The Socialist Party Plan

Many of us realise that capitalism has outlived its usefulness, and that it is time for humanity to move on to the next logical stage. We want to create a sane and productive world. But how can we do so? We need a road map. 

The Socialist Party's plan is based on workers acting with workers for workers. No condescending saviours, no philanthropic Santa Clauses is going to come along and set things right. It is useless for us to wait for deliverance from the pains caused by capitalism. We will have to deliver ourselves. Our is based on control by the entire working class instead of by an elite vanguard of political leaders (a dictatorship by any name.) Only if the people as a whole take control of the economy can they maintain that control and use the forces of production to fill their needs. The answer is that workers must form a political party of their own that specifically organises workers as a class. If working people stopped cooperating with the political parties of capitalism and actively took part in controlling our world through our own political and industrial organisations, capitalism would soon wither and die. We would then be able to both construct and maintain a system that is directly based on our own input. We cannot turn our backs on politics and passively wait for a better day that will never come. We don't have to go in search of direction-signs. A plan already exists that is simple, flexible and designed to meet the needs and desires of workers. It is peaceful, workable and within the grasp of working people. We don't have to suffer in isolation. We can join together and we can change our world. 

Years ago, the Socialist Party tried to warn the working class that unless they organised themselves into a political party to express their own interests they would soon be faced with a situation in which their ability to make a living and support themselves would be destroyed. Workers had better wake up to the implications of automation -- computerised robotic work-places -- and wake up soon, or they will find themselves ousted permanently from their jobs, and reduced to beggars living on handouts of the state. This is no exaggeration. It is a cold-sober appraisal of the prospects confronting our fellow-workers under capitalist society as a result of the technological Artificial Intelligence revolution. Virtually every sector of the economy is in the grip of commercial rivalries around the world. The result is a huge wave of downsizings outsourcing, off-shoring and unremitting job insecurity with a growing gig economy with more and more uber workers creating what some describe as a precariat.

Common sense should tell workers that the cause of declining wages, spreading economic insecurity and unemployment has nothing to do with who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or in 10 Downing St. Common sense should tell workers that politicians don't decide when factories will close down or how many workers to lay off. Common sense should tell workers that in a capitalist economy those decisions are made by those who own the factories, and sit in the board-rooms or invest on the stock-exchange. Common sense should tell workers that capitalists make those decisions in their own interests, not in the interests of the working class.

The Socialist Party recognises that the increased productivity, declining wages, massive elimination of jobs, spreading economic insecurity and the concentration of wealth proves that the capitalist system of private ownership and profit production is based on the exploitation of the working class. As long as this foundation of society remains this trend will continue regardless of the claims and promises of politicians. That the only solution to such fundamental problems stemming from the very nature of the system under which we live must also be a fundamental one. As long as the working class of the country tolerates the private ownership and control of the economy, workers will be used and disposed of to suit the profit whims of the tiny capitalist class.

How bad must conditions become before workers take action? Capitalism long ago developed the material conditions prerequisite for socialism. It has created production on a scale sufficient to banish forever want and the fear of want. Moreover, necessary production is carried out by socialised labour - by a working class organised at the point of production by the very nature of capitalist production itself. 

At the same time, capitalism no longer works. It is no longer a progressive social system. Instead, it stands in the way of further progress. Yet there has been no revolution. Rather the passive working class, while discontent, has been mired by confusion, uncertainty and despair. Socialism is no predestined inevitable development. A socialist revolution depends, not upon material conditions alone; it depends on clarity of vision to assist the social evolutionary process. Because socialism is not an automatic affair, workers as a class must play an active role in the socialist revolution. Capitalism will not disappear by itself. It will remain until it is overthrown. And capitalism can be overthrown only as the result of conscious mass action.

 Promoting class consciousness, however, is no easy task. Workers are indoctrinated daily by the capitalist media. Politicians and economists obscure the capitalist roots of the many crises and always falsely predict a better future after a painful period of sacrifice. Even worse, many so-called socialists confuse workers by talking about myths such as reforms, by raising false hopes that workers can force the State to solve the problems of unemployment and poverty. Such notions can only help convince workers that they have a future under capitalism and that capitalism is, at this late date, somehow capable of being reformed. In truth, ending the effects of capitalism requires ending their cause -- the capitalist system. It is important that workers come to recognise that there is an alternative to capitalism. For the sooner the working class realises that the misery imposed by capitalism need not be endured, the sooner will workers turn to socialism.

Organisation is required. Workers already hold in their collective hands the potential power capable of restructuring society. As capitalism is weakened by the maturing of its own contradictions, workers need to transform that potential power into a revolutionary organisation that is needed to establish socialism.

On the political field, workers need to form a mass revolutionary socialist party to challenge and defeat the political state for the purpose of dismantling it. That will clear the way for the ousting of the capitalist class from the seat of its economic power and by taking, holding and operating the economy in workers' interests. It is up to us, the working class. Capitalism won't vanish. It must be overthrown.