Break Your Chains

 

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Under capitalism the workers are wage slaves, slaves of the bosses. The bosses run the factories in order to maximise profits. This means that they pay workers as little as possible. A capitalist has to exploit his workers in order to survive as a capitalist. We must stand together against them. The only struggle for us is the struggle of the workers against their exploiters. 

The Socialist Party aims to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a new social system from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supersede capitalism and competition, and in which genuine democratic self-management of production, based upon economic democracy will be possible. Capitalism is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth, by chaotic waste and instability; and in an age of plenty it condemns the  people to poverty and insecurity. Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of financiers and industrialists and to their predatory interests the majority are sacrificed. When profit is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic recessions, in which working people’s normal state of hardship is accentuated. We believe that these evils can be removed only in a planned and socialised economy in which resources and the means of production and distribution are commonly owned, controlled and operated by the people.

The new society at which we aim is not one in which individuality will be crushed by a system of regimentation. We seek a much greater degree of leisure and a much richer cultural life for every citizen. The social and economic transformation, the ideal of a co-operative commonwealth, can be brought about by political action, supported by a majority of the people. We do not believe in change by violence. The Socialist Party aims at political power in order to put an end to this capitalist domination. It is a democratic movement. The Socialist Party will rest content until it has eradicated capitalism. We stand for changing the world through a process of self-emancipation, where there aren’t leaders who tell people what to do but rather people who collectively liberate themselves. 

As socialists, we surely take as our starting point that capitalism produces sufficient wealth to provide enough for all, but because of the ownership and organisation of production, that wealth is wasted or even destroyed. Certainly capitalism is incapable of providing decent homes, social services and living standards for all. Only by resisting all attempts at class collaboration, insisting on the independence of the working class, can a movement be built to challenge capitalism.

The Socialist Party goal is the establishment by democratic means of a cooperative commonwealth in which the supplying of human needs and enrichment of human life shall be the primary purpose of our society. Despite of great economic expansion, working people do not benefit adequately from the increased wealth produced. Wealth and economic power continue to be concentrated in the hands of a relatively few private corporations. The gap between those at the bottom and those at the top of the economic scale has widened. Billions around the world still live in want and insecurity. Lack of decent housing in the mega-city slums, shanty-towns and ghettoes  condemn many families to a cheerless life of daily misery. To sum up, our world is still characterised by glaring inequalities of wealth and opportunity because of the domination of one group over another. The growing concentration of corporate wealth has resulted in a virtual economic dictatorship by a privileged few. Political democracy will attain its full meaning only when working people have a voice in the management and running of their economic affairs and effective control over the means by which they live. This lack of social planning results in a waste of our natural resources and of our human resources.

Socialism maximises opportunities for individual development and the maximum of goods and services for the satisfaction of human needs. Unprecedented scientific advances have brought us to the threshold of a new technological revolution yet unless there is social planning, the changes will produce only greater concentrations of wealth and loss of power and will cause widespread distress through unemployment and the displacement of populations. The Socialist Party reaffirms its conviction that our society must build a new relationship among humanity--a relationship based on mutual respect and on equality, a levelling up and not a levelling down, in which everyone will have a sense of worth and belonging, and will be enabled to develop their capacities to the full, ensuring justice to producers and consumers is the cooperative form of common ownership. The hungry, oppressed and underprivileged of the world must know democracy not as a smug slogan but as a way of life which sees the world as one whole and which recognizes the right of everybody to the highest available standard of living. The Socialist Party has confidence in the people from many lands in search of freedom, security and opportunity. This is the world socialist cooperative commonwealth which the Socialist Party invites our fellow-workers to build with imagination.