The Socialist Party is a political party,
which means that its concern is the struggle of the working class as a whole.
We stand for socialism: a new system in which the people own and control the
economy. Capitalism is an outlived system whose lifeblood is profit and
exploitation, whether or not represented as the “welfare state” and whether or
not its government is administered by liberals or self-styled “socialists.”
Capitalism perpetuates poverty, unemployment, racism, and war. Socialism will
only be gained by waging the working-class struggle. Socialism means the ending
of exploitation of man by man, a society without class antagonisms, in which
the people themselves control their means of life and use them for their own
happiness.
The spirit of our time
is revolutionary and growing more so every day. The capitalist system is
doomed. The signs of change confront us upon every hand. For countless ages the
world has been a vast battlefield and the struggle for existence a perpetual
conflict. In this struggle which has appealed to the basest and not to the best
in man the cunning few have triumphed and now have the masses at their mercy.
The Socialist Party is the only party that stands against the present system
and for the rule of the people; the only party that boldly avows itself the
party of the working class and its purpose the overthrow of wage-slavery. So
long as the present system of capitalism prevails and the few are allowed to
own the World's resources and industries, the toilers will be struggling in the
hell of poverty as they are today. The Socialist Party is absolutely the only
party which faces conditions as they are and declares unhesitatingly that it
has a definite plan for ending these conditions. The Socialist Party is the
party of the exploited workers. Private property and competition have had their
day. The Socialist Party stands for social ownership and co-operation. The one
is capitalism; the other socialism. The one industrial despotism, the other
industrial democracy. The Socialist Party demands the overthrow of the wages
system. The workers who have made the world and who support the world, are
preparing to take possession of the world. This is what the Socialist Party
stands for in this campaign. We demand the means of production in the name of
the workers and the control of society in the name of the people. We demand the
abolition of capitalism and wage-slavery and the surrender of the capitalist
class. We demand the equal rights of all the people regardless of sex, race,
color, or nationality. We demand
complete control of industry by the workers; we demand all the wealth they
produce for their own enjoyment, and we demand the Earth for all the people.
The point about socialism is that it would replace a hierarchical, bureaucratic
and undemocratic society – capitalism – with a genuine democracy in which the
working people controlled their own representatives. The self-emancipation of
the working class through their own struggle and the democratic society which
follows such emancipation are at the heart of socialism.
The attitude of the
Sociaalist Party is clear and definite. It claims that the wealth of society is
created by the workers. It claims that the workers must commonly own and
control all the processes of wealth production. In a word, the Socialist Party
strives to build socialism. We carry this struggle on to the political field in
order to challenge the power which the present ruling class wields through its
domination of the State which it wins at the ballot box. By its victory at the
ballot box, and its consequent political domination, the capitalists are able
to repress labour.
We are convinced
that the present political State, with most of its attendant institutions, must
be abolished. The State is not and
cannot be a true democracy. It is not elected according to the needs of the
community. It is elected because the wealthiest section of society can suppress
all facts through its power over the press. By its money the capitalists can
buy up the media to create false election issues. The electorate is not asked
to vote upon facts but only upon such topics as the media representing capital,
puts before the workers. But we cannot build socialism and leave political
control in the hands of the ruling class. We have seen what power the conquest
of the State gives to the capitalists in its struggle with Labour. It is
through its political strength that the capitalists can deprive us of every
shred of civil rights the loss of which makes the peaceful agitation for the revolution
impossible. Capitalists if necessary will resort to the use ofcoercive methods
and even the armed forces. The control
of these forces flow directly from capitalist control of the State which it
secures at the ballot box. Therefore, in order to achieve a peaceful
revolution, the working class must capture the powers of the State at the
ballot box and prevent the capitalist class from suppressing workers. This
destructive function is the revolutionary role of political action. But this
destructive political function is necessary in order that the industrial
constructive element in the revolution builing socialism may not be thwarted.
The Labour Party
has no message for the working class and no method whereby the workers may
destroy capitalism and construct socialism. The Socialist Party alone puts
forward such a position as a revolutionary political organisation that believes
in revolutionary political action. We
urge our fellow-workers to use their votes to capture political power—not to
play at politicians or pose as statesmen, but to use their votes to uproot the
political State. To think that Parliament can be used as the means of
permanently improving the conditions of Labour, by passing a series of acts, is
to believe in parliamentarism. The Socialist Party is not a parliamentary
party, in that sense. It believes in entering Parliament only as a means of
sweeping away all antiquated institutions which stand in the way of the
industrial union owning and controlling the means of production. . The social
revolution is on now. It is for us to bring it to its consummation. For the
first time since the beginning of human history, a great upheaval will have for
its aim, not the substitution of one class for another, but the destruction of
classes, the inauguration of a universal humanity. But this new social system
cannot be created and inspired by a minority. It can only function with the
approval of an immense majority of the citizens. It is this majority that will
gradually create from capitalistic chaos, the various types of social property,
co-operative, communal, and corporative, and it will only demolish the last
remains of the capitalist edifice when it has firmly established the
foundations of the socialistic order and when the new building is ready to give
shelter to mankind. In this enormous task of social construction, the immense
majority of the citizens must co-operate. Destined for the benefit of all, it
must be prepared and accepted by almost all, practically indeed, by all;
because the hour inevitably arrives when the power behind an immense majority
discourages the last efforts to resist its will. The great thing about socialism is precisely that it is
not the regime of a minority. It cannot, therefore, and ought not, to be
imposed by a minority.
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