Change the World

We live now in a time of recession. One effect of the recession is to cause a lot of misery to a lot of people whose big mistake was to take what they thought was their big chance when they thought the time was ripe. They committed themselves to a massive debt. They were confident that the market would continue to rise. They simply couldn't lose. We all know what happened next. The economic situation which the pro-capitalist pundits claimed to have designed and constructed to work to the eternal benefit of everyone ready to take their chance, and which would last for ever, abruptly changed. There is now no shortage of experts to tell us what went wrong for the investing class. They borrowed too much money. They ran their affairs like there was no financial tomorrow. This presented few problems as long as the boom lasted, as long as sales went up taking profits with them. But when the slump began to bite, the big borrowers had difficulty in just paying the interest on their massive debts. They borrowed to seize what looked like a great opportunity; in the event it turned out to be a trap. Pressure of competition pushed the banks into lending; if one backed off there were plenty of others only too willing to exploit what they saw as an unending source of profit. The banks have now been brought face to face with the realities of capitalism— that it is a system of unpredictable swings, falls and rises, not to be controlled by financial experts or economists or politicians. At times it seems to offer the opportunity to some individuals or some firms to get rich fast. If they missed the opportunity they would not be working the system as they should. With luck it comes out right for them; in other circumstances there is disaster. And none of them, from the heights of the City of London or Wall St to the manager at your high street bank branch shows that they understand how the system works and that it cannot be controlled. Reformers traded off their vision and hope of the socialist future for a few privileges and comforts of the present, sharing out the crumbs.

We cannot leave political control in the hands of the ruling class.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. 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 Socialist Party is a revolutionary political organisation and therefore believes in revolutionary political action. It urges the workers to use their ballots to capture political power—not to play at politicians or pose as statesmen, but to use their votes to uproot the political State and to hand to our fellow-workers the constructive task of building up the administrative bodies of a socialist society. The attitude of the Socialist Party is clear and definite. It claims that the wealth of society is created by the workers. It claims that the workers must own all the processes of wealth production and control through all their various administrative councils. 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. We are convinced that the present political State, with most of its attendant institutions, must be swept away. There is no equivocation.The political State is not and cannot be a true democracy. It is not elected according to the industrial and social wants of the community. It is elected because the wealthiest section of society can suppress all facts through its power over the media. By its money the capitalists can buy up the mass media which then present false election issues. Voters are not asked to vote upon facts but only upon such topics as the TV and press, representing capital, puts before the workers. In order to achieve a peaceful revolution. Labour must capture the powers of the State at the ballot box

Humanity should be marching forward to socialism and freedom, not backward to barbarism. Outlived and outmoded capitalism has no secure future anywhere. The Socialist Party face the future with full confidence. And its task is to work for the common good of all. We possess a belief in mankind and its capacity to survive and improve. It is the recognition of reality, the most important and decisive reality there is. The gloomy prophets of doom see the obliteration of human society, but they ignore the history and the evolution of humanity, which demonstrates above all else the unconquerable will and capacity to survive and go forward. It is true that the human race, threatened with global warming and climate change, is indeed confronted with a problem of survival on this planet. But the human race will survive. And in order to survive, it will do away with the social system which threatens its survival. Socialism will win the world and change the world and make it safe and secure for all.