The Manifesto of the People

The Socialist Party is the political expression of the socialist movement, and the socialist movement is based upon the modern class struggle in which all workers of all countries, regardless of race, nationality, creed, or sex, are called upon to unite against the capitalist class, their common exploiter and oppressor. In this class struggle the economic equality of all workers is a foregone conclusion, and he or she who does not recognise and subscribe to it as one of the basic principles of the socialism is not a socialist. The Socialist Party would be false to its historic mission, violate the fundamental principles of socialism and repudiate its own teachings if, it sought to exclude any human being from political equality and economic freedom. Who take his or her place in the Socialist Party does so with the workers of all colours and from all countries, and all of them will unite in the fight to destroy the capitalist system tint now makes common slaves of us all. Anyone who seeks to arouse race prejudice among workers is not their friend. Anyone who advises the white wage-worker to look down upon the black wage-worker is the enemy of both. Socialism will give all people economic freedom and equal opportunity. Socialism will strike us free from our economic fetters.

The Socialist Party is agreed upon its object, that object being social and economic freedom, equality and liberty for all, through the common ownership and control of all the material means of production. Fellow-workers must agree upon this in order to become members of the Socialist Party, only those who believe in the object as defined he here can join.  Those who so adhere to this are socialists, and those who do not, are not socialists, no matter what they may say to the contrary. Our primary function is to organise a political party, independent and class-conscious, to capture the machinery of government. The function of industrial organisation lies with the trade unions. These two functions are not absolutely distinct and separate, they are co-ordinate, and to some extent interdependent. Yet they are not identical. The trade unions can help us, we can help them. The object of a Socialist Party is the realisation of socialism; and incidentally to assist in the organisation of the working-class for the amelioration of its conditions in existing society. The object of a trade union is to make the best of existing conditions; to make the best terms for its members within capitalist society, and, incidentally, to help on the emancipation of the working-class.

The platform of the Socialist Party declares in favour of the common ownership of all the means of production and distribution: namely, the land, mines, mills, factories, and productive machinery, for the purpose of operating industry in the interest of the whole people. This involves a complete transformation of the structure purpose of the State. The present government is based upon private property and is essentially coercive, the vital function being to protect the interests of the owning and ruling class, and to keep their victims in subjugation. When productive capital becomes common property, government will become purely administrative, and will cease to be repressive and oppressive. The owning class in the present, as in all past ages, is necessarily the ruling class, and all legislation is enacted and interpreted in the interest of the employing, owning class.

 Political equality under the present system is simply a myth. The wage-worker whose employment is controlled by his industrial master ,and who in that relation is at the mercy of his master since he depends upon his arbitrary will for the opportunity to labour and support his family, is not on terms of political equality with his master. Political equality is rooted in economic freedom, and only when the means of production shall have become the common property of all, as they have been produced by all, are used by all, and are necessary to all, only then will political equality prevail and all men and women enjoy equal rights and equal opportunities. In other words, a political liberty and an economic despotism are incompatible and in ceaseless conflict and both must become one or the other. Political democracy and industrial despotism will not abide together. One or the other must go before we can have peace. The Socialist Party proposes to establish industrial democracy, based upon cooperative industry. Production will be carried forward for use and not for profit. The human trafficking of in labour— men women, and children — their purchase and sale upon a weekly or monthly instalment plan, will cease.

 The Socialist Party is the only world socialist party. Socialists recognises no national boundary lines. The land in which he or she lives embraces the working class of the world. Every worker everywhere are sisters and brothers. Across the borders of all lands socialists clasp hands as comrades. We pledge ourselves to the principles of international socialism as embodied in the united thought and action of the socialists of all nations. In the industrial development already accomplished the interests of the world’s workers are separated by no national boundaries. The condition of the most exploited and oppressed workers, in the most remote places of the earth, inevitably tends to drag down all the workers of the world to the same level. The tendency of the competitive wage system is to make labour’s lowest condition the measure or rule of its universal condition. Industry and finance are no longer national but international in both organisation and results. The chief significance of national boundaries, and of the so-called patriotisms which the ruling class of each nation is seeking to revive, is the power which these give to capitalism to keep the workers of the world from uniting, and to throw them against each other in the struggles of contending capitalist interests for the control of the yet unexploited markets of the world, or the remaining sources of profit. The socialist movement, therefore, is a world movement. It knows of no conflicts of interests between the workers of one nation and the workers of another. It stands for the freedom of the workers of all lands; and, in so standing, it makes for the full freedom of all humanity.
 
 Socialists looks upon society as an organism of which all are integral parts to be adapted and coordinated upon a basis of harmonious cooperation, not for the greatest good of the greatest number, but for the greatest good of all. Socialists appeals to the ballot to express the untrammelled will of the people. Socialism is not “such stuff as dreams are made of,” but a social system that is to be, evolving. It is the next phase in the evolution of civilisation.