Einstein suggested, “…we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organisation of society.”
An economic system such as capitalism, based on profit competition, brings out the worst, predatory instincts. In contrast, socialism, based on cooperation in fulfilling society’s basic needs, brings out the best. From the perspective of class struggle, people are on one or the other side of the barricades.
The Socialist Party challenges any alternative as a firm basis for final socialist triumph than the “conscious” political action of the working class. Socialist knowledge is the keystone of the future socialist edifice. The workers of all capitalist countries are faced with the SAME problems. Workers, be they British, French, Nigerian, Chinese or any other, are without the means of existence unless they can sell the only thing they possess (i.e., their power to labour) to the capitalist class. All workers are alike in this respect. They possess no means and, to live, they must work to produce a profit for a capitalist.
Workers get a wage which is, on an average, just sufficient to enable them to live and reproduce future wage-earners. This again applies equally to workers of all lands and colours. Often they are overworked, ill-clothed, badly housed. They find it hard to make ends meet, so that at death, after a life of toil, they are just as they were at birth, i.e., without property.
The capitalist, however, is far from being in that position. To whatever race or nation he belongs he owns the machines and instruments which produce the means of life. Furthermore, he insists that whenever the wheels of production turn he gets a handsome profit. “No profit. No production!” that is the watchword of the capitalist. If his workers are of the same race and religion as himself, the rule still holds: if profits are not forthcoming from production he will close the doors of the factory and his' workers are left workless in the street.
The enemy, then, of the workers of any country, is not the worker of another. Their enemy is the system of society—capitalism—which keeps them in poverty, overworks them and throws them on the scrap-heap when profits are not being produced. Sooner or later, the workers will realise this. Capitalism itself will make them realise it because capitalism can give them no solution to their problems. Then, the workers will be class-conscious, they will realise that all workers of all lands must join together against the common enemy, capitalism. They will scorn the attempts of the capitalists to stir up hatred between workers of different nations. Instead of slaughtering each other in the interests of the capitalist classes, they will unite to establish, in their own interests, a system of society which will bring security to every worker—Socialism.
The lowest-paid sections of the working-class are generally the most reactionary: the apathy and indifference of the poverty-stricken to the facts underlying their miserable condition is one of the most appalling factors of the situation. The insecurity of the worker’s employment, as a result of the means of production being owned by the capitalist class, is the secret of the latter's power and is the source of the mental and moral degradation of the working class.
The wage-slaves, with any courage left inside, feels instinctively the secret power of the chains which keep them in bondage and tries to break or weaken them by means of union with fellow workers. When they force increased wages, shorter hours, or better working conditions from their exploiters they feel they have achieved something. Their struggles though cannot suspend the working of economic laws or prevent the downward tendency, but it can counteract the results of the economic process on the psychology of the working class. In addition, the fight itself develops eventually the desire for ultimate freedom and educates working-people to an understanding of the causes and conditions of the struggle. And, at the same time, the struggle must be growing more intense.
For the fight only affecting the results of the downward tendency, and being powerless to remove its cause, whatever gains are made cannot be kept unless the fight for them is kept up, and the fight must be intensified as the tendency increases. The working class is steadily advancing in economic power and independence, in the sense that it takes possession of more and more responsible positions in the economic life of the nation, diverts to itself, by means of the corporation and otherwise, all the growth of the concentration and centralisation of capital; and particularly with the development of the corporate form of economic activity, the capitalist class abdicates its functions, the proper functions of a ruling class, those of economic management, into the hands of the working class. The working class thus not only becomes revolutionary in its ideas, desires, and aspirations, but it has the organised power to carry the revolution into effect, and is fully equipped to take hold of all social and economic activities and functions after the revolution and carry them out successfully.”
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