The Socialist Party rejects the policy of state ownership, rejects state capitalism as a phase of socialism. State capitalism is not socialism and never can become socialism. Nationalisation of industry is not a socialist measure, nor a measure making for socialism. The Socialist Party is determined to abolish the state. The Socialist Party is the party of the working class. The working class, the only class without which society could not exist, is the coming ruling class, and its emancipation, which will follow the abolition of the wage system, will mean the freedom of humanity, based upon cooperative industry. The Socialist Party, when it gets into power, will take over the businesses and corporations and have them owned and operated by all the people to produce wealth for all the people. Then there will be work for all and wealth for all who are willing to work for it. In other words, the Socialist Party proposes to transfer the sources, means, and machinery of production and distribution from the private hands to the collective people, so that wealth may be produced in abundance, not to enrich a small class, but for the comfort and enjoyment of all.
Socialism is merely an extension of the ideal of democracy in the economic field. At present, industry is ruled by the owners of the machines of production and distribution, who have literally the power of life and death over the people. Socialism proposes to put industry in control of the people so that they may no longer be dependents on others for a job, so that they may be freed from the tribute of profit, and so that they may manage industry in their own way, as seems best to them.
Socialism will bring about a phenomenal development of the productive forces. The quality and productivity of labour will greatly increase because the producers will – for the first time – have a direct vested interest in production and be healthier and vastly better educated. Socialism will offer the achievement of a decent standard of living for there lies the road to abundance and free distribution according to need. Money will lose its usefulness to the point where it will be dispensed with altogether. Thanks to indoctrination we all receive, this may seem outlandish. Socialism is really the advocacy of abundance and presupposes the ample availability of material goods to ensure full satisfaction of human needs. Such abundance of goods is in no way utopian.
The Socialist Party aims to end the capitalist system of society, based on the exploitation of man by man, by means of the overthrow of the ruling class of capitalists and the capitalist state, the apparatus of force by which they rule. Our goal is to establish the rule of the working people and to build a socialist society based on common ownership of the means of production, with economic life planned in the interests of the people – a society which will develop the material abundance and create a new society based on the principle “to each according to his needs”. Only in a society which ensures to humanity such an abundance of goods can a new social consciousness be born. We hold that the question of free access without the intervention of money should not be for only to certain health or educational services, but apply to basic needs in foodstuff or clothing an all other products an services - the decommodification of the world. This means the death of capitalism and the birth of socialism. Power and profit – the motive force of capitalism – will then perish. What socialism proposes is wealth for all.
Many say all this is a dream? No, no dream at all, but an immediate possibility. By means of the vast new technology of this modern world, we can produce wealth enough for all without any trouble whatever. By means of these new applications of robotics and automatin one person can produce a hundred or a thousand times as much wealth as in the times of our fathers. There is no doubt at all about this. Modern innovations have so increased the productivity of mankind that everyone could have an abundance of wealth by working only 3 or 4 hours - not a day but a week. Socialism proposes to get this abundance for all.
What is responsible for this disparity between the steady abundance the workers could produce, and the uncertain pittance that they get? Under capitalist ownership, the capitalists make profits by keeping as much as they can, and paying out as little in wages as they must. They pay the workers the smallest wage they can bargain them down to. On the average, that amounts to a wage which is just enough to get along on, the smallest amount a worker can afford to work for. Even, for a large part of the workers, it amounts to not enough to raise healthy children or maintain their own vigour. This same system prevents the production of abundance.
This is an era of revolutionary change. For the first time in history, humankind can produce such abundance that society can be free from hunger, homelessness and backbreaking labour. The only thing standing in the way is this system of exploitation and injustice. The struggle today is the beginning of a revolution for a better world. We invite all who see that there’s a problem and are ready to do something about it to join with us. With our organised strength, we will liberate the thinking of our fellow-workers and unleash their energy. We will win them to the cause for which they are already fighting. We will arouse the people with a vision of a world of plenty. New technology provides better and more products with less and less labour. Society now has the capacity to devote the energies and talents of its people to satisfying the needs of all.
Radical changes in the way a society produces its wealth call for radical changes in how that society is organised. We will inspire people with an alternative - a society organised for the benefit of all. A society built on cooperation, which puts the well-being of people above the profits and property of a handful of billionaires. The working class will transform it into common property so it can reorganise society so that the abundance is distributed according to need. We call on you to join us in this cause. The ruling class tries to keep people confused and to keep them from fighting in their own interests. We have to meet the ruling class in this intensifying battle of ideas so that people can take their destiny into their own hands.
You are hardworking men and women. You are the foundation of society. Your labour makes social life possible. Without your labour there would not be any enjoyment of social life. You are the producers of all values. All the wealth you see around you is the result of labour. Do you own the wealth which you produce? No, you do not. You have created the 1% consisting of parasites of society, and you, the wealth-producers live in wage slavery in poverty and misery. You are the fundamental power of society, and you don’t seem to know it. You imagine that you are free, while in fact you are enslaved. The man who owns the means of production controls your means of life. You are dependent on your employer for a job, and for you the job means an opportunity in life. Consequently, the class of men who own the means of production own your very life and control your future.
You have been asleep while the 1% have accumulated billions of dollars of wealth, which represents the stolen products of the working class. You elect the same political parties into power whose mission it is today to protect and advance the class interests of capitalism. The politicians flatter you before the day of the election; after the election they despise you. All the pro-capitalist parties are a rotten cause, based on the principle of deceiving the working class for the purpose of enabling the ruling classes to continue their system of exploiting and robbing the workers.The Socialist Party want you to think for yourselves. Be men and women who do their own thinking. Under the present system of society, you are being robbed whether you receive higher or lower wages because the wage system is based on legalised robbery. Every person should remember that by voting for the parties of capitalism he or she helps to perpetuate wage slavery, strengthening the fetters of hard toil and misery. The political powers of capitalism are organised against you. It is for you to organise under the banner of socialism and the Socialist Party and fight the battles of your own emancipation.
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