We stand for socialism

 Around the world humanity is saying "Enough" and is beginning to move. Though our lives and conditions be different; though we live in different parts of the world; though our struggles take different forms; ours is a common goal — an end to the oppression and exploitation of man by man. For most of us democracy remains a word without meaning. We are cut off from the ability to make decisions affecting our own lives. The global corporations determine all the key questions. Despite the relative quiescence of the working people, it is clear that their very life situation forces them to come repeatedly into conflict with the system. They find themselves in daily conflict with the employers in the struggle for decent wages and security. 

Capitalist parties have always told us that they could manage the problems of society by just a little oil there, a tightening of a screw here; no need to get rid of private property, the profit motive or the wages system. Far too sweeping they said; it may be alright for later on, but we must deal with this or that problem right now. These same parties go from door to door asking for votes. They will point to their glowing records of social service and endeavour, and promise to cure what they promised to cure at the last election and the one before that, and before that, and before that . . .Politicians who have been conspicuous by their absence from their community will turn up, enquiring about the needs of their electorate. They do these things because they need the workers’ votes to give them power to run capitalism as they think best. While the workers support capitalism, the problems of poverty, bad and short supply of housing, crime and unemployment will continue. In its struggles on the international field, capitalism will often produce a war of some sort or the other.

As socialists, we argue for workers’ revolution across the world and take as our primary duty the fight against the capitalists where we live. We must fight to build a labour movement that can link up with the working class across the world to make revolution against the capitalists.  We won't give up and we will always fight to make our words and our struggle, against all forms of oppression, visible. We are not in the front line with capitalists, we are in the front line to change society. Only solidarity and mutual aid will allow us to resist. We think that it’s time for a society satisfying the necessities of all, to care and protect nature to guarantee life. We can end this system, putting all production and distribution means into the hands of the people, replacing the market economy for a self-sustaining socialised economy.

For nearly 120 years, members of the Socialist Party have done everything in our power to illuminate the day-to-day fight of the exploited to create an understanding of our goal  - socialism. We are convinced and committed socialists because we see capitalism as harmful to the vast majority of our own and the world’s people. This system we live under, by its very nature, grinds the poor and working people, sets one group against another, and acts violently against people at home and around the world when they resist. We sow the seeds of socialism as the method of achieving a more just, more cooperative and more peaceful society. Capitalism today hurts, divides and exploits the vast majority of our people for the sake of profits and power for the few. Socialists offer an alternative which can meet basic needs of people and which is based on cooperation. Socialism offers a future free from the fears of poverty, sexism, racism, dog-eat-dog competition, joblessness, and the loneliness of old age, a society that allows each person to create and produce according to her or his ability and to obtain what she or he needs. We advocate and work for socialism–that is, common ownership and collective control of the means of production (factories, fields, utilities, etc.) We want a system based on cooperation, where the people build together for the common good.

The Socialist Party believes that the working class will drive the transformation of society because it is at once the most dehumanised and alienated class, yet potentially the most powerful, since the functioning of society depends upon it. We have to find new directions, new roads. We have to organize, and participate in the world-wide movement for the right to be human. In every country, people are escaping from the traditions of the past and are working against war, poverty and injustice. We live in a world torn by crises and wars. The great wealth of the world—the factories, farms and mines —are owned by a tiny minority. We live in a society which puts a price tag on everything. Increasingly disillusioned our fellow-workers are beginning to question every aspect of the society around them. We seek new paths forward. We strive for social change. The world can be changed. For humanity it must be changed. How can the world be changed? Certainly no elite will serve the task. We do not want to replace one group of masters with another. Nor do we want the patronising assistance of those whose real interests lie with the present system. We must look to those whose interests lie in change—to the working people, the people who work in the factories and offices of our society. They built the society—and they too are cut off from power and progress by the tiny minority that owns the wealth. The bosses need the working people—but the workers don’t need the bosses.

As socialists we believe in the great task of transforming this society and of building a new world. We stand for a world which can eliminate poverty and hunger and war; a world in which freedom is more than a word in a textbook; a world in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the producers themselves and the products of mankind are available to all. We stand with the oppressed, with all those who struggle for a better world. Only when we have economic democracy, when production is planned for use and not for profit, when the right of all to share in the abundance of our country is established - only then will democracy be truly established.

A new world has to be created — a world which will put people before profits, which will create a participatory democracy at every level. The potential of mankind virtually limitless, if it is freed from economic and social oppression. We have no illusions that the way will be easy, no visions of quick success. But the future belongs to humanity and socialism.