In
order for the working people to fulfil their historic role of
abolishing capitalism and establishing socialism, it is necessary
that they be organised as a class. The task of the Socialist Party is not to
channel class struggles into programmes of reform but to extend
transform them until they are seen as part of the path to the
abolition of capitalism and the taking of power by the working class.
The Socialist Party is the conscious expression of the class
struggle of the workers against capitalism. Its aim is to direct the
struggle to the conquest of political power as the means of
introducing the socialist society. The Socialist Party maintains
that the problems of the working class are identical with the
problems of the workers around the world. Every country to-day
is in the hands of billionaires-owners of the biggest corporations,
the biggest banks, the biggest computer companies; in short, owners
or CEOs of Big Business. They use their power to make themselves
richer and richer—at our expense. They hire workers to make profit
out of their labour; their capitalist production is for profit, not
for use: and to get more profit they slash wages, carry through
speed-up and worsen conditions. This mad race for profit ends in a
crisis; and then they try to get out of the crisis—at our expense.
Poverty,
insecurity and malnutrition making their inroads in the homes of
millions of workers: low wages, increased work-loads, to the point of
physical exhaustion, is the lot of the workers and it increases the
number of accidents, sickness and a high death-rate among the
working-class. This is the world to-day for working men, women and
their families. Unless we put an end to capitalism, conditions will
become worse and worse. Poverty and insecurity and unemployment which
threatens the majority of people. Workers must face with full and
serious determination the situation as it is; face the fact that all
capitalism has to offer them to-day is wage-slavery; and that neither
they nor their families have any hope or future under capitalism.
There is no need for a single worker to be overworked or in dread of
losing his or her job; no reason why an unemployed worker should lack
the necessaries of life. All over the world millions of workers are
year by year coming to realise these facts and to see that nothing
except the existence of capitalism prevents them building up for
themselves a decent and secure world. Everywhere the workers are
becoming less and less willing to put up with an entirely unnecessary
state of semi-starvation. They are showing themselves more and more
determined to insist upon their right to food, clothing and shelter
for themselves and their families. But to get this, capitalism must
be overthrown. To get this is only possible by the building up of
socialism, giving peace and prosperity, happiness and new life to the
whole working population. All over the world the tide of
working-class resistance is now rising. The workers have the power to
overthrow capitalism. It is the capitalists who are powerless. It is
the workers who are strong from the very moment that they unite and
move towards the essential reconstruction of society.
It
will mean that the capitalists will be deprived of their ownership
and control of the factories and offices, mines, farms and transport.
All these means of production which they have used and misused only
to pile up profits for themselves and poverty for the workers will be
taken from them. The workers will put an end of production for profit
and will carry on production for use. The needs of all will be met,
and new needs and pleasures now denied to the working class will be
created and satisfied by a socialist organisation and extension of
production.
The
future of the world depends upon the people themselves, upon the
working class above all as the most cohesive and progressive class in
society. The future of humanity depends upon the abolition of
capitalism and the establishment of a class-free society; it depends
upon the abolition of exploitation and production for profits, and
its replacement by a State-free society. Central
to the capitalist economic system is the exploitation of workers by
capitalists. This determines that the great mass of people, the
working class, have no choice except to work for capitalist employers
so as to earn a money wage to buy the goods and services, the
commodities, necessary for them to survive. On the face of things
this relationship between capitalist and worker seems to be a fair
and equal one: the worker agrees to do so many hours work for the
capitalist and in return the capitalist agrees to pay a certain
amount of money in wages. In reality this relationship is an unequal
and exploitative one because the wages paid to the worker are less
than the value of what he or she produces. The difference between the
value of what workers produce and what they receive in wages
constitutes the profits of the capitalist employer. Massive
exploitation of the working class is an integral part of the
capitalist economic system and will persist for as long as does
capitalism.
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