The future is up to all workers

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.