Reasons to be cheerful

The Socialist Party is the only party that stands against the present system and for the rule of the people; the only party that boldly avows itself the party of the working class and its purpose the overthrow of wage-slavery. So long as the present system of capitalism prevails and the few are allowed to own industries, working people will be in poverty as they are today. The Socialist Party is the party of the exploited workers in the mills and mines, on the railways and on the farms, the workers of both sexes and all races and colours. It speaks for the working class in a word, constituting a great majority of the people and in fact THE PEOPLE, demands that the world’s industries shall be taken over by the workers who shall operate them for the benefit of the whole people. Private ownership has had its day. 

The Socialist Party stands for common ownership and co-operation and industrial democracy. The Socialist Party demands the overthrow of wage-slavery. Workers are now doing their own thinking. They have also found that politics express class interests and that the interests of those who make the wealth and those who take it are not identical. The most promising the fact that the working class is organising its power; its economic power and its political power. The workers who have made the world and who run the world, are preparing to take possession of the world. This is the meaning of socialism and is what the Socialist Party stands for.

Our economy of abundance must become the common property of all the people. There is a new and full life to be built. Piecemeal reforms cannot solve the problems our society faces. We want peace, instead of bloodshed and violence and destruction. We want security, instead of insecurity, the terrible business of not knowing today whether or not we will have a job and an income tomorrow. We want to be sure that we will be able to raise our families in decent homes and good schools. We want comfort and prosperity, instead of low living standards, slums, child labour, unemployment, hunger and starvation. We want democracy and freedom, instead of regimentation, bureaucracy, racial and religious and national conflict. These are the simple things which all  people everywhere long for, the simple things we have always wanted for ourselves and our children.

But we don’t have them.

 We live in a modern civilisation. We have huge industries. We have undreamed-of natural resources. We have millions of skilled workers. We can produce in one day what it took our ancestors years to produce. Yet we do not have peace, security and prosperity.

It is the social system that stands in the way, the system of capitalism.

 From the point of view of “logic” and “reason” the waste of the resources of the peoples is utter insanity. But it is the logic of capitalism and the class structure of society. It is the defence of the interests, privileges and income of the capitalist class.

Nothing is more certain than that the social and economic system under which we live is undergoing a process of evolution. A new social system is evolving out of the present chaos. We do not attack individuals. We oppose the system itself. Marxism has always taken the position that there is no final crisis of capitalism as such. A myth evolved that Marxism put forward the idea of capitalism collapsing of itself is of course completely false. Capitalism, even in its period of decay, will not collapse of itself. It falls to the workers through their own organisations, to overthrow it. 

The socialist transformation of society is the only means to guarantee a civilised existence and carry society forward on the basis of the maximum use of the resources created by the labour of the working class. By utilising the full economic, scientific and technical potential  with the enthusiastic creative efforts of the working class, in a society where unemployment, want and hunger are abolished and access to all necessities are guaranteed, the free democratic control of industry  by the working class will ensure a higher development of society on a more civilised and enlightened basis. 

A free democratic society under the control and management of the working class could carry through the new transformation of industry, which would clear the way for the complete transition to socialism.

We demand the means of production and distribution in the name of the workers and the control of society in the name of the people. We demand the abolition of capitalism and wage-slavery and the surrender of the capitalist class. We demand the equal rights of all the people regardless of race, colour, creed or nationality. We demand complete control of industry by the workers; we demand all the wealth they produce for their own enjoyment, and we demand the Earth for all the people.