HELP US TO PROPAGATE SOCIALISM.

Socialism stands for a society of equals in which the distinctions between rich and poor, exploiters and exploited, no longer exist. Opponents of this revolutionary conception assure us frequently that no such form of society has ever existed, or ever will ; that there always have been rich and poor, and always will be .These claims are false. These assertions  are based on a very scanty acquaintance with the facts, and are effectively refuted by numerous anthropological studies. The things required to satisfy the needs of the world are to-day wrested from nature by one section of society, the working class. The other section, the master class, appropriate the results of the workers' efforts, the wealth produced, by virtue of the fact that the workers have "behaved" and "voted" in such a way as to enable the masters so to do. Thus the master class determines who shall have, who shall have not, and in what proportion—determine who shall eat and who shall starve.

The remedy? The antidote to the poison pushed into the minds of our fellow-workers is that they must, behave, think, and vote differently. You must think for yourself, instead of absorbing the propaganda dressed up to look like real knowledge. You must vote for your own class, and not that of the banker. You must see to it that your fellow-worker has the real position of the working class laid in front of him, instead of the dope issued by the capitalist-financed media daily. The Socialist Standard is the instrument for your

purpose ready to hand. Bring it to the notice of your work-mates. Push it for all you are worth. Its only mission in the insurance line is to point the way to the workers by which they can insure against the evils of capitalist society, by ensuring a speedy termination of the system that robs them of the fruits of their labours.

A worker never gets much more out of employment, even when he or she is lucky enough to be always at work, than the necessaries of life required to keep them fit and able to support a family.

The cost of living is the mean level around which the industrial war takes place. Supply and demand plays its part, but nearly always on the side of the masters, because there are nearly always more workers than jobs. Represented by leaders who do not understand the economic laws of the capitalist system nor how to direct the workers in times of crisis, the latter are always at a disadvantage in disputes over wages. Human labour-power is the worker's only commodity; we live by the sale of it or starve if we cannot sell it. Let every worker understand once for all the real meaning and significance of labour-power as a commodity. Let us realise that our wages can seldom rise above what it costs to maintain ourselves and our families. That wages are more likely to fall below that level as competition increases. We only delude ourselves if we imagine that high or low taxes affect us in the long run.

Mass production is the latest and most callous form of capitalism; it manufactures cheap and shoddy goods to feed and clothe its overworked and poverty-stricken slaves. It drives the wage-slaves to despair through long periods of unemployment and dread of the sack.  The inevitable consequences of mass production are increased unemployment and lower wages. Mass production is not a thing of the future; it is with us now in all its hideousness, and promise of worse to come. May it startle the workers of all lands out of their lethargy, strip the blindfolds from their eyes, and force them to examine the claims of the Socialist Party; for only then will they understand that they are slaves, why they are slaves, and how they can be free. The role of a revolutionary party is to spread revolutionary ideas and not to propose palliatives for the system it seeks to overthrow.