Every human being who desires to put an end to this society of decay and destruction, of war and hunger, must find a place in the revolutionary World Socialist Movement. We will produce no more for profit but for use but for happiness. The crack in the foundations of capitalism is the technical possibility of producing as much or more than is required by everyone yet capitalism fails to deliver. The hope of socialism will be buried under the ruins of civilisation. This is your choice – to abandon your hopes and aspirations, for your master’s continued profits, or to abolish the capitalist system to make realisable our hopes and dreams. To do the first is to give up life itself, to do the second is to make life worth living. The Socialist Party aspires for a world worth living in. A world where no one need know hunger. Where people use their brains and brawn to contribute as fully as possible to overcome social problems. Where peace is the rule not an exception. The Socialist Party offers to exchange poverty for prosperity, ignorance for knowledge, hatred for kindness, division for unity and to effect this change with minimum inconvenience to individuals so all shall be essentially benefit within a short period from the introduction of socialism, a cooperative world community. There is no better way for suffering humanity than to go forward together to establish the democratic common ownership of the means of producing life’s necessities.
It is the capitalist system which produces misery and disaster. Capitalists promise all things to all men, like the quack who will cure everything from toothache to cancer with a bottle of colored water. Production for profit required two things: someone with enough resources to buy means of production (machines and so on); and, secondly, people who had no means of production themselves, no resources by using which they could live. In other words, there had to be “capitalists,” who owned means of production, and workers whose only chance of getting a livelihood was to work the machines owned by the capitalists. The workers produced things, not directly for themselves or for the personal use of their new “lord,” the capitalist, but for the capitalist to sell for money on the market. . Marx pointed out that the source of profit could not possibly come from the capitalists selling the products above their value – this would mean that all capitalists were all the time cheating each other, and where one made a “profit” of this kind the other necessarily made a loss, and the profits and losses would cancel each other out, leaving no general profit. It therefore followed that the value of an article on the market must already contain the profit: the profit must arise in the course of production, and not in the sale of the product.
What is the importance of the analysis made by Marx to show the source of profit? It is that it explains the class struggle of the capitalist period. In each factory or other enterprise the wages paid to the workers are not the equivalent of the full value they produce, but only equal to about half this value, or even less. The rest of the value produced by the worker during his working day (i.e. after he has produced the equivalent of his wages) is taken outright by his employer. The employer is therefore constantly trying to increase the amount taken from the worker. He can do this in several ways: for example, by reducing the worker’s wages; this means that the worker works a less proportion of the day for himself, and a greater proportion for the employer. The same result is achieved by “speeding up” or intensifying the labour – the worker produces his keep in a smaller proportion of the working day, and works a larger proportion for his employer. The same result, again, is achieved by lengthening the working day, which increases the proportion of the working day spent in working for the employer. On the other hand, the worker fights to improve his own position by demanding higher wages and shorter hours and by resisting “speeding up.”
Hence the continuous struggle between the capitalists and the workers, which can never end so long as the capitalist system of production lasts.
Socialism, as every worker should know, is the next step in social evolution. The ideal of socialism is deeply embedded in the minds and hearts of workers.
We represent the conception of socialism of the future. We stand for the end impoverishment and to win the earth from the fear of want and war. We seek a world in which the exploitation of man by man shall cease, when prosperity and peace shall be enjoyed by all. Socialism obliterates all differences of race, gender, colour, and nationality. It celebrates the brotherhood of all workers everywhere. It crosses all national boundaries, it transcends all language barriers, it ignores all religious differences. It makes sharp and clear, around the world, the impassable chasm between all workers and all exploiters.
Socialists seek a new world, a class-free world, a peaceful world, a world without poverty or misery. That is the promise of socialism, the real fraternity of humanity. Socialism is a constant inspiration to downtrodden and exploited workers in every country in the world to build a place of land of peace and plenty, the great cooperative commonwealth, no bosses, no landlords, no bankers, no rich, no profiteers, no capitalism. We represent the future.
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