The co-operative commonwealth - the reorganisation of society

The socialist revolution that will put an end to capitalist exploitation and all the forms of oppression that inevitably accompany it. Since human communities have become class-divided communities through the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a minority of people who constitute themselves as the ruling class, class struggle has been the motor of history, and it will remain so as long as the class division of society has not been abolished. Capitalism to-day must answer to the charge of blocking the wheels of progress.

The Materialist Conception of History is one of the fundamental principles of socialism. It is the view of history which ascribes the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all events in the history to the economic development of society, to the changes in production, distribution and exchange, to the resulting division of society into classes and to the struggles between these classes. This generalisation was first formulated by Karl Marx. Also Lewis Morgan, an independent inquirer, arrived at the same conclusion. Marx’s interpretation does not imply that only economic motives and no others have any weight. There can be no fundamental change in the living conditions of the people while a minority holds economic power in the natural resources and in the right to exploit the majority for individual advantages. 

The Socialist Party insist that the basis of exploitation — the use of men and women for personal profits and power — lie in the capitalist system. Reforms do not remove the villain of the piece from the scene of action while he holds economic power the people. The Socialist Party does not want any bloody revolution. Revolution means change. There have been social revolutions in art, industry and social relations which have not caused bloodshed. There can be no real democracy while wealth weighs the scales against the interests of the people.

We often speak of the individual employer as a “robber.” No single employer can lessen exploitation and continue to exist. It is the system as a whole that must be judged. Private property for the labourer is but a farce, since the class that preaches most of the virtues of private property is the one that takes from the producing class all that it produces except a scanty subsistence. The socialist sees that he can further his or her own interest only by working for that of his or her class. While a social organisation depends on the existence of two classes, one following its self-interest, the other a code of morals serving to maintain it in subservience, there can be no reconciliation of the interests of all the individuals composing society with the interests of the social whole. This is conceivable only in a society of individuals to whom equal economic opportunity is assured. The ruling class has followed as a motive its self-interest, restrained only by the fear of rebellion on the part of the class of slaves, serfs or wage-earners. The subservient class, on the other hand, has been lulled into acquiescence in its enslavement through the persistent inculcation of the “virtues” of self-sacrifice, humility, reverence, docility, frugality and patriotism. The blindness of class antagonisms, will be solved by the abolition of these antagonisms in the co-operative commonwealth, the reorganisation of society on the basis of ownership by the working people of the land, mines, factories, means of transport, as well as the health, educational and cultural services required to fulfill their needs. 

The Socialist Party believes that the fundamental basis of a true socialist society must be change from a capitalist system of ownership, exploitation and control to one of ownership, administration and control of the affairs of a nation by the men and women who produce its wealth.