Truth is on the march.

If there is any one thing that impelled us to join the socialist movement, it is a hatred of the violence that exists in society – not only the physical violence but the violence which condemns children to starvation or semi-starvation because of the poverty of the parents, the violence which condemns children to go to work long before they have received an adequate education. Everywhere in society there is violence of one sort or another, culminating in the dreadful violence which sacrifices millions of human beings upon the altar of war. It is this violence which we hate that drives us into a movement which has as its ideal the creation of a world free from violence, where human beings will cooperate in the ‘production of goods to satisfy their needs, where peace and security will prevail.

The Socialist Party is internationalist because we really take seriously the doctrine that all men and women are created equal. That they must have an equal opportunity, and that they are equally good or bad; that there is no difference between German and English and American and Chinese and Whites or Blacks; that whatever differences crop up, upon maturity, are the result of their environment, and not of their birth. So the doctrine that all people are created equal is full of meaning to us. We live by it. We have no prejudices, and we detest all forms of racial, religious and national prejudice. All of us are obviously born without any prejudices whatever. Have you ever seen a child of one or two or three years of age who knew anything about racial or religious hatreds? We have never seen one, and we know you have never seen one. But as the child becomes an adult, as he or she absorbs the poisons that exist in modern society, he or she becomes prejudiced. Every important judgement that a human being makes is determined by the ideas and by the prejudices acquired in early youth – in school, in church, at home.

If you are interested in finding out the general outlines of what we consider to be a socialist society, you can do so by reading our Declaration of Principles.

The fundamental feature of a socialist society will be that all the means of production – transportation, the mines, the factories – will be owned by the people and the goods that will be produced will be produced for use. Under the present system, which we call capitalist, the means of production are owned by private persons or corporations and although some owners may be very good and charitable gentlemen, they operate their industries not because people need the goods that they produce but because they want to make a profit.

In socialism the people will decide how many pairs of shoes, how many garments, how many hats, how much coal, how many houses will be needed to satisfy the needs of the people and these things will be produced. The productive wealth of society – not goods for consumption such as a coat, or a shirt, or a radio or an automobile – but the productive wealth of society – machinery, factories, mines – will be owned in common by the people and goods will be produced for the use of the people.

There will be no classes under socialism – that is, there will be no class that owns the wealth and no class that is exploited. Today a worker only has his labour power and he sells that to someone who owns machinery and he gets a wage in return and the man who owns the machinery makes a profit out of the labour power. This is what socialists term exploitation of labour. Individuals inside socialism will, of course, have different capabilities. But no one will be permitted to own any productive wealth and thus exploit labour.

Socialism, which some also designate as communism, the productive forces of society will be so greatly developed and the education of the people will be such as to enable society to follow the principle: From each according to ability; to each according to need. If anyone of you raises the objection that human nature makes that impossible. With socialism people will be educated not to think of profit but of service to society. Great scientists even now do not work in their laboratories because they expect to make millions of dollars; they work because they are interested in science. We want a socialist society where all the productive wealth is owned in common and there is no exploitation. We want a social revolution; that is undeniable. By that we mean that our aim is to transfer the economic and political power from the class we call capitalists to the workers . When that happens, a social revolution will have occurred. A social revolution may or may not be accompanied by violence. No one knows exactly how it will occur in the future.

Marxists are of the opinion that society operates on the basis of certain laws.

The phrase, “overthrow” of the government, raises in most minds a terrible picture of the use of weapons and violence. But you can see that to abolish or destroy or overthrow a government can mean and usually does mean, replacing certain individuals, organised in a certain way, basing themselves on certain concepts, replacing them with other individuals, organised in a different way. and basing themselves on different concepts.

Marxists are of the opinion that society operates on the basis of certain laws. Economic determinism is not the theory of socialism, but it does give an idea that socialists consider the economic factor the determining factor in the development of society. The primary concern of human beings has always been to feed, clothe and shelter themselves. As human beings lived together, certain necessities drove them to invent certain machines and with the invention of these machines production could increase and with the increase in production changes occurred in the economic and social system. Struggles arose between groups and the victors made slaves out of the vanquished. A system of slavery arose and the forces of production continued to develop. More machines were invented; the forces of production increased; society developed further and ever further and class struggles arose; slaves revolted against masters; the social system based on slavery could no longer function effectively and that social system was displaced by a new system. What is known as feudalism came into existence. He who owned the land had the right to exploit the man who worked on the land and this man who worked on the land was called a serf. In comparison with the chattel slave, he was a free man but nevertheless he could not leave the land.

New markets came into being; new machinery was invented; the forces of production grew and with it a new and powerful class came into being – the merchant class of the middle ages – and it is this merchant class that constituted the beginning of the modern capitalist class. We call that class the “bourgeoisie” and this class began a struggle against the feudal nobility and finally conquered and became the dominant class in society.

Thus you see that, in our opinion, a class struggle has existed since time immemorial. The chattel slaves struggled against the masters, the plebeians struggled against the patricians, the serf against the feudal nobility; and today we have the fundamental struggle between the capitalists who own the: wealth and the wage workers who create the wealth. And is this struggle a result of man’s will or desire? No, it is a struggle that is due fundamentally to the development of economic forces. A social system is born, develops, decays and is displaced by a new social system – all this by virtue of laws that operate independently of the will of human beings.

A new social system gives birth to new ideas, to new moral concepts. Under the feudal system in the Middle Ages, for instance, the church prohibited the lending of money on interest. To lend money on interest was considered usury. But with the development of the merchant class and the capitalist system, the lending of money became an absolute necessity and obviously people would not lend money unless they could make a profit out of it. The rule of the church against usury was abolished and interest up to a certain point was sanctified.

Mankind’s ideas, mankind’s morals, mankind’s philosophies are determined fundamentally by the economic structure of society and not vice versa. The history of humanity is determined not by its will nor by its consciousness nor by what it thinks is right or wrong but by inexorable economic forces operating on the basis of certain laws. Society cannot be changed by the mere desire of a small group to change it. It must, in the first instance, be ripe for a change and in the second instance the masses of people must understand the necessity for a change.

We have now reached that point in the development of society where mankind must take control of social forces and determine the operation of those social forces. Up to now, mankind has been subjected to social forces that it did not understand and could not cope with. What mankind must do now is to become master of its own destiny. If mankind does not do so, then , barbarism, the destruction of all civilisation and culture ensue. Look at our social system and you can see for yourselves how this struggle operates. The tenant farmer struggles against the landlord, the worker against employer, and workers against Wall Street. Why is our society subjected to these struggles? Because each social group wants a larger share of the income that society produces. Of all the struggles existing in modern society, the one between the industrial wage worker and those who own the industries is the bitterest and most virulent. It is the fundamental struggle of our epoch. The struggle between the worker on the one hand, anxious to get a higher wage, and the employer on the other hand, anxious to make more profit, is a struggle that will go on regardless of the desire or the intention of any person. There are some employers who are willing to give higher wages but they are prevented by the law of competition under capitalism. By and large the employers are anxious to make more and more profits and, because of that, the class struggle must necessarily continue.

Throughout history there have been men who dreamed of changing society. They saw the poverty, the oppression, the persecution and hatred that prevailed in the world and concluded that the only way by which these evils could be abolished was to have men and women accept the right kind of beliefs. to change people, you must change the social system. It is impossible to have a society where love between men and men prevails, unless you have a society where the struggle for economic existence is done away with. Under the present social system, mean, petty and violent struggles prevail in all classes. Way up on top there are struggles for colonies and spheres of influence; then there are struggles in the form of bitter competition between business men; there are struggles between the small business men and the chain stores; there are struggles between workers. Everywhere in society struggle prevails. There are some people who claim that the human being is essentially bad and no attempt to change his nature can succeed. But when one considers that in spite of the meanness and violence that prevails in society, there are millions of decent human beings, one must come to the conclusion that the human being is essentially good. Before people can develop to a point where the relationship between one human being and another will be on a decent basis, society will have to be altered.

How will this change from capitalism to socialism come about? Does the Socialist Party advocate the idea that people should take up arms in insurrection and destroy the government and thereby bring a change in the social system? The Socialist Party accepts two fundamental principles: one, the necessity of convincing the majority of the people of the ideas of socialism, and two, the necessity of capturing the machinery of government so we can begin building the socialist society. If we want a majority of the people, as we do, to accept our ideas, then we must be in favour of a peaceful “destruction” of the government. Does peaceful destruction sound paradoxical? Not if you understand it correctly in the sense that it means the removal of certain persons ruling on the basis of certain principles, and replacing them by other persons obligating themselves to rule upon different principles. We want to take over the means of production peacefully. 

The Socialist Party's task is to inform fellow-workers of our ideas. We cannot possibly be conspirators, because we want to educate the majority of the people to accept our ideas. The Socialist Party's task is to convince fellow-workers that our ideas and our solution to the problems of mankind are correct and that it is impossible to use force against the majority. We can only use the power of persuasion and no other power. We attempt to educate the working class to act independently on the political field and also to exhaust all possibilities of a peaceful change. If there is any one thing that will prevent the capitalists from using violence, it will be the strong organisations of the working class. The greater the strength of the working class organisations, the less violence will there be. To accuse the Socialist Party of wanting and advocating violence is to accuse it of something that is abhorrent to its very nature.