Our Revolution

All wealth is created by the labour of the working-class alone which produces wealth by expending their labour upon natural resources. Therefore, it should be owned and controlled by the community. The working-class can abolish classes altogether and bring into being a class-free society, which will democratically own and control the means of life in the interest of the whole community—not in the interest of a class which has ceased to exist.

  The essential thing is that the member of the working-class has to sell his or her labour-power in order to live. Beside this salient fact all else pales into insignificance. The differences of dress, pay, education, habits, work, and so on that are to be observed among those who have to sell their working power in order to live are as nothing compared with the differences which mark them off from the capitalists. No matter how well paid the former is, or how many have to obey commands and has a master. He or she has to render obedience to another, to someone who can inflict the torments of unemployment. Because we have to sell our labour-power, our whole life must be lived within prescribed limits. The release from labour is short and seldom and we have no security of livelihood for there is always the fear that a rival may displace us.  The Socialist Party does not question the need for organisation in industry. What we do question is that capitalist argument that industry is, and must be, directed by capitalists. It is, in the main, already directed by salaried employees, members of the working class. Only in the field of financial operations do we find capitalists themselves normally engaged and even these operations are more and more being performed by paid employees. The capitalist class own and control industry. They do not direct it. Men who boasted how much personal interest they took in the control of their business were pushed aside, crushed or swallowed up by the men who had a finger in hundreds or thousands of different businesses and who took no personal interest in manufacture. Personal control and personal supervision played a good part in the early days of the business, but the time arrived in economic competition when mere personal control, brains and knowledge of an actual industry, no longer decided who was victor in the world of industry.

There is the lesson—ownership of wealth and more wealth is the winning card. Finance buys up the personally-conducted businesses and becomes the ruler of more and more workers. Shall the octopus grow or will the men and women who do the actual work in business and industry learn that they can run society without the parasite—financial or industrial? The Socialist Party has always warned against workers following leaders, even if and when the leaders seemed people of some quality. Workers must do their own thinking. But how much more sensible does our advice appear when it is obvious that the famous names who monopolise the media and make sure that a socialist voice is almost never heard, are such obvious nincompoops. Wake up, ye wage-slaves. You can’t possibly be as blind as the moronic specimens who lead you. There would be no leaders in a socialist society, since leadership implies the blind following by a majority of a minority and under socialism the majority would be politically conscious and mature. The leaders of capitalism will be replaced by the delegates of socialism. Those with a flair for administration might well become the servants of socialism in the work of distributing wealth and organizing services in the interests of the world society.

"Is there enough wealth for all?” is a common question put by anti-socialists. The existence of luxury all round us and the stored-up wealth that cannot find a market to-day is one aspect of the answer. In modern society the ease with which wealth can be produced means lack of work for the worker but only to assure the maintenance of owners’ profits. More wealth could be produced but it does not "pay” the owners to allow that to be done. But what would be the possibilities of wealth production in a society where the workers had access to the raw materials and the machines?

On the introduction of socialism millions of people will be released from currently useless, harmful and degrading jobs to undertake all kinds of useful work of their own choosing. There will be no shortage of labour in the form of interested minds and willing hands liberated from such occupations as the armed and police forces, the armies of insurance and other salesmen, accountants and income-tax workers, to mention just a few, necessary under capitalism. Accountants would no longer have to spend most of their time balancing the books of capitalism’s looting systems. Men and women good at figures would be required to calculate the needs of society and to make sure that the outputs of the various industries were always in good supply everywhere and that all resources were most efficiently used. Architects in socialist society would find their scope infinitely extended, presented with a free and full horizon open to them to produce beautiful and functional buildings to meet the varying wishes and needs of people. Currently a doctor’s calling involves patching up the workers so that they can continue to supply it. Research workers seeking the cure for today’s incurable diseases have to tolerate the painfully slow progress of their efforts because of lack of funds, whilst watching enormous resources being expended in military and space research. In socialism all the achievements of medical science would be devoted to the enjoyment of good health by all. Workers in hotels and restaurants would choose their job because they enjoyed rendering that particular service. There would be no servility nor class distinction about this, no ingratiation, no bitterness caused by “inadequate tipping” and the worker would enjoy the same good living as the diner. Even the most basic contribution to creative work would enrich and alter the lives of so many so radically. One could multiply indefinitely such examples of the fruitful and satisfying work open to men in a sane order of society. Only socialism can offer this

The Socialist Party has a clear view on what socialism is, and how it will be achieved. Socialism will be a society in which all the means by which wealth is produced and distributed will be under the common ownership and democratic control of the whole community. Of necessity, it will be a worldwide system because the means of production and distribution are worldwide. There will be no wage or price system as things will be produced solely for use and not for sale. People will work to the best of their ability and take according to their needs. The nature of socialism shows that it can only be achieved by the conscious and independent action of a clear majority. It is the job of the Socialist Party to help build that majority. We do not deprecate the struggles of workers but we insist that they must understand the class basis of those struggles. Without that consciousness all their efforts will eventually be futile. Once socialists are in the majority, they will have to get hold of the state machinery to prevent it being used against them. Socialist delegates elected to the various assemblies of the capitalist nation-states by a socialist working class would have this control, and would leave any recalcitrant capitalists in a virtually helpless position. The capitalist class only maintain their order with the active support or acquiescence of the workers. Once they lose this and are faced with an organised, uncompromising working class it will be plain to all what they are—a socially useless, parasitic minority living off the backs of the workers.