Glasgow Branch Meeting (17/7)

July 17, 7:00 pm

Maryhill Community Central Halls,

304 Maryhill Road,

Glasgow G20 7YE

We, the working class, run the world for the benefit of our capitalist masters. Why not run it for ourselves?

The political and labour leaders who are constantly exhorting or cajoling you, do not possess superior brains. In fact, the opposite. It's obvious, that they are merely parroting the things that reflect the interests of their capitalist bosses.

We, the working class, run a complicated, world-wide economic system, from top to bottom. But then we give the bulk of the wealth we create and distribute to the small minority who own the means of wealth production—the land, factories, transport, etc.

There exists a constant struggle between you and your employer over your wages and working conditions. Never would you dare to think that as wealth is produced from the resources of nature, by the application of human labour-power, it should wholly belong to those who, as a social class, produce it. In other words, you accept the class ownership of society; you are prepared to let a minority class own and control the means whereby you live. As a consequence of their favoured position the capitalists can live in any part of the world they choose; they can sell, barter, or gamble away, the very means whereby yo live and survive.

Fellow-workers, let us study of the social system under which we live. Let us all learn what a bountiful world this could be, if we start producing wealth for the benefit of all mankind, instead of the profit of a few.

To us of the working-class, capitalism means the continuation of all the rotten, miserable conditions under which the mass of the people suffer. No amount of reforming can change the basic nature of the system, and its effects are not mollified by a change of flag. It matters not which party administers capitalism. Each may apply the screw of policy; bless it, curse it, nationalise or de-centralise; the effects, as far as the working-class are concerned, are the same—poverty, insecurity, slums, ignorance, depressions, and wars.

We, in the Socialist Party, affirm that there is but one solution to the problems confronting the working-class; that solution is SOCIALISM. No wages system, no exchange, no buying and selling, but instead, the application of the principle; from each according to ability; to each according to needs. That is socialism, and the way out for the workers of the world.

Contact the Socialist Party's Glasgow branch, and join them in discussions. The socialist case is not heard in Labour Party or its left-wing hangers-on and if there was a person to put it, he or she would not be taken seriously. Far from being influenced by socialist persuasion those within the ranks of the Labour Party have now forgotten what little they once knew. They no longer know what socialism is. It is now a political machine for handling the affairs of British capitalism in between Tory administrations. Knowledge is the answer— understanding our present economic system. Then, and then only, can we change it, for the benefit of all. Capitalism, with its wages-system, and its class structure, is the common enemy; our common weapon is socialist consciousness.