Capitalism is a social system in which all the things which are necessary to make and distribute the world's wealth —such as land, factories, transport—are owned by a small section of the world's population. This class, because of their ownership of the means of production, can live without having to work for a wage. On the other hand, the working class is compelled to sell their ability to work to an employer, for they have no other method of getting a living. The capitalists invest money in industries and, because they must have a return on their investments, those industries produce wealth with the motive of profitable sale. This means that industries throughout the world are constantly seeking cheap, abundant fields of raw materials, profitable markets for their products, and trading routes to connect them to their overseas markets and sources of supply. When "peaceful" competition cannot win these, a war breaks out. That was the cause of the last two world wars. A future world war will quite possibly be fought with nuclear weapons. These have been developed because each capitalist power must always strive to arm itself more powerfully—which means more destructively — than its rivals. This has made war an even more urgent problem, which cannot be solved by a conference between prime ministers and presidents. There is only one way certainly to abolish war. That is to abolish capitalism. Until this happens we shall continue to suffer the insecurity which drives many people into mental hospitals and transforms others from co-operative human beings into anti-social criminals. Crime and violence will flourish and with them the escapist drugs and tranquilisers.
We invite you to consider the case for socialism. This is a social organisation based on the ownership of the world’s wealth by the world’s population. When it is established, everyone—man or woman, whatever the colour of their skin —will have completely free access to society's common pool of wealth. There will be no privileged class enjoying the best things in life whilst the majority of people make do with the shoddy. There will be no wars to settle the competition between opposing capitalist groups. There will be no division of interest, such as exists today between employer and employee, to cause strikes and other social dislocation. Everybody’s interests will be the same—to co-operate in producing the best and happiest world which humanity is capable of, for the enjoyment and benefit of the whole of mankind.
This is no empty dream. Socialism can be established tomorrow if the people of the world understand it and want it. Then they can send their delegates to the seats of power—such as Parliament—to carry through the formal process of establishing socialism. That is why we are a political party. Our membership and funds are small and or candidates are not great leaders who promises to work miracles. They are not leaders at all for we do not believe in leaders. They are ordinary members of the working class and of our Party who holds with us that only socialism can solve the world’s problems. That never has been popular — the millions have so far always preferred their the reformist programmes of their parties, and the acrimonious world that they stand for. Time for you to strike a blow for the freedom and brotherhood of all mankind. You have time before then to become a worker for socialism. Read and understand the simple facts of your class position: get in top gear as soon as you can. For you, the working class is the power that can rid the world of the vast horrors of capitalist civilisation.
Socialism has always meant opposition to capitalism as a system of economic and political power, replacing corporate interests with common ownership leading to a more egalitarian class structure and expanded democratic governance. Unfortunately, the world is bereft of anti-system movements at a time when global capitalism has solidified its ideological hold.
Classifying objects by their essential similarities and differences is a necessary step to thought and action. Every trade unionist does this when he or she organises with others who live by receiving wages, against employers who live on profits. The Socialist Party does it when we differentiates the system of society known as capitalism from a basically different system of society we call socialism.
There is presently a Labour Party “to make everyone a shareholder." The new Labour Party plan is for employees to be given shares in large companies. The idea is that it is a good thing to have more people owning a stake in the industry, and that these new share-holders will share in the growth of capital and profits of the companies. Come the next stock-market crash (and there will be one) employees expecting only rising share-prices may find themselves owning worthless shares. The postal workers under privatised Royal Mail are experiencing the fall in their share-prices. It is always the big speculators, “those in the know,” who have the best chance of selling in time but even they are often caught unawares.
The relatively small sums that will be owned by employees will only be trifling amounts in comparison with the wealth of the capitalist class with very little voting power at AGMs. But even if the prices of shares and profits of companies went on rising the relative position would be the same, because the wealth of the rich would be growing at the same time. All the changes of the past decades have not altered the basic relationship that about a tenth of the population owns about nine-tenths of the accumulated wealth.
More important still, the relationship between the capitalist, who lives by the wealth produced for him by the working class, and the working class who produce that wealth, but receive only a part of it in the form of wages, is not altered at all. The worker who has a few hundred pounds of shares does not cease to be dependent on wages because he or she receives a dividend of a few pounds a year from the investment. The possession of a few hundred pounds of shares does not change a worker into a capitalist. A capitalist is a man whose wealth is large enough to enable him to live on the “property income” he receives from it, an income derived from the exploitation of the working class. The worker with £500 in shares is no more a "small capitalist ” than he is a "small millionaire."
Why is the Labour Party fostering this idea? Clearly it is with the purpose, not of making us all into capitalists— which is as impossible as having a social system in which all the population, including the slaves, are slave-owners — but with the intention of deceiving the workers into believing that they have an interest in preserving capitalism and that the employers’ business belongs to them in some way.
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