LABOUR IS ENTITLED TO ALL IT PRODUCES

As the SNP and their nationalist allies once more take to the streets to demand independence, this time in Inverness where SNP Westminster MP, Ian Blackford, claimed a mandate for a second referendum, those of us in the Socialist Party cast scorn upon Scottish separatists and their misguided belief that a constitutional reform towards a sovereign parliament in Edinburgh is the panacea for the social ills of our fellow-workers.

It is said that our socialist ideas are impractical. That is true. From the standpoint of capitalism, the prospect of a new society is always going to be impractical. Our ideas, our principles and our objective are certainly menacing to the defenders of the status quo.

 The world socialist movement is certainly imbued with definite and lofty goals. The oppressive conditions under which the vast majority of wage workers must live is forcing the members of that class to seek for some alternative.

 Labour produces all wealth. Capitalism is based on the robbery of the workers. Those who own industries but do not work in them, pay wages to the workers and keep profits to themselves. But both, profit and wages, are only the product of labour. Wages are part of the total product paid to labour. Profit, generally the biggest part, capitalists appropriate to themselves and call it their “legal share.” Socialists know nothing of “legal share” nor of “reasonable profits,” as all wealth, however little, is theft.

“Fair day's work and fair day's wages” imply a question of right and wrong. How-ever, this is a class society composed and divided in robbers and robbed and each class has its own notion of right and wrong, fair and unfair. The wage system implies the existence of two economic classes. Under it the workers suffer, it means no end of strife, therefore from the standpoint of the workers today’s society is wrong and it is only right to get together as a class and abolish the wage system, and in its place erect the co-operative commonwealth.

Let the reformists talk of the motto of “a fair day's wage for a fair day's work.” We workers will march with heads erect, our hearts beating, resolved with our aim fixed on the new societyand the rallying cry - “abolition of wage-slavery.” Such are “dangerous” ideas to capitalists. The Socialist Party propagates these very views, it has and will continue to meet with the opposition of the employing class. It is to be expected. Such proves the correctness of our principles. Employers well understand that once the workers begin to seriously organise as a class, with class hopes and ideals, and look out for themselves as a class, with interests distinct and opposed to all other classes, that once the spirit of solidarity takes firm hold in the hearts and minds of the workers, the capitalist parasites will be gone. That danger and fear is an ever recurring night-mare to them. They would if reduced to extremes, be willing to make any concession always with the feeling that they can successfully juggle matters so as to keep in the saddle. Therefore is accounted their readiness to look with favour to movements that do not aim at changing the economic relations between wage workers and capitalists. Concession and compromise has been the one great weapon of the capitalists. It is the means whereby they seduce the revolutionary spirit of the workers.

This struggle is political and it must be fought out accordingly, and this can only be done when labour has a political party of its own to express its interests, declare its aims, and develop its power to fight its battles and achieve victory. A political party today must stand for labour and the freedom of labour, or it must stand for capital and the exploitation of labour. It cannot possibly stand for both any more than it could for both freedom and slavery. We want to see the workers of the world demand a party of their own, free from exploiting masters — a party with a backbone and the courage to stand up without apology and proclaim itself a socialist party. It must bear no false label, carry no false banner, nor seek support under any false pretence whatsoever. It must stand avowedly for the workers — for the working people who produce and who are useful and necessary to the world.

 The Socialist Party stands fearless and unflinchingly for the working class upon the basis of the class struggle and wage the war against capitalism for the liberation of the working class from its age-old bondage.