Socialist Party members can confidently forecast what 2019
has in store for our fellow-workers
The working class will continue to struggle over their wages
and other working conditions; in other words, there will be more industrial
disputes. Employers will carry on attempting to hold wages in check and to persuade the
working class that any rise they may have should be only a small one, and one
related to their increased intensive productivity effort. There will be more tension
on the international field—more conflicts and there will be more conferences on
how to calm these tensions and how to disarm the combatants. Very little will come of them. The working
class, afflicted by the usual struggle to live, will become dissatisfied with
whatever government is in power and may express this discontent by protest
marches and demonstrations. This dissatisfaction is an inevitable part of
capitalism because the problems which give rise to unrest are also part of the
private property system.
The only solution to this calamitous muddle is the
establishment of socialism. It is simply not possible for any leader to make
glamorous promises about that because the key to socialism is the knowledge of
the people who will set it up. In the election campaigns of the capitalist
parties, knowledge is an alien word. How many people, among the mass who are
mesmerised by the rituals, the pomp and ceremonies will stand out by
understanding and supporting socialism?
As far as the Socialist Party is concerned, capitalism has
no acceptable face. Everything about it is unacceptable. Its accumulation for
accumulation’s sake. Its exploitation of wage-labour. Its putting of profits
before satisfying people’s needs. Is it acceptable that capitalist firms should
direct their investment to producing what is the most profitable, while
essential human needs are left unmet?
The heart of the socialist idea is self-government in every
sphere of life, including production. And the state, in its very, essence, is
nothing but a series of massive impediments to that self-rule. The aim of all
those who want working class self-emancipation has to be the destruction of the
capitalist state. Its existence is incompatible with the development of
socialism. Those who want to preserve the existing state machinery in the
struggle for socialism are not simply arguing for a different road to
socialism; they are arguing against socialism itself. The struggle for
socialism is revolutionary. It involves a war between two opposed classes: one against
the centuries-old system of state exploitation and oppression, based on the
principles of the most complete democracy possible.
The Socialist Party is up against the fact that our
fellow-workers has to be convinced that socialism does in fact represent a
superior system for the people. Marx’s idea of the eventual withering away of
the state is not a pipe-dream, but a realistic if very rough sketch of the
future state of human society. We live
in a world dominated by capitalism, a system which allows a small minority of
capitalists to oppress and exploit the great majority of humankind. It is capitalism that brings about great
inequalities in living standards with more poor people now in the world than
ever before, starts murderous wars to steal the resources of less developed
countries and causes the growing devastation of our natural environment. Either we get rid of this outmoded and
increasingly decrepit system or it will devastate humanity. The hour is late and urgent action is
necessary.
The capitalist class live out of the difference between the
value of the goods produced by the workers and the amount paid to the latter as
wages. The capitalists are able to do this because they own and
control the means of production and distribution and can, in consequence,
compel the workers to accept employment on these terms—the alternative being
unemployment. It is interesting to consider how these fortunate property-owners
came to be in the privileged position which they occupy and to consider what
hope members of the working-class have of climbing up beside them. Apart from
the rare proverbial rags to riches self-made success story they were rich
mainly because their families were rich. We see, therefore, that the way to get
rich is to choose your parents wisely, failing which your chance is small. If
you are born into the ranks of the privileged class you have an excellent
chance of living well and dying with more wealth than your father before you;
if you are born a worker you will live hard and die as poor as you began—unless
you join with us to get socialism.
The very basis of society today is a struggle between two
classes, the capitalist who own all the means of production, and the
property-less class who are only allowed to use and operate these means of life
when it is in the interest of members of the capitalist class to allow them. It
is the historic mission of our class, the property-less class of wage-slaves to
make the socialist revolution. It is necessary to make revolution to eliminate
the evils of this society and move society forward. It is possible to
increasingly raise the consciousness of the mass of workers and others ground
down and degraded by this system, to develop and strengthen their revolutionary
understanding and sense of organisation as this system. The common interests of
the property-less class of wage workers whose historic mission is to abolish
private property at its source, the means of production, transcends all
national boundaries and differences.
In socialist society, not only will we have free access to
the products and services of human production and to life itself, too we’ll get
free access to all the human support, kindness, affection and love from all our
fellows all year round, instead of for just a mean two weeks. In free society this behaviour will become
the norm in our human world. Why would
you want to pay, when you can have free access?
In addition, we will be free of the drudgery and stressful life that is
our everyday experience now, that which we are glad to see the back of for a
skimpy two weeks of partying at the end of the year.
The only viable way forward is revolutionary struggle to
achieve socialism, a class-free and state-free society on a world scale where
people do not oppress and exploit each other and where we live in harmony with
our natural environment. To create a
socialist world, it is necessary to overthrow the rule of capitalism and this
can be done only through revolution. The
working class must depose the capitalist ruling class and establish socialism,
a system of real, popular democracy that sets about the reconstruction of
society. People know that capitalism is no good but few can see a way forward
to a better type of society. It is essential to generate interest in socialist
ideas. The class war is won not with guns, but with words, with argument and persuasion. The old motto of class-conscious workers goes beyond the present wage
fights, and indeed should be a guiding goal of all socialists: Abolish Wage
Slavery.
Remember that ever since capitalism came onto the scene
political parties have lied and swindled their way into and out of power. The
people who have been tricked have always forgotten the lies and the broken
promises and have continued to vote for capitalism.
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