'Something now'

The Socialist Party is concerned with the future of the whole of humanity. To save humanity, a different system is needed, one based on cooperation where there will be production for use not profit, and democratic self-management of all aspects of society. Only a few of all fellow-workers are for this now and in fact there is an actual growth of authoritarian, nationalist, populism world-wide and but they vote for right-wing political parties but it is for the World Socialist Movement to fight for this goal. The only way out is struggle and we, the working class, must organise. We must build solidarity across borders to defeat the power of global capitalism. We have to build a movement that has the power to create a better world. We can make a socialist revolution to overthrow capitalism worldwide. We must rebuild the imagination of the working class and combat the capitalist narrative that has made it easier for us to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Emancipation from wage slavery, and the indignities it heaps upon working people, will free the entire human race and put an end to classes and class divisions.

If the working class is ever to succeed in establishing a free and democratic society in which all will enjoy peace, abundance and security, it must first have a proper understanding of its class status in capitalist society, a correct class perception of the opposing forces it must contend with on the road to its goal, and a precise knowledge of the meaning of the social, economic and political terms of the age. It is correct to say that the capitalist system will destroy itself. It does not follow from that with equal logic that socialism will be the successor. One could go on at length citing examples of liberals who pose as champions of the downtrodden by attacking the evils of the system, yet who remain adamant that the system is to be preserved - reformed if possible, but reformed or not, retained. The differences among them are limited to questions of how best to preserve the filthy and contradiction-ridden capitalist system and protect the basic profit interests of the plutocracy at home and abroad. In their shedding of crocodile tears over the inequities of the present system, in their pious advocacy of relief for the most deprived and oppressed victims of capitalism's ruthless exploitation, in their selective and pretentious condemnation of the intensified onslaught against constitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties, and in their unctuous lip service to the nation's traditional concepts of democracy, the reformists have often been guilty of the highest degree of hypocrisy. Whether the reforms proposed are direct aids to capitalists in exploiting the workers, or in perpetuating the capitalist system, or in deceiving the workers into believing that their fate can be improved under the capitalist system, the fact remains that their reforms are generally contrary to the interests of workers. They invariably are props for the use of the plutocracy in consolidating its power and stranglehold on society. It does not require any profound insight to realise that the hope for a sane and decent society do not lie with the ruling class. Nor do they rest with men and women "of good will", no matter how sincere or commendable such sentiments may be. Our hope lie with the working class. There is but one plank in the Socialist Party's platform to -- the abolition of wage slavery and unconditional surrender of the capitalist class.

Reforms are a danger in that they operate as bait. The theory that socialism can with safety depart from the hard and fast line of its ultimate goal and follow the lure of "something now" batters itself against the hard fact that "something now" is not obtainable by it, and the logical consequence of such departure would be the degeneration of the movement into a "something now," or reform, movement. If the aim of socialism were to be made the getting of "something now" and socialism later, socialism would have to be sacrificed to immediate progress. The only something worth striving for now by Socialists, because it is the only thing obtainable now, is the laying of as solid a foundation as possible on which to move forward to the conquest of capitalism. Then, too, the more attention that Socialists pay to the ultimate goal, the more will the capitalist class endeavour to stem the tide and check its progress by offering "something now" schemes galore; so that, granting that "something now" is desirable, the way to get it is not by bothering about it but by working steadily for the goal. The Socialist Party clearly recognises the dangers that lurk in the swamp of reform. It keeps uppermost in mind the need to promote among the workers it reaches a clear class-conscious understanding of the nature of capitalist society. Nor does it hesitate to point to the inevitable limitations of any movement that fails to address the capitalist cause. The Socialist Party seeks to tie all the immediate struggles and problems of our class to the essential task of creating an organisation capable of accomplishing a fundamental social change to socialism. 

The Socialist Party's interpretation of socialism is very different from the one put forth by Leninists, Stalinist and Trotskyists as well as all those who describe themselves as social democrats or democratic socialists in various countries. There is no advocacy of state ownership. There is no belief that a government should rule under the leadership of a supposed working class party. The goal, rather, is direct democratic control of all of society by the people. The Socialist Party seeks to abolish all political forms of power, including the abolition of the socialist political party itself, without delay. The Socialist Party's case for socialism differs from most anarchists and syndicalists in its insistence that the working class can only abolish the State by first capturing control of it. The working class must control the offices and the machinery of political government in order to dismantle it. Therefore, the working class requires to organise on the political field. Without use of the present constitutional method, it argues, the social transformation would have to be violent. Marx had written that "socialism casts off the political cloak", and Engels had written that, with socialism, "the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things." Such comments reflect the state-free character of socialism.