Friday, April 05, 2019

If Socialism is a dream. Capitalism is a nightmare.

The revolution for socialism is a social revolution. Socialism emerges from an ocean of blood and capitalist lies. The workers now have it in their hands the means to establish and build socialism. The State is controlled by the capitalists is used as a means of oppressing and exploiting the workers. It directs production and distribution in the interests of capitalists, and it is to them that the profits will go. Its function is to rob the worker. This must be changed. The workers of the world must see to it that private property and interests, whether vested in the State or individuals, are overthrown. Socialism is not a solver of all problems but of the major problems of our time.

The workers are much better equipped to more speedily establish socialism than can the capitalists can reconstruct the capitalist system into a humane system. For capitalism there is only one way—the way of increased exploitation. To create its wealth there can have only one source—the already over-burdened workers. They will be forced to toil harder than ever before. They will be inadequately paid. The capitalists enforce their will on the workers using the State. The State compels the workers to live in misery and poverty. The State maintains armed forces for the purpose of keeping the workers in subjection—paying one section of workers to suppress the others. The State regulates production in the interests of the capitalists. The State takes commerce and industry under its protection—making workers State employees. It turns workers into slaves of the corporation. The State is the most relentless of exploiters. Capitalism will use the State to save capitalism, and to extract for themselves an ever-increasing surplus wealth. Capitalism is defined by and erected upon an economic base. The superstructure of socialist society will be built up on the economic base peculiar to it, namely on common ownership and democratic control of the means of life, production for use, and distribution according to need.


Science wedded to socialism would be working for the good of mankind and not the means of mass destruction. The workers could welcome and not fear fresh discoveries. Our culture seems to be increasingly all sad, bad or mad. The ideas prevalent in society today are no longer of the illusory sentimental kind. Today, people face the brutal realities of life without relief or hope. The ugly realities of life under capitalism are apparent to most people—only the socialist solution eludes them. One thing certain. Only the spread of socialist knowledge will provide optimism for more happy and contented lives.


The Socialist Party’s claim for working class support lies in our contention that only the abolition of capitalism can solve the problems of the working class, and that in this country only we stand for the object of ending capitalism and establishing socialism. Capitalism causes poverty, unemployment and war. To get a living, workers are forced to hire themselves to the capitalist class. Workers are employed in order to produce a profit for their hirers. Only so long as profit is realised are goods produced. Production for profit is in the interests of the capitalists. Raw materials and ready markets are essential to capitalism. In pursuit of these, Governments are driven to conflict. At best the worker keeps a job, which reduces him to a lifelong struggle to make ends meet, finishing as he started, with nothing. During slumps and consequent unemployment millions eke out an existence in direst poverty and destitution. Such conditions arise from capitalism, be it democratic or dictatorial, planned or unplanned. It is not possible under capitalism for workers to be anything else but workers.

Since 1904 the Socialist Party has never deviated from its object. We have always argued that workers in this and other lands must understand and accept socialism before capitalism can be abolished. Capitalism is global, so will be socialism. The task of the Socialist Party is to make socialists and speed the day of achieving socialism. As for as the Socialist Party is concerned, socialism is an end in itself. The Party’s work is done with the advent of socialism. Organisation inside socialism will be the responsibility of society, not of the Socialist Party. Socialism as a system of society is distinct from a form of government. Our end as a political body is the establishment of that society.

Socialist production will be to satisfy the needs of society. Everyday life will be from each according to ability and to each according to need. Under such conditions, money, trade and employment have no place. Socialism does not exist anywhere to-day. 


The three stages of any society are Growth, Decay and Death. Capitalism has passed beyond the growing stage, now moving from one crisis to another. Capitalism has outlived its usefulness. The next stage in social evolution is socialism. The unfulfilled needs of present society demand the end of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. Experiences of the past, present and future will continue to hammer that fact home.



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