This system of society is called capitalism. Its essential feature is that a great numbers of people around the world co-operate to produce that which humanity needs but the machinery they use is the property of a comparatively small number of individuals, who, by virtue of such ownership, take the whole of the product, returning to the labourers, on the average, just sufficient of the proceeds to enable them to support life and continue to work. The wealth produced to-day is produced for the market. The continuity of a capitalist concern depends upon its ability to obtain and hold markets. Without markets it dwindles and dies. There is no standing still. It is either going for ward of back. If it goes forward, it carries its own Nemesis with it; for among the products it must export are the very machines that will in turn make the market first self-supporting, and later into a competitor. If it go back, it automatically condemns to idleness, hunger, and possible insurrection the source of its own riches, the workers, without whom the whole of its machinery is so much scrap-iron.
It becomes a question about those who own the social machinery
Consider these facts. During the last ten years probably a hundred millions of people have died as a result of war, famine, and pestilence (coronavirus). Add to these the millions of unemployed in every capitalistic country. Think of the loss in productive capacity of those millions. Think of the loss as consumers. We are told this is a period of bad trade, of recession, of decreased productivity, of poverty-stricken markets. What will it mean when Capitalism gets going again; when trade revives; when What other than that the present slump will be succeeded by a brief period of feverish bustle of prodigious production, of tremendous effort, and then— and then, what? Markets choked, production stopped, unemployment colossal, and slump abysmal.
These things will gradually awake the worker to a knowledge of his position. As the water wears the stone away, so the disappointments and sufferings will eventually wear away the workers' support of capitalism. In our opinion, human society is ripe for socialisation now, immediately. It wants but a working class ready, willing, and, above all, organised, to take the means of human life out of the hands of those who now use them for individual gain and convert them into instruments for the common well-being. The opportunity arises at each General Election, for, as the capitalists conserve their power by their hold on the machinery of government, so, with the accession to power of a majority of workers' delegates, backed by an organised working class, can the people achieve that social ownership of its own means of life, which we call socialism. This can be achieved in our time. This is within the compass of the present year. There is no need to await the brutal bludgeoning of the next slump, or the one after that. The first requisite is understanding; the next organisation; and then a realisation that they are best combined by joining the Socialist Party—now.
Every member of the Socialist Party commenced with a relatively limited amount of knowledge, usually dearly bought in the hard school of working-class experience; but he or she knows that such a step inevitably leads to the desire to study and enlarge that knowledge. Unfortunately, the new convert to socialism is often inclined to enthuse over anything that is supposed to call for working-class activity and support; he or she is fired with zeal and interest in matters which, a later and clearer perception will teach, are about as much to do with the socialist objective as the programme of the Labour Party. It by no means follows that he or she should not endeavour to understand each and every phase of political activity, but a clear understanding of their socialist position IS FIRST NECESSARY to enable him to analyse and explain the uselessness of such and such a movement to our class. No member of the Labour Party could show that even the realisation of the whole of their programme would confer the slightest permanent benefit upon the workers; they can only impress and delude the politically ignorant. Mere eagerness to do something without an objective, which is the result of scientific deduction, may even be in a direct line to perpetuate decadent capitalism. All reforms are a standing example of such waste of effort as far as socialism is concerned.
It is often easier to instruct and help members of the working class in obtaining real socialist knowledge who have NOT imbibed some half-baked unscientific notions of the so-called "Communist" and other left-wing organisations, seeking the support of the workers, than it is with those who, though professing socialists, are confused, and, in reality, unconsciously enemies of the working class. Before one can lay any claim to the name of socialist, it is essential that an understanding be based upon a scientifically drawn-up foundation; only then can the worker discard false conceptions and avoid the errors so common to the pseudo and the sentimental reformer.
That foundation is to be found in the principles of the Socialist Party. There, in simple, working-class language, is the guide to action. Once understood, no matter how brilliant the oratory or rhetoric, or how touching the appeal may be that is. made by people who claim that their heart bleeds for the worker—he will know that there is one way, and ONE WAY ONLY, to working-class emancipation, and that is. the way of class-conscious concerted action by the workers themselves. That is the knowledge that will enable the workers to obtain the power to wrest, by their political supremacy, the means to the glorious heritage that awaits them. Without that knowledge, however much skill and dexterity they may possess as workers, they remain slaves, by reason of the ignorance of their position in society. Once a majority obtain that knowledge, the advent of the socialist commonwealth is at hand. Fellow-workers, join with us; the smallest effort helps to speed the day.
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