Capitalism is our enemy.

Socialism is not widely understood. What passes itself off as ’socialism’ today includes many schools of thought that take bits and pieces of aspects of socialism and use them as points for arguments that are in themselves non-socialist. This explains how reformists can find it so easy to represent their arguments as ’socialist’ while at the same time denying the fundamental concepts of socialism. Always, in one form or another, capitalism creates an ideology to disguise and justify its predatory character: it is a necessary device of class domination. Always there exists a deceptive conception of capitalism and socialism.

It is a surprising fact how little discussion there is today among the left-wing about socialism. The Left concern themselves exclusively with the ‘practical’, ‘day-to-day issues’ of the class struggle, leaving the future revolution to take care of itself. This is an echo of Bernstein’s famous saying ‘the goal is nothing, the movement everything’.

At our meetings we are aiming to provide an easy-to-understand case for socialism in straightforward, familiar language.

The class struggle is not a theory but a fact, not a dogma but a grim reality. Much about today’s life is hardly encouraging. Everywhere things appear to be getting worse. Insecurity, violence and poverty are all increasing. No solution appears forthcoming to the global environment problems we all face. Society is teetering at the edge of chaos. Science can only indicate what is possible. What will happen will be determined by what people do. A cooperative, post-scarcity plentiful society awaits if we only choose to form one. Together we can create a worldwide co-operative commonwealth.

The antidote to capitalism is socialism. It is not a complicated doctrine. It is a democratic system of society where the wealth is owned and controlled by the people who produce it. The problems of the world are all about the control of the means of production by a small minority who organise the wealth they control to their own advantage, and to the disadvantage of the people who work for them. The poor are poor because the rich are rich. Instead of competition, socialism encourages cooperation. In a socialist society we pool our abilities and resources to create more for everyone, and to share it out justly. The abolition of the capitalist mode of production requires the appropriation of the means of production by society. It is impossible to conceive of socialist society outside of the world victory of socialism, if only because the universal, world relations of mankind alone allow for the full development of human wants and capacities. The possibility of building socialism in one country is a flagrant contradiction. 

The Socialist Party has a purpose very different from that of any political party that ever existed. Its object is not to reform the present system, but to absolutely abolish it; to wipe out wage-slavery, to emancipate not only the working class, but even the capitalist class; to abolish class rule so that, unfettered, our children and grand-children may enjoy real civilisation. 

Competition, the controlling principle of capitalism, vanishes with the adoption of the cooperative commonwealth. Not that we in the Socialist Party are any less selfish, but that our selfishness is enlightened self-interest. But members of the Socialist Party do share the small satisfaction of knowing that we are not working for a personal gain, but that we are working for the common interests of our common humanity. We call ourselves socialists and have no wish to qualify that word by joining any other to it.

Glasgow Branch MEETING
 7pm 20th February
Maryhill Community Central Halls,
304 Maryhill Road, 
Glasgow G20 7YE

Lothian Socialist Discussion 
7.30pm 27th February 
The Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh, 
17 West Montgomery Place,
Edinburgh EH7 5HA