This is for those who are fed up

Fed up with the failures of this dreary system
Fed up with leaders and the false promises of career politicians
Fed up with poor hospitals, poor schools, poor housing and an unhealthy environment
Fed up with having to live on a wage that struggles to pay the endless bills
Fed up with serving the profit system and seeing poverty amidst luxury. 

We, in the Socialist Party, reject the view that things will always stay the same. We can change the world. Nothing could stop a majority of socialists building a new society run for the benefit of everyone. We all have the ability to work together in each other’s interests. All it takes is the right ideas and a willingness to make it happen.

By calling themselves ‘democratic socialists’ progressive Democrats such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has revived interest in the subject of ‘socialism.’ More people are trying to find out what ‘socialism’ means. For them, ‘socialism’ means a series of reforms to make American society fairer and more democratic—more like what exists in West European countries and especially Scandinavia. They want the capitalists who own most of the means of life—the land and other productive wealth—to pay more taxes. They want more effective government regulation of their business activity but never talk about the need to replace capitalism by a fundamentally different system. There are other people for whom ‘socialism’ is associated by the ‘communist’ dictatorships that used to exist in Russia where the means of life were owned by the state and controlled by officials. However, there exists another tradition of socialist thought in which socialism means neither the reform of capitalism nor state ownership. It means social (or communal) ownership—that is, democratic control of the means of life by and for the whole of society (or the whole community). It also means production for use, not profit. It views socialism as a worldwide society. The interconnected nature of today’s world makes it impossible to create a new society in a single country. Capitalism is a world system, so socialism too must be a world system.

The position of the workers is the hopeless one in that they must always struggle to maintain their wages at subsistence level, but that they cannot do more. All the vast and wonderful improvements in the productive processes which mean such stupendous wealth for the owners mean only more intensive conditions for the workers. They can have no share in it. All the reforms and all the philanthropy cannot touch this position. Remove the unemployed to-day, to-morrow machinery will have produced them again. Give the workers free houses or free bread—they must struggle just as hard for the remainder of their necessities. Attempts at reform, therefore, are useless. They are defeated by the very operation of the economic laws of our competitive system. As a matter of fact, capitalism is always being reformed. Reforms are the red-herring by which the capitalists keep the workers on the wrong scent. Reforms and palliatives keep the wage-slaves running from Tweedledum to Tweedledee and from Tweedledee to Tweedledum. And when, after much fighting, each reform or palliative is gained, it is only such as is necessary to keep capitalism safe for capitalists.

For many generations, human misery has been so obvious. The Socialist Party set itself up to form an organisation which would serve the revolutionary purpose, the establishment of a social system for the furtherance of human happiness and well-being. The only hope of any real betterment of their condition lies in abolishing the social system which reduces them to being mere sellers of their labour-power, to be exploited by the capitalists. Workers will see then that this involves dispossessing the master class of the means through which alone the exploitation of labour-power can be achieved. A class which understands all this is class-conscious. It has only to find the means and the methods by which to proceed,  in order to become the fit instrument of the revolution.

The world we want is one where we all work together. We can all do this. Co-operation is in our interests and this is how a socialist community would be organised – through democracy and through working with each other.

To co-operate we need democratic control not only in our own area but by people everywhere. This means that all places of industry and manufacture, all the land, transport, the shops and means of distribution, should be owned in common by the whole community. With common ownership, we would not produce goods for profit. The profit system exploits us. Without it we could easily produce enough quality things for everyone. We could all enjoy free access to what we need without the barriers of buying and selling.