Build Socialism

 

The Socialist Party is often criticised as being the political party for saints and angels, expecting our fellow workers to be altruistic and self-sacrificing but it is through the self-interest of the workers to change the system that we actually appeal because the capitalist system is run in the interest of those who are parasites on society. The Socialist Party is urging the producers of wealth to gain the comfort for themselves that they make possible for others to acquire. Socialism would encourage excellence in every branch of human activity. Freed from the uncertainty of the future, and with the best conditions prevailing for all, those who may excel will not be relegated to obscurity on a capitalist pittance. They will merit something infinitely greater respect of the whole of society, whose interests will be their own. 

Our job and our responsibility are to get people interested in socialism, to persuade and provoke people into accepting our ideas.  The policy and principles of the Socialist Party are easily understood, and we offer them to workers who are prepared to learn something new. Without understanding the workers cannot achieve socialism. Working people must require socialist knowledge and they must resist apathy and begin to challenge their existence of poverty and uncertainty. They must seek socialism as a priority. The Socialist Party is optimistic about the future, and we are optimistic that our fellow workers desire social change.

We concede that our fellow workers habitually vote capitalist representatives to the seats of government and that they can if they have a mind to, vote them out of office. It is not that the working class are enthusiastic supporters of capitalism — their experiences have taught them to expect little from any political party or politician. It is because they see no alternative to capitalism. This is the situation the Socialist Party hopes to rectify. The establishment of socialism is not just based on the control of political machinery: this is the end of the process. Socialism is not a change of government, it is a fundamental change in the nature and purpose of society. The master-and-servant mentality is imbued in the worker. While he starts and finishes his active life as a wage slave, ideas are spoon-fed to him by the propaganda machine of the capitalist. Left-wing propaganda offering leadership adds to the impression that we are incapable of thinking, organising and acting for ourselves. The reformers have had their day and there is nothing to show for it. When men and women become conscious of the need to change from capitalist society to socialism we will move forward. The conditions are ripe and the revolutionary route well signposted. The job of the Socialist Party is to speed the process, and not the impossible task of trying to make wage-slavery more palatable. If workers refuse to see the need to establish a revolutionary system of production based on democratic control and common ownership, there is no other way open to them to achieve their release from capitalism. It is all or nothing.

The World Socialist Movement has always been plagued by ignorant definitions and descriptions of socialism and dictionaries have played no small part in this deception. An objective test of socialism is contained within its two cardinal principles: first, abolition of the system of private ownership of the means of production and distribution and its replacement by a system of production based on common ownership; and, arising from this, the abolition of the wages system and capitalist exploitation. This is the revolutionary approach to politics which workers will have to think about rather than allow themselves to be misled by definitions written by career-minded academics. Capitalism divides because the means of production are owned by a few. Socialism will embrace all mankind because the earth will be owned in common. Socialism will be a class-free world community, democratically administered without leaders or governments. Production will be geared to meeting human need, on the basis of free access. The privileged private or state property institutions of capitalism will make way for communal interest and cooperation. Money, wages and profits will be no more. It is high time the workers of all lands finished killing and dying for capitalism and proclaimed their own class interest by establishing socialism. There is nothing in capitalism for the working class, whoever runs it. Capitalism has disastrously failed to harness its immense industrial and scientific resources for the benefit of all mankind, or to any end other than the quest for profits, must be obvious to any objective observer.

Building socialism demands the unity and cooperation of the workers of the world. Such unity and cooperation can only arise from a clear recognition of the need to change society into a system without frontiers where the scramble for trade and profits no longer exists. The resources of the planet, instead of being a class monopoly used to exploit and destroy, will be commonly owned and used solely to satisfy human needs. Our organisation’s task remains one of expounding the case for socialism. If one thing is clear, it is that until a majority of the world’s workers understand and acts for socialism we are stuck with capitalism and all it implies.