A Party with Vision

It is impossible to provide more than a basic picture on how we will achieve socialism and how a socialist society will be run. This system of capitalism is running humanity into the ground. For those of us who seek a radical way forward out of the misery and madness of capitalism, a tremendous leap will be taken to give birth to the new society. The Socialist Party possesses a vision of a new economy, democratically structured to answer to people’s needs instead of the profit imperative. If you like that idea, then welcome to the movement for socialism. The Socialist Party is made up of those working men and women who have transcended nationalist inter-capitalist rivalry by posing the alternative of a genuinely world socialist community without money, wages, classes, states or frontiers. Our hope for socialism is liberty, equality, fraternity for all mankind in this and every land, a time radiant with new ideals, new hopes of true democracy.

 Capitalist society is laid upon a foundation of individualism, conquest and exploitation, with a total disregard of the good of the whole. A society built upon such wrong basic principles is bound to hold back the development of all men and women because it tends to divert people’s energies into useless channels. The result is a false standard of values love of gain, cunning and selfishness — are fostered. But the people — the great "common herd" — are finding out what is wrong with the social, political and economical structure of the system of which they are a part.

The Socialist Party has a vision of a very different kind of world. Its members spend their lives fighting against the pain that capitalism inflicts on us and on our people–and we know that as long as this system exists, it will oppress and exploit and wage war. Unless we succeed in finding a way to share that understanding and offer real alternatives to people, our politics have no effect in the real world. In the electoral arena the Left makes the socialist vision secondary to the election of liberal or progressive politicians and the oppressed and exploited people never hear what we have to say about the system that controls our world. Because no matter how “liberal” the politician may be, we never hear any of them talk about ending capitalism. Capitalists rule through a combination of illusion, force and accommodation. And the majority of people have been taught to defend the interests of their enemies, to identify with them–and to vote for them. And most people mark the right to vote for their oppressor as a symbol of their freedom. Without belief in the authority and righteousness of capitalism, the stranglehold of the ruling class on society’s belief systems would be in jeopardy. It is our job as socialists to challenge those structures and expose the illusions that they create–those illusions that keep our masters strong, and the people weak.

Capitalists rule through the illusion of choice. It maintains its power through a two-party system. There are differences between those two parties.

The Tories and the Labour Party (or the Democrats and the Republicans) are not exactly alike, but they’re not exactly different either. Both are instruments of the employing, owning class; they differ in their tactics, not in their allegiance to capitalism. They exist as a system–they work in tandem–and both have their roles to play.

The role of the Tories (or Republican Party) –in working class and oppressed communities–is to be the greater of the two evils. The role of the Labour Party (or the Democrats) is to be the lesser of two evils, to seduce the people with the promise of hope. And just sometimes, when the power of the people’s organisations outside of the political structure is strong , and on the conditions of the economy, the lesser evil actually doles out some relief. Just enough to divide our ranks, defuse our anger and co-opt the activists, just enough to maintain the illusion that they are serving us. It derails attempts toward independent politics, and locks us into “dependent” politics. The belief that the Labour Party (and the Democratic Party) is, or can be, a party of the people is the chief obstacle to the formation of an independent political vehicle. The two party system is a good system, which works for the people who invented it. It’s been working for them for quite some time now. The “good cop-bad cop” dance routine has convinced some of the people that some politicians can be pressured to protect our interests.

It does not help the people to reject capitalism (because they don’t understand that those horrors are the product of capitalism)–it has just helped some to reject the right-wing, and to run instead (if they are still interested in running anywhere) into the open arms of the left-wing. The Socialists understand how the game is played. We know the Labour Party and the Democratic Party are not a parties of the people. We know their job is to put a human face on corporate rule and to legitimise capitalist power. Our goal is the transformation of society. We are revolutionaries. Our job is to show that their rule is illegitimate. Our job is to show that capitalism’s hunger for profit and power is responsible for wars throughout the world, for the poisoning of the planet, the waging of class war against the working people of the world. Our job is to tell the truth about the system we live in–to tell it in a way that is understandable, that helps to explain the life experience of the people we work with. That is hard to do if we encourage people to vote for the lesser evil. It is hard to communicate our vision when we are asking people to endorse the boss class. In the struggle for people’s hearts and minds, it is not our job to validate the proponents of the capitalist system. It is not our job to tell people to choose between two unacceptable choices. If we say we trust in the wisdom of “the people,” but steer them back to institutions that we know to be oppressive–that is wrong.  If we hold that “the people” have the potential to emancipate themselves and transform society, but then shy away from creating the workers own organisations, that is wrong.