The overthrow of capitalism is our demand

For many, advocating socialism is a call for violent action by red crazies who are deluded, psychotic, and hateful. Socialists are infinitely more rational than our critics. The ruling class claim for themselves the mantle of progress and logic but it is socialism which is the knowledge of the movements and behaviour of human matter, a social substance. A socialist future is clearly within the reach our epoch. And what better opportunity can a person have than participation in the emancipation of humanity? What better use to make of one's life than in preparing that new civilisation?  The Socialist Party looks toward a time when we shall have ceased to mourn our martyrs and grieve over tragedies. Not because we will have forgotten the past, but simply because we are so engrossed and fulfilled in the role of creating a world rich with freedom, plenty, humane relations between people, and the joy of living. Men and women intend to create a new society where everybody can stop being sheep and start being human because today’s world of war and sexism, poverty and brutality, racism and violence cannot endure. Together, we must change the world. Together, we can win.

Many on the Left insist that before the ultimate overthrow of capitalism, there are a litany of immediate demands, shorter hours, higher wages, better conditions etc., to address first and they declare that a socialist party must present a platform of such immediate demands. The reasoning is that until the overthrow of capitalism is attained, “immediate” demands are bound to appear on the socialist platform proceeds from a confusion. The moment that a demand for a reform is raised they are apt to be, and generally are, confused with the goal itself. A political party that sets up “immediate” demands blurs its aim and is an invitation for compromise and concession, even corruption. The Socialist Party accepts that an economic organisation such as trade union may and must reach out for improved conditions. The very nature of these organisations keeps it from resting on its laurels and has to keep seeking gains as its goal. For the socialist party it must be all or nothing. Goals determine methods. The goal of social evolution being the final overthrow of class rule, its methods must fit the goal. The principle of the class struggle is a basic principle from which socialist tactics proceed. The employers wage a class war upon the lines of their class interests. Their aim is to conserve the power they now enjoy to exploit and fleece the workers.

“Single-issueism” is the process of watering principles down and entering into alliances with our class enemies so to construct a broadly acceptable minimum plank in order to achieve a particular demand or reform. “Single-issueism” is the road to reformism and invariably ends up in the crass corruption of socialist ideas. Instead of building a radical social movement and constantly striving to raise its level of consciousness and revolutionary content, those who concentrated on single-issues transformed themselves into liberal organisers foregoing the goal of socialism for illusionary concessions. The single-issue is the dead-end issue. It always ends up against the wall. it moves radicals to the right, not to the left, blurring whatever clarity, integrity and responsibility that once existed. It is a barren pathway. We must reject the respectability of liberalism.

 The working class holds little economic or social power. Time was when the workers still held some economic power. They could combine in trade unions, and by the force of their numbers ensure for themselves a certain amount of compensation. That was when technology had not yet reached its present perfection, when capitalist concerns had not reached their present stage of globalisation, when, consequently, there were not more applicants for jobs than there were jobs to be had. Now all that has changed. Owing to the vast reserve army of the unemployed, coupled with the elimination of skill by the machine and the expansion of the gig-economy and uber-workers, the division of labour, and the concentration of capital, the economic power once wielded by the workers is a thing of the past, and whatever little power they may still seem to possess in this respect, their bosses can at any moment shatter to pieces, as they have done again and again, with the aid of the legislative powers. Stripped of all economic power, made insecure, vulnerable and dependent, working families barely endure from week to week, our fellow-workers have nothing to lose by using the vote to rid itself of its chains and cease being wage-slaves. The continuance the social system of private property brings misery. Labour alone produces all wealth. The capitalist class does no manner of useful work, directly or indirectly but is a parasite on the body social. The property found today in the grasp of the capitalist class is none other than stolen property by some fraud or even some blacker crime. To re-possess the property of the capitalist class is to restore it to the working class, to the overwhelming majority, and thereby reorganise society in such a form as may promote the happiness of all its members.

Capitalism is the last expression of class rule. The economic foundation of class rule is the private ownership of the necessaries for production. The social structure, or garb, of class rule is the political State, an organ separate and apart from production, with no vital function other than the maintenance of the supremacy of the ruling class. The overthrow of class rule means the overthrow of the political State, and its substitution with the industrial cooperative commonwealth, under which the necessaries for production are owned in common and operated by and for the people.