Forward to the Socialist Revolution

The capitalists have intellectuals and academics who sing their praises. Countless books, movies, and TV series depict the benefits of capitalism. The describe a dulled class consciousness among the workers themselves. According to the anti-socialists, no matter what happens, the workers will never become a force ready, willing, and able to transform society. So much are they are a part of the “consumer society” that they have no reason to turn against it. Such a prognosis rests upon the idea that the present characteristics, attitudes, and relations of working people are essentially unalterable. The capitalist rulers today have an arrogant faith in the longevity of their system. They firmly believe that the empire of the almighty dollar, the euro, the pound and yuan is assured of perpetual dominion. These devout believers in the perpetuity of  capitalism fail to take into consideration the impact of growing economic inequality, and the pressing consequences of climate change.

 Scarcely anyone but socialists nowadays hold hope in the anti-capitalist strivings and sentiments of the working people or believe that they will in time participate in a mighty movement for socialist objectives. For retaining such beliefs and being guided by them, socialists are looked upon as political fossils, relics of a bygone era, dogmatists who cling to outworn views.

 The Socialist Party has substantial reasons for their adamant resistance on this point. Our convictions are not an affirmation of religious-like faith but derived from a materialist conception of history which motors the forces of world history, a reasoned analysis of the trends of our time, and an understanding of the mainsprings and the necessities of capitalist development. Marxism has clarified many perplexing problems in philosophy, sociology, history, economics, and politics. 

The Socialist Party does not succumb to sentiments of pessimism. The prospects of the  working class are not so hopeless  as the critics make out. The skeptics who suppose unlimited confidence in the longevity of capitalism rule out the possibility that the workers will become aware of the increasing perils of capitalism and that decades of inertia will end. 

Socialism teaches that the revolution against capitalism and the socialist reconstruction of the old world can be accomplished only through conscious, collective action by the workers themselves. In constructing the new society a political organisation capable of handling such colossal tasks cannot arise spontaneously or haphazardly; it has to be continuously, consistently and consciously built. It is still correct to say that one does not become a socialist or get knowledge of the laws governing the development of social structures just by being a worker in capitalist industry and engaging in various economic struggles. You become a socialist by means of studies and readings after work through which you understand what it is to be a worker, why we have a capitalist society, why and how this society is going to be replaced by a socialist society, why and how the class society is going to give way to the class-free socialist society.

 The Socialist Party declares that it's most important task just now is to arouse socialist consciousness within the working class

Capitalism is in a death struggle to survive. As a profit economy, i.e., a world economy circumscribed by private ownership of the means of production organized in national states, where the production and reproduction of constant capital intensifies an already existent insoluble contradiction inherent in the very nature of bourgeois production, there remains, at least in the eyes of each national bourgeoisie, one hope: world domination for itself. Capitalism means permanent war and war means the total mobilization of society. Socialism and freedom are truly ahead. We will fulfil the dream of Bronterre O'Brien, the Chartist leader, who coined the phrase ‘social democracy’ by which he meant democratic participation as distinct from mere voting rights.

Capitalism “growing into” Socialism is theory often appears in pseudo-socialist garb and is, in fact, a distortion and a repudiation of Marxism.

Socialists envision a new society without the ravages of capitalism, and the working class are destined to destroy the system of exploitation. The capitalist class, ever dwindling in numbers, now stands in opposition to the vast majority of the people the mass of wage workers. It is an irreconcilable antagonism. Today there is not a single occupation that may not serve as a source of profit for it is the essence of wage labour that the worker sells not the value created by his own effort, but the ability to create the value for someone else. And he sells it at cost price – the cost of its maintenance and reproduction. But the daily cost of labour and the daily output of labouring power are two very different things. Ownership of the means of production empowers the employer to extract from the workers unpaid-for labour time. There are no exceptions. All workers are exploited. Wage labour, like any commodity is saleable only in so far as it satisfies a social need – the demands of capital. Transport workers, for example, are required because even Ford’s products are incapable of finding their own way to market. Clerks, telephonists, technicians, administrative staff in general, are employed because capitalism cannot do without them. As soon as they become dispensable, they become unemployed. The more varied the relationship of the individual worker to the collective product, the more remote a part he or she may seem to play’ nevertheless all their contributions are required for the final product, all are directly involved, all, being socially necessary, are productive. 

Capitalism is not particular what it turns out in the way of merchandise, computers, aircraft, motors, fuel ships or candyfloss...the common denominator is profit. Of course, there are many workers who seem unproductive because their product is apparently never brought to market. But this is not a question of job content and is true of manual and non-manual alike. Besides, we should understand this issue in terms of the requirements of capital in its general aspect, of the class of employers rather than the needs of a particular employer and a particular capital. All workers are employed solely on the basis that, directly or indirectly, they increase the productivity power of capital as a whole. Doctors and teachers are good examples: their ’products’ are educated and healthy workers, capable of providing bigger and better profits. Workers, be they ’white’ or ’blue’ collar, because they are workers and cannot survive except by selling their labouring power. we learn the most important lesson of all: that the struggle to live with capitalism is the struggle of the perpetually oppressed.

The task that lies before the Socialist Party is to build the confidence, the understanding, and the political clarity of our fellow-workers that will enable them to take on and defeat not only an individual employer, but the entire class of employers. It will require courage, patience and perseverance.