Time is Short

It is the workers who represent the decisive force in our society. The capitalists, however, fail to recognise this elementary fact. They still hope to preserve the traditional position of class privilege when conditions have completely changed. They think their class system is eternal.

The Labour Party and its left-wing hangers-on pretend that because they were of us they will be for us, and for our interests.

Technocrats inform us that capitalism is on its death-bed. Modern technology, robots and automation has dealt “the price system” will shortly dispatch it entirely. The wonders of the computer and artificial intelligence will make poverty an anachronism. Meanwhile, we will continue to endure the mass misery. We all stand on threshold of an age of plenty, in which no-one need work more than a few hours a day and receive free money in the form of the Universal Basic Income. When it was just thought that they advocated the abolition of capitalism, we learn that the exchange economy and buying and selling will continue. In Silicon Valley and other places, they repudiate political action and announce that they are preparing for the automatic collapse of capitalism. The technocrats will take charge of production for the common good, instead of catering for the profits of the privileged few but contemplates no other alterations in the existing capitalist economy. At first sight the proposals appears to be a clever scheme for establishing socialism peacefully and gradually. Capitalism is not to be overthrown by revolution, but undermined by the current of cooperation until it crumbles to pieces. And will be supposedly financed by taxation. In other words, it is asking the capitalists not only to consent to its own execution but to pay for the rope that is to hang them.

Without doubt, the world is ripe for socialism, so far as its objective economic development is concerned. What delays the coming of socialism is not the lack of carefully worked out schemes of socialist reconstruction, but the absence of the most elementary means for overthrowing the capitalist masters, first and foremost, a class-conscious working class majority in favour of change. Without this indispensable prerequisite, the most perfect paper plan cannot hasten the arrival of socialism by a single minute. The working class is as yet to appear upon the political arena as an independent agent. A revolutionary party aims at the overthrow of capitalism, not its reform.

Common among working people are a number of illusions preventing them from seeing the underlying cause of their problems and from looking toward a socialist solution. One of these illusions concerns the nature of the state. 

Many have allowed themselves to be fooled into believing that because they can choose between candidates (selected by money-dominated political machines,) they have a government ruling in the public interest. Because the people do not yet understand the class nature of state power they are unable to see through the lie that the government is above class interests. 

The first lesson to be learned – and a socialist movement has no greater responsibility than to instill this lesson – is that state power, for all its pretensions, is ultimately the ruling arm of the capitalist class. In a democratic state such as ours parliament serves principally to settle quarrels among the moneyed interests, although the people can use parliamentary forms to improve their lot in peripheral ways. Too many suffer from the liberal delusion that a parliamentary democracy in a society in which big capital dominates the political parties and communications media can somehow raise the working class to power. On the contrary, the great task of socialism is to destroy the capitalists’ power over the state.

The second widespread illusion is the capitalist notion of “national interest” which in reality is the interest of the native capitalists, not the people. Foreign policy is designed to protect the investments and property of big business, even if it means war on foreign countries.

 Too many people still believe that “our” government stands for peace and freedom. People are coming to understand things, but their understanding proceeds slowly in the face of the almost total control of the media by the capitalist class and those who prostitute themselves for the money and celebrity. People must take their lives and fortunes into their own hands. They must learn to distinguish between their own needs and the needs and interests of their capitalist masters. They must take a critical look at the political system which brings their leaders to power. Socialists must dispel the illusion circulating that the capitalists, out of a newly recognised self-interest, could and would change the predatory character of their system. The possessing class has continued to conduct themselves in accordance with the laws of their system: they have stepped up the drive for expansion in the world market and refused to cooperate with any movement, at home or abroad, that infringes upon their right to exact tribute from the entire human race. They reserve for themselves the power to decide how and where the accumulated profits are to be used – whether to bribe a section of the a nationalist movement here or whether to hire mercenaries there.

The Socialist Party aims to abolish the profit system and replace it by a system of production for use. The working class is beginning to awaken from its long slumber. Capitalism has outlived its usefulness and is responsible for most of the depredation and suffering in today’s world. This decadent social system is daily threatening mankind with the incalculable climate change destruction and devastation of war. Consequently, the Socialist Party redoubles its efforts to organise and direct fellow-workers anger into revolutionary channels. Above all, by preparing the people to establish a democratic socialist society.