Until the Socialist Commonwealth

There was a time when men and women joined together in parties and societies, for the purpose of furthering a cause or principle dear to their hearts. These organisations were supposed to exist for the idea or cause it represented. Now, on the contrary, the tendency is to regard the cause as existing for the sake of organisation. “The end is nothing, the movement everything,” is a rallying-cry of the practical party-man of the present day. The principles, the ideas, for which these movements are supposed to stand for are now quite subordinate to the party-machine.

There is probably no word better abused at the present moment than the word “socialism”. There seems a great difficulty with many persons, calling themselves “socialists” nowadays who fancy themselves before all things as sensible, level-headed politicians which means the continuance of capitalism and of the traditional policy of capitalism in its essential features, notwithstanding modifications of detail. In other words, preserving the stability of the present social system. The Socialist Party’s object is to strike a blow at this continuity of capitalism.

Socialism does not mean co-operatives competing against one another and also with traditional capitalist enterprises. It means the whole community, backed by the forces at the disposal of the community, organised for the work of production and distribution, and employing for this purpose the latest and most approved methods and the latest and most approved technology.

Socialism is a lot more than the capitalist gospel of success – acquisition for acquisition’s sake - and the selfish individualist doctrine of life where every person’s aim is to become a capitalist, large or small which is to buy his work-force in the cheapest market (exploit the workers), and sell the resulting product at the highest price (i.e., overcharge the consumer). Now, it is a matter of fact, it is economically impossible for every man to become a capitalist, so that the attempt to carry out this doctrine, as in the present state of things, must invariably result in the separation of society into two classes – victimisers (employers or investors) and victims (working people.)

Distinct from the Labour Party, the Socialist Party have always stoutly upheld the banner of Internationalism in the matter of immigration.

The wealth of the community, whether land, raw material, or instruments of production, socialism would place in the hands of the people themselves. The Socialist Party alone holds a clear goal- the entire transformation of human society. An economically free community cannot fail to be the foundation of a free social life, a life free from the shackles of wage slavery and the sordid struggle for the bare means of subsistence imposed on mankind. Socialism means the proclaims the “joy of life” as the right of all

The ways of the men and women of the co-operative commonwealth of the future will not be our ways, nor their thoughts our thoughts. We only deceive ourselves if we think so. “Why don’t you practice what you preach?” is a common jibe at socialists. We answer, “Because we cannot; if we could practice what we preached we should not require to preach any longer, so that the fact of our preaching is a sign that the time of our practicing has not yet arrived!” 

The accusation also assumes that socialism is an individualist-ethical theory, primarily designed for the direct reform of the personal character of individuals. This it is not. Socialism is an economic theory of the evolution and transformation of society. 

The Socialist Party doesn’t profess to practice what they preach, because what we preach is social revolution, i.e., the entire transformation of society. It is perfectly obvious that no individual can practice the transformation of society, except by working for the said transformation to the best of his or her ability. This is the only sort of “practicing” a socialist can do nowadays. Only when we have changed the existing conditions and secured for all the reward of their work, then and not till then shall me be able to “practice what we preach.”