PEOPLE’S POWER

Capitalism is the enemy. Who supports capitalism is the enemy. Who supports the hirelings of capitalism is the enemy. By supporting capitalist candidates they support working-class enemies. Why cannot the worker learn this lesson? When the worker has learnt this lesson; when we know we must rely upon ourselves and upon our fellow-workers what are we to do ? How are we to apply our knowledge to matters of everyday importance to us? It is evidently futile for us to assert our independence of the other political factions if we are independently to strive for measures which those factions advocate. It is also useless for us to organise ourselves into a party which is unable to agree upon a working programme and a common line of action. 

The political party of the workers must be the reflex of the economic interests of the workers who are the propertyless class, in the same way as the other parties reflect the economic interests of the propertied class. We are then driven to the necessity of searching for the economic interest of the worker. And this we find in the principle that the working-class having created all the wealth of society are the rightful owners of that wealth. Every person should receive the product of their own labour, but as in modern society it is impossible to determine the portion which any individual adds to the value of the articles he helps to create, we must be content to let all those who labour remain joint owners of the aggregate product. This, however, is not what obtains in modern society where the reverse is the case. In modern society to-day the non-producers of wealth are the joint owners of the aggregate amount of wealth produced. In this fact we have surely the true differentiation of the party of the workers from the party of the property-owners. And the first object of the political party of the workers, therefore, should be the securing for workers as a class the fruits of their own labour.

 It is within the power of a socialist working class to register, through the vote, its disagreement with capitalism and the capitalist system of society: within its power to register its belief in the superiority of a socialist system, and through this means, of using social forces on behalf of the movement clearly indicated by the trend of economic development, and opposed only to the extent of the power of the ruling class. The power of the ruling class to day is in the main that lent it by the votes of the workers who, in their class unconsciousness, vote on one or other of the pretexts skilfully put before them by the politicians of the masters.

The political party standing for socialism and socialism alone is already in existence; the economic organisation is not yet born. It may be that the framework of existing organisations will be clothed anew with the spread of socialist ideas among their ranks; certain it is that the economic organisation, if separate, must work in complete unison with the political party, since their membership must necessarily consist, in the main, of the same individuals, and their objective be identical.  To be afraid of the corruption that has grown up with the political chicanery in the past, is to play into the hands of the masters. They would wish for nothing better than to be left in the quiet possession of the strings controlling society, while the workers run their heads against the bayonets they hold—or have held by others—to receive them.

That any essential improvement will accrue within the capitalist system it is impossible to imagine, but the way will be prepared for the final overthrow of capitalism and the inauguration of the Socialist Co-operative Commonwealth.