Friday, January 31, 2020

Industrial Democracy or Industrial Slavery




Society has been divided into two hostile economic classes and that they are at war with each other is inherent in the capitalist system itself, and not due to any malicious agitation of demagogues, as the capitalist media would have deluded wage-workers think. There can be no compromise that is more than temporary and no peace for the working class except at the price of slavery. The issue is socialism versus capitalism. We are only too aware that socialism is little understood and that it is everywhere a target for denunciation by the media. When analysed it means a more equitable distributions of the products of labour; cooperation instead of competition; common ownership of land and all the means of production and distribution. It proclaims the coming of the cooperative commonwealth to take the place of wage slavery. The present capitalist system is not only a failure, but a colossal aggregation of crime. It robs, it degrades, it starves; it is a foul blot upon the face of our civilisation. it promises only an increase of its horrors. There is no hope other than by the pathway mapped out by the Socialist Party, the advocates of the cooperative commonwealth.

The Socialist Party is a “reform” party. It has a most radical reform program. It aims to do away with the present economic system and substitute common ownership and cooperative control of all means of production and distribution. The Socialist Party’s “reform” is to do away with industrial servitude and wage slavery, to abolish the capitalist system.

The Socialist Party starts out upon bedrock facts and builds upon them. It deals with actual conditions and applies rational remedies to the social ills diseases which afflict society. The Socialist Party engages in a century-old struggle against all the pretenders who  under a socialist label advocate policies and theories that have nothing in common with socialism. One reason capitalism has survived beyond its time, and inflicted untold miseries upon the world can be laid t the feet of those who falsely speak in its name. We of the Socialist Party have nothing to do with these various brands of so-called “socialism” or “communism.” We are Marxists, because we know that Marxism is the only revolutionary socialism of the working class, and that is the only genuine socialism. History has demonstrated the spuriousness of every other brand. Marxism is a theory of social evolution which affirms that capitalism is obsolete and that it must be, and inevitably will be, replaced by a higher form of social organisation which Marx and Engels called socialism, or communism. Socialism will not fall from the skies. Neither will it be gained by any appeals to the good will and compassion of the capitalist exploiters, as the Utopians, who preceded Marx, used to think, and as some people still seem to think. Socialism can be realised only as the outcome of the class struggle of the workers.there is an irreconcilable conflict of class interests between the workers and their capitalist exploiters. All the political actions and judgements of the Socialist Party must always be directed against the capitalist class, and never be taken in collaboration with them. The class war is the central and governing principle of socialist politics. It is by carrying the class struggle to its logical conclusion — the abolition of capitalism — that the socialist society will be achieved. This is the teaching of Marxism. There is no other way. Every attempt to find another way, by supporting the capitalists, by conciliating them, by collaborating with them has led not toward the socialist goal but to defeat and disaster for the workers. 

The Socialist Party is an irreconcilable opponent of the capitalist class and of so-called “socialists.” The Socialist Party pursues an independent policy designed to serve the interests of the working people and not of their masters.

To have true power, the workers’ movement must be class conscious. Until it is so, it will be among the bulwarks of capitalism and wage-slavery. While the members strike against the consequences of the system, they steadily vote to perpetuate the system, and their leaders encourage them to adhere to, and not depart from the status quo the present conditions, are marked with increasing impotency and are necessarily resulting in disappointment and failure. workers at all opportunity— economically, politically, and otherwise — must use their entire organised class-power in resisting the capitalist system, and in charging it at every point until finally it is overthrown and the world’s workers stand forth free men and women. Our ideal is a humanity secure and happy.


No comments: