The Earth Must Belong To All

 

Our object is the economic freedom of the producing class. This will mean the end of the present capitalist competitive system and the introduction of its successor, the cooperative commonwealth. We campaign for the end of the private ownership of the means of production The capitalist class owns the machinery of production, they don’t use it. The wage-working class use it, but they don’t own it. The capitalist class demands that they reap the profits. The greater the wage, the smaller the profit; the smaller the wage, the greater the profit. The capitalist system, with its extreme wealth upon the one hand, its abject and widespread poverty on the other; and its political corruption, is industrial slavery. In the present system capitalists must buy labour-power as cheaply as possible. Whipped into subservience by their poverty they are forced into the industrial servitude. They stand at the machine and feed it; they become cogs in the revolving wheels. The capitalists’ prosperity is built upon broken lives.

The Socialist Party not interested in the idea of violence. We are not insurrectionists. We are realists.  We have never advocated the use of violence. Our movement is worldwide because it is born of and follows the development of the capitalist system, which in its operation is confined to no country, but by its agencies of production, exchange, communication, and transportation, has leapt all national frontiers and made the world as a whole the arena of its activities. All the peoples of the planet must be drawn into relations of cooperation, to be the economic and social basis of human harmony. We produce by our toil all the wealth of the world. We have little or nothing to show for it. We build all the palaces and live in slums and shacks. We produce everything and possess practically nothing. Someone who controls and owns the means that sustain our lives, owns and controls us. We are his slave and in no sense free. So long as the workers are divided, economically and politically, they will remain in subjection, exploited of what they produce and treated with contempt by the parasites who live off our sweat.

The government oppress and suppress us. The political parties stand for the capitalist system, for the private ownership of the means of wealth production and the operation of industry in the interest of the capitalist class. They are committed to the perpetuation of wage-slavery, and whether one or the other wins, you always lose. It ought not to be difficult for  working people to decide which of these parties act in our interests. Unfortunately a great many workers do not know. Many are opposed to socialism. You still think there is still opportunities for upward mobility under capitalism and you fear that the socialists will take what little you have and divide it among the shiftless and thriftless. It will be the capitalists who will lay you off, push you into debt, who will bankrupt you, drive you into destitution. You will be stripped of whatever meagre wealth you own.

The Socialist Party is the only party that does not want a vote unless the person who casts that vote has the intelligence to know what he or she is voting for. The Socialist Party is the party of the whole working class — men and women.. The Socialist Party proposes that all shall be economically free. The Socialist Party is the party of the workers, organised to express in political terms their determination to break their fetters and rise to the dignity of free men and women. Fellow-workers must unite and develop their political power to conquer and abolish the capitalist political state and clear the way for industrial and social democracy.

We live in the most favoured times in all history. We have resources in  abundance, the most productive technology the world has ever known, and  eager and educated workers ready and willing to apply their knowledge and skills. The  unity of the workers must first be effected before there can be any progress toward emancipation.

 In the competitive capitalist system we are pitted against each other. We make war upon each other. We know that our fellow-workers are in an economic condition in which they are compelled to fight other fellow-workers. The Socialist Party is concerned with the environment. We do not propose a mere change of party — we propose a change of system. We are not reformers — we are revolutionists.  We do not support any other party, and we would never compromise political principle for electoral gain. We are looking forward to that time when there is no master and no slave. Capitalism is war. With socialism comes peace. Technology will be our servant. At the touch of a button, flick of a switch, automation will produce in abundance for all. What work men and women will engage in will be joy. Every one will have leisure.