The Socialist Party's Pledge

Marxism holds that the leading force in transforming society from capitalism to socialism is that class which is itself a product of capitalism, the working class or, as Marx more precisely defined it, the proletariat, i.e., wage workers who earn their livelihood through the sale of their labour power and have no other means of existence. Everywhere people are waking up and fighting against the oppression and exploitation which is a daily fact of their lives. The lies of the ruling class about “prosperity” in this country are being further exposed everyday. There is prosperity alright – but it is for a handful of rich capitalists – the conditions of the working people are getting worse and worse. Capitalism casts all the burden on the workers – wages stay the same, but profits continue to rise. The situation in health care, housing and government services is rapidly deteriorating. The source of all these conditions and injustices is capitalism. Once it is no longer possible to make a profit from racism, from bad housing and from the general misery of people, these problems can be quickly solved. 

Capitalism is set up with one thing in mind – to make the most profits possible for the handful of people who own the banks and corporations. It is the system under which we, and our parents and grandparents before us, have done all the work. We mine the mines, build the buildings, manufacture all the products: and then get just enough to live on – if we fight hard enough for it! On the other hand the small capitalist class builds up huge fortunes off of our labour and do no work themselves, except running all around the world spending the money that we made for them. No movement can afford to neglect its educational activities, and that the mischevious results of the false ideas spread by the enemies of Labour can only be combated by the spread of socialist ideas.

The goal of the Socialist Party is to replace world capitalist economy by world socialism. It is mankind’s only way out, for it alone can abolish the contradictions of the capitalist system which threaten to degrade and destroy the human race. The Socialist Party appeals for support, believing that the wage-earners must take into their own hands all available means of emancipating themselves and their children from wage slavery. A socialist society will abolish the class division of society, i.e., simultaneously with the abolition of anarchy in production, it will abolish all forms of exploitation and oppression of man by man. 

Society will no longer consist of antagonistic classes in conflict with each other, but will present a united commonwealth of labour. For the first time in its history mankind will take its fate into its own hands. Instead of destroying innumerable human lives and incalculable wealth in struggles between classes and nations, mankind will devote all its energy to the struggle against the forces of nature, to the development and strengthening of its own collective might.

By abolishing private ownership of the means of production and converting these means into social property, the world socialism will end the competitive and blind processes of the market, by consciously organised and planned production for the purpose of satisfying rapidly growing social needs. With the abolition of competition and anarchy in production, devastating crises and still more devastating wars will disappear. Instead of colossal waste of productive forces and spasmodic development of society-there will be a planned utilisation of all material resources and a painless economic development on the basis of unrestricted, smooth and rapid development of productive forces.

The abolition of private property and the disappearance of classes will do away with the exploitation of man by man. Work will cease to be toiling for the benefit of a class enemy: instead of being merely a means of livelihood it will become a necessity of life: want and economic inequality, the misery of enslaved classes, and a wretched standard of life generally will disappear; the hierarchy created in the division of labour system will be abolished together with the antagonism between mental and manual labour; and the last vestige of the social inequality of the sexes will be removed.

 At the same time, the organs of class domination, and the State in the first place, will disappear also. The State, being the embodiment of class domination, will die out in so far as classes die out, and with it all measures of coercion will expire. Under such circumstances, the domination of man over man, in any form, becomes impossible, and a great field will be opened for the social selection and the harmonious development of all the talents inherent in humanity. Culture will become the acquirement of all, which in turn will release human energy for the powerful development of science and art.