Socialism, One World, One People

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.