out of class antagonisms, but the workers’ revolution does not stop at the revolutionary seizure of power. It overthrows all existing human relationships and brings the whole working class into self-activity. Unlike previous revolutions, the socialist revolution can only conclude with the construction of a worldwide class-free society. The more the class struggle intensifies, the more the oppressed begin to free themselves from the ideas of the ruling class. The Socialist Party stands for the self-emancipation of the working class. The growth of the class consciousness of the working class is not automatically guaranteed. The political thinking, organising, and action of the workers must be stimulated and promoted inside the labour movement itself. We believe that the present system of capitalism is not part of an eternal “natural order” of things nor a consequence of “human nature. The problems we face – unemployment, poverty, recessions, are not some “illness” of capitalism, they are an essential part of how it works. All these evils are the direct result of the private ownership of wealth, and the consequent exploitation by a few of the mass of the population, the workers who produce all wealth – and whose reward is a tiny pittance. Around the globe this disproportion is increasing as more and more wealth is concentrated into the group of fewer and fewer mega-rich. This tiny minority of the population holds complete control of the economy and political power and effectively controls all the machinery of the state, the armed forces, the police, and judiciary.  The economic and political power of the capitalist class has its counterpart in the domination and control of the production of ideas via the media, through which it justifies the repressive machinery of the state.

The Socialist Party is fighting for a working-class democracy in which the producers of wealth, the working class will own in common the factories, the land, the hospitals, the schools, etc. and will run them themselves according to the will of the majority. What do we mean by Socialism? Not the phony “socialism” of the Labour Party nor is it the “socialism” of the former USSR which used pseudo-socialist phrases but where in fact one huge capitalist monopoly, the state, exploited the workers and on behalf of a small ruling elite of Party and State bureaucrats.