For Economic Freedom

 

The Socialist Party is the only party that is or can be truly representative of the interests of the working class, the only class essential to society. The present form of government, based solely upon private property in the means of production, is wholly coercive. The only vital function of the present government is to keep the exploited class in subjection by their exploiters. In socialism, political power, “not for the purpose of governing men,” in the words of Engels but “to administer things.” 

Parliaments, legislatures, and municipal councils as a rule legislate wholly in the interest of the ruling capitalist class. The owning class is necessarily the ruling class. It dictates reforms and it construes in its own vested interest. Marx was right in declaring the economic basis of society determines the character of all social institutions and in proportion only as this basis changes, the institutions are modified For instance, chattel slavery was legal and respectable as long as it was an economic necessity and no longer. When in the march of the industrial revolution, accelerated so swiftly by the development and application of modern machinery, slavery was overthrown, it became immoral, unjust, and disreputable. In other words it was moral as long as it paid; it became immoral only when it ceased, because of changed economic conditions, to be profitable to the capitalist class.

Today we have capitalist masters and working slaves, who, although called sovereign citizens, are exploited of the fruit of their labour as completely under the present system as were their slavish predecessors in the dark centuries of the past. The Socialist Party says the wage system, like the feudal system from which it sprang, will pass away. The capitalist economic system can only be abolished in two ways, namely, by securing control of government or by violent revolution. No sane person prefers violent to peaceful measures, and hence socialists rely upon the efficacy of a united class-conscious ballot to accomplish their end. The Socialist Party is necessarily a revolutionary party in the sense its basic demand is the common ownership of the means of production and distribution and the operation of all industry in the interest of all the people. This will mean an economic democracy, the basis of the real social democracy yet to be. Economic freedom can result only from common ownership, and upon this vital principle the Socialist Party differs fundamentally from every other party. Between private ownership and common ownership there can be no compromise. One produces for profit, the other for use. One produces millionaire and beggars, the other people of social and economic equality. One gives us palaces and hovels, the other will abolish class rule, ending  class distinction, and securing peace and prosperity for society, and make of this earth for the first time a world of harmony.

The Socialist Party seeks to establish world socialism in which all men and all women, regardless of race, nationality, or creed, may enjoy equal freedom. To accomplish this we are not making war upon individuals, but upon a social and industrial system. In this system class rules class and while the system lasts, and this, is not a race or a gender question, but always a class question. The Socialist Party is the only political party in the world today whose declared purpose it is to abolish class rule and establish a society whose fundamental principle is freedom of all. The capitalist system has run its course. Socialism would establish cooperation instead of competition. Socialism believes in all for all, not all for a few.

Under the capitalist system men must fight each other for survival, under that condition mankind cannot love one another. Our economic conditions must always determine our conduct toward each other. Under the present system someone can’t walk up to you on the street and rob or kill you, but that person can rob and exploit you by more subtle indirect means. Socialism finds no fault with the individual but rather with the system. The earth is or should be an equal heritage for all that inhabit it. A person ought not to be dependent on any other for work and a livelihood. Political liberty is of no great benefit without economic freedom, and so the workers of the world are organising themselves for the overthrow of capitalism. With socialism we will produce to use, not to sell.