JOY OF FREEDOM

Once the workers of the world take over parliaments by electing a majority of socialist MPs (actually socialist delegates) mandated to pronounce: Annulment of all property and territorial rights whereby all that is on and in the Earth becomes the common heritage of the whole humanity, just imagine how great will be the massive popular impact of this revolutionary event all over the world.

People will not just remain sitting beside televisions at home simply watching the results; instead, they will take to the streets and terraces in a gigantic delightful mood to celebrate this emancipatory historical occasion whereby the centuries-long hope of socialism is being materialised. Parliaments will actually be surrounded by workers from all walks of life, including the members of the armed forces as members of the working class, and others, even from some enlightened members of so far adversaries as well, joining them. Not hundreds, nor thousands, nor even hundreds of thousands, but millions will gather to voice support and join hands to make their own history with their victorious delegates and to enjoy the JOY OF FREEDOM forever from the clutch of the age-old class division of society.

The world will see a new humanity without alienation and competition, and the budding of humanity’s full potential of cooperation. Will there be anybody to oppose this earth-shaking occurrence that relegates to the past class-divided pre-history by initiating the real universal human history in the making? In all probability, there will be none. Yet, for argument’s sake, if there were to be any at all, will those brainwashed recalcitrant brutalized ruffians be able to face up to this human uprising the world over? Any rebellion would be appropriately dealt with by the winning workers having the necessary political power and command at their disposal. This momentous change will abolish the government over people and usher humanity into the realm of freedom by reorganising the global community into a three-tier participatory democratic organisational system – local, regional and global to administer things and the affairs of life.

Let us examine capitalism. Here we find a privileged group at the top owning the means of production and in possession of the control of government. Underneath is the mass of the population, the working class, dependent on the owning class for their means of living. In order to live workers must find a buyer for their manual and mental energy. It does not matter what the nature of their working capacity may be, they must find employment for it in order to live. With few exceptions, this is the lot of the worker from early years until old age.

To whom does the worker apply for a job? To the masters individually or collectively. It is true that it is not to the masters in person that the worker applies for a job as a rule because nowadays the masters are usually hidden behind a company, a trust or a state concern. It is to a paid representative of these concerns that the worker must apply. All the while the worker is at work he or she is haunted by the fear that he or she may lose his or her job and perhaps not get another one, or be thrown among the wreckage of the industrial system. Consequently, we humble ourselves in ways that sometimes make us squirm. We are respectful and subservient to those above us and to the wealthy class in general. We fear and jump to the call of “the guv’nor.” Like the chattel slave, we depend for our living on the will and the whim of another. Consequently, we are slaves. It is true the worker is personally free, which the chattel slave is not, but this is cold comfort when the hooter goes, calling us to our daily toil.

The capitalists as a class own the means of production and are therefore in a position to determine when, where and how the worker shall live. There is no escape from the shackles under present conditions apart from death. The workers depend on the wage we receive in order to get the necessaries of life, and we are rightly described as wage slaves to distinguish us from other kinds of slaves. Hypocrisy is a leading characteristic of modern times, and one often reads remarks of satisfaction over the fact that slavery is long since dead and that freedom is the right of all people to-day. Unfortunately, the victims of the system are themselves only too ready to accept this view, even though they occupy abominable slums, hurry in harassed and turgid streams over the bridges in the morning, haunted by the fear of being late on the job.

Within the ranks of the working class itself, there are many who suffer from the illusion that they are in a class apart from and above the common worker; in fact, that their interests are identical with those of the masters as against the rest of the workers. Amongst these are scientists, managers and salaried workers of various kinds. These types of workers would be under no delusion if they would apply to their condition the test of a slave. On what do they depend for their living? Are they dependent wholly or mainly on selling their energies for wages or salaries in order to live? If this fits their economic condition then they are members of the working class, slaves, always in fear of losing their jobs and suffering accordingly. The point always to be borne in mind is the frailty of the hold upon that on which the living depends, and the ease and swiftness of operation of the power of the job-controllers. Many in exalted positions have had this very cruelly impressed upon them, and although they scorn the suggestion that they are enslaved, yet they take good care to placate and dance to the tune of those responsible for the salaries. There is no escape, therefore, from the conclusion that the fundamental interest of all who depend upon wages or salaries is identical, and is opposed to the interest of those who own the means of production and pay their slaves wages or salaries. It is a slave interest opposed to an ownership interest.

The slaves of old tried to release themselves from their bonds by bloody revolts, which, however, were always suppressed, because the masters controlled the political machinery, the instrument of power. The slaves of to-day have had passed over to them the means to obtain control of the political machinery. Thus they are able to mould society to suit their needs when they know what those needs are and how they can be satisfied.

One thing above all is essential to ensure the triumph of socialism, and that is the enthusiastic advocacy of our principles and policy by those who accept them. Given this enthusiastic support then there is every reason to believe that Socialism will be a matter of our life-time. It is just because Socialism is a practical question of to-day, and not an ideal of a hundred years ahead, that we are organised in the Socialist Party. Consequently, we urge all really practical workers to give our principles and our policy their serious consideration. The more convinced and enthusiastic advocates we have the sooner will socialism be here and with it an end to our economic troubles. It should be an inducement to waverers to know that there is a Party whose principles are so soundly based on facts that they have been a safe political anchorage for many years, through peace and war and post-war troubles.

The Socialist Party alone can look at the world without pessimism or despair. Socialists never built up false hopes, and have not been disillusioned. Seeing the world as it is we know how great the task is, but we know what can be done by determined, organised work towards a clearly-outlined goal. The world is out of joint because the social system is faulty at the foundation. The private ownership of the means of production and distribution is no longer necessary or desirable. It produces the evils of poverty, unemployment, competition, war and class hatred. It has got to be abolished. Instead of an anarchistic war of private owners seeking profit and permitting the workers to produce wealth only when profit is to be obtained by so doing, the social system needs to be refashioned on the new basis of common ownership. Society must assume possession of its means of life. The private owners must be dispossessed. Their private interests and their class privilege must not be allowed to stand in the way of social progress and the welfare of the whole community. The Socialist Party has taken on the great task of organising for that end. We concentrate on the one vital question, capitalism to be replaced by socialism, private ownership to give place to common ownership, privilege to give place to equality.

Our aim is one to which the workers of the whole world can rally, "without distinction of race or sex.” The Socialist movement is the one movement in the van of social progress, able to face the present world troubles with understanding and confidence.