Against our capitalist enemy

  

"My friends, never put your trust in, and never follow after, men who pretend to be able to manufacture a revolution. A revolution, a rolling away of the whole from evil to good, from wrong to right, from injustice and oppression to righteousness and equal rule, never yet was manufactured, and never will be manufactured..." - Rev. Joseph Rayner Stephens, Chartist  

The objective of socialists is the abolition of man’s exploitation by man. Socialism is as staunchly opposed to the conquest and exploitation, by whatever means, of race by race, nation by nation, or state by state, as it is to the exploitation of man by man.

Socialism is conceived as a society without exploitation, organised democratically for the common good. Socialism would mean the end of economic anxiety and insecurity for all. The ruling class does not like reasoned rational thought; it prefers regimented minds. Capitalism has shown that it cannot advance civilisation, but only drive it further along the road of conflict, human degradation, barbarism and ruin. It simply makes no sense to us when we are told that approaching capitalist barbarism diminishes the prospects of socialism and it is better for us to give up the fight. That is the talk of demoralised wage slaves. It is precisely the fact that capitalism is a growing threat that we should redouble our efforts to bury it. We reiterate our trust in the working people and dedicate our organisation to socialist emancipation.

Economic democracy means the end of the capitalist market, whose only goal is to gain the highest profit through the maximum exploitation of the working class. Labour-power will no longer be a commodity to be bought and sold in the marketplace. Workers will no longer be exploited. Workers will collectively own and run the workplaces. Workers will democratically control all of society. Production will be based on the needs and wants of all working people, taking into account environmental protection, conservation of resources and the needs of workers of other countries. Because we will be working and producing to meet our own needs and not for the profit of others, and because we will own and control the technology and use it to meet real human needs, we will be able to provide everyone with a comfortable and secure livelihood working far less than we do now. The workweek will be reduced and leisure time increased for all workers. We can't know exactly how the revolution will take place. But we do know that without organisation -- both political and economic, it can never take place.

Marx used the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" to mean control by the working class and excluding the property-owning bourgeoisie. He did not mean dictatorship as the word is often used today, as one-man rule or the one-party state.

All social wealth is ultimately the product of labour and labour alone. This includes the factories, technology and all other means of production, which are the product of past labour.

Capitalist development has placed the modern facilities of production under the lock and key of private ownership. As a result, the working class majority suffers from growing privation and all the social ills emanating from that maldistribution.

The only solution is for the working class to organise and establish economic democracy. In doing so, it can reestablish and reclaim possession of the wealth that past generations of workers created.

Since this wealth was created by the collective labour of society, it rightfully belongs to all society. The fact that it today is privately owned by a few is the result of it being "legally" stolen from the working class. Society thus has the right to reclaim the property in the name of human survival, social well-being and progress.

When a majority of society asserts its inalienable right to reorganise the structure of society, it must break the bonds of the old system's precepts. The new society will not "compensate" any capitalist, large or small, for taking over the means of production that rightly belongs to all society. In liberating society from all the constraints and evils imposed by the system of private property. Former capitalists need not lead deprived lives under economic democracy. They will be free to join former members of the working class in the community of free, self-governing producers. Like everyone else, they will be able to enjoy a life of material abundance and security, with a shortened workweek and under improved conditions. They will enjoy all the other numerous social benefits of life under a sane, healthy and peaceful social system and will enjoy the fruits of economic democracy.