All power to the workers!

Working people are rightly discontented with things as they were and things as they are and things as they appear likely to be. But they must reject the lure of the populist and reactionary demagogues on both the Left and Right. Our fellow-workers will also reject the socialist alternative if socialists fall to their knees, to beg and whine for reform. The people will not support a socialist movement if it confines itself to some relatively minor demands for this trifling improvement or that, for this trifling right or that. The people will not support the socialist movement merely because it is composed of honourable men and women who are well-meaning and good intentioned yet go to the masters cap in hand to plead for concessions and palliatives.

A juicy carrot is dangled just in front of the donkey but always just out of reach, in order to keep it going with the heavy load on his back. Any politician readily makes promises of the good things of life for the future. Whoever tells the workers that they must accept their burden today because of the economic crisis, will tell them to accept a heavier one tomorrow because of the another economic crisis.

We are living under a system which is more and more clearly revealed as the enemy of humanity and the planet. The destructive threat of capitalism is so acute that humanity cannot afford the luxury of a lengthy process of gradual reforms and half-measure palliatives. The present system of capitalism is directly the cause of the many evils which now prey upon society

Capitalism has vast productive potential but only means poverty for the masses. It brings deprivation to the working people. Capitalism is responsible for the destruction of the environment. The root cause of all this is capitalism’s the quest for profit, which takes precedence over everything. The only solution is to destroy it and build a new social system. Capitalism cannot be reformed. Mankind has undergone many changes in its history, but these have simply meant finding new ways to exploit the labouring people.

The Socialist Party reaffirms its adherence to the principles of international socialism. We believe that the only manner in which the workers may permanently better their condition is through a working class party organised and controlled by the workers. The Socialist Party proposes the organisation of the workers as a class, the overthrow of capitalist rule, and the conquest of political power by the workers. 

We declare the Socialist Party to be the party of the working class with intentions of socialising the means of production. The workers shall own and control land, factories, mills, mines, transportation systems, and financial institutions. The workers to be economically independent and able to provide for themselves must collectively own and operate the means of production under a democratic administration of industry. The substitution of cooperation and democratic methods of production and distribution would remove these evils by lifting the workers to a higher plane both physically and mentally. 

Our vision is of a party which does not claim a monopoly of correct ideas but which brings together all the correct initiatives which exist in society and builds them into a coherent whole. Our task is to abolish capitalism and bring about a socialist society. Let us stand as the representatives of the clearest-cut opposition to capitalism the world has ever seen; let us stand in the forefront of the revolutionary movement. Worldwide, an upsurge of socialism is bound to come. It is more and more apparent that profit is an absurd principle by which to organise the world’s resources.

 The socialist society of the future will draw its strength from the new organisational forms thrown up by the mass movement that arise to establish it. Democracy is not something invented by the capitalists, its roots go back to the earliest struggles of working people against structures of class, racial and gender oppression. The new society of the future will carry this to fruition.