We Need a Revolution of the Brain and the Heart

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.