Solidarity Without Borders - World Socialism

Ecological, economic, and health crises spill across frontiers. We must create a solidarity without borders, inspired by a vision of revolutionary change, rooted in the socialist ideals which continue to inspire us. Political freedom without economic equality is a pretence, a fraud, a lie. The Socialist Party strives for a fundamental transformation of society, the abolition of classes. Mankind is social. It is this solidarity and cooperation which makes the “impossible” becomes possible. The spirit of mutual aid gives socialism its strength. The cut-throat competition of capitalism results in undisputed victory for the strong and destruction of the weak. To the victor go the spoils. In the battle for survival in old society it is everybody for himself and the devil take the hindmost.

What does the understanding of the socialist position involve? The Socialist position involves a recognition of the fact that the interests of those who own and control the means of life (the capitalist-class) are absolutely opposed to the interests of those who own nothing but their power to work (the working-class). The first are concerned to make a profit out of the labour of the second. The second are battling for the best conditions they can get. If the second are successful to any degree to that degree the first are losers. To the extent that the first are able to use their power to coin wealth out of the labour of the second, to that extent are the second the losers.

Don’t be put off the track by good capitalists. We are not concerned to deny that some members of the capitalist-class are genuinely sorry that the condition of the working-class is so bad and would prefer it otherwise. That is not the point. The point is that as a class their interests are opposed absolutely to the interests of the class they exploit — the working-class — and under no circumstance whatever can that conflict of interest be avoided. It does not matter whether the working-class are conscious of it or not. The conflict is inevitable and unceasing. The socialist calls it the class-struggle. The ownership by a few people of the means of life is the cause of working-class misery. They say the only remedy lies in the common ownership and control (ownership and control by the whole people) of these means of life. Which is socialism.

While society is based upon the private ownership of the means of life, the worker’s position must always remain the same in its principal features, that political reforms or what not leave him or her always the exploited, always the under dog. These reforms are never achieved except at great effort ; that they are never achieved at all (except they benefit some section of the capitalist class) unless and until the workers have set on foot such a determined agitation that their demands cannot with safety be longer disregarded, as a glance at industrial history will show. Things must always be the same until the workers have fully realised where their real interests lie (have become class-conscious), and have organised their forces specifically for the complete overthrow of the present system of production and the establishment of the Co-operative Commonwealth.

In every part of the world today there is a growing a movement consisting of those who say that production should be for use and not for profit; that it is competition and the absence of mutual interests which make the millionaire on the one hand and the thousands of casual labourers on the other; that it is possible and desirable to abolish both by the introduction of world co-operation