Society’s emancipation from the chaos of climate change, war, want-amid-waste and alienating mental stagnation, must await the socialist education of the working people, for which purpose the Socialist Party exists. Capitalist propaganda not only put forward the demonstrably false idea that revised capitalism could operate in the interests of the workers but also perpetuate the additional and even greater crime of tagging “socialism” to such proposals. Other parties manifest such inconsistencies that the worker, confused and disillusioned, loses any progressive urge, and either return to political apathy or else goes as far as active antagonism to any movement styling itself working-class. It should here be noted that widely extended education, improved health services and other public welfare measures—claimed as evidence of socialism—are in fact normal features of capitalist growth in many countries.
A knowledge of socialism enables man to command by knowledge these social forces and change society for the benefit of all. We need a new economic system. Capitalism is driving us towards disaster. This is because decisions are being motivated by the maximisation of profit rather than the goal of saving the future for human society and the environment. The mania for growth of capitalist economists is risking the stability of our planet.
The wants of all must be the first guiding consideration of any revolutionary movement which has a socialist character. To leave nobody without food, shelter and healthcare, is the foremost goal of the workers’ movement inspired by socialist ideas. The only rule to guide us must be the wants of each family, each of them being equally entitled to enjoy the produce of the labour of generations past and present. If overthrowing the present rulers and proclaiming some great industrial undertakings, like railways and mines, the property of a State democratised a bit--everything beyond that remaining as it is--then, of course, there is no use in speaking about social revolution at all. It is no use to describe the aspirations of taking all great branches of industry under the management of the State as such a result would be utterly shabby in comparison with the great movement of ideas stirred up by socialism; and that it stands in very strange contradiction with the hopes that socialists seek to awaken. We do not argue about whether bankers are greedy or not, if masters are good or bad, if the State is paternal or despotic, if laws are just or unjust, if courts are fair or unfair, if the police are merciful or brutal. When we talk about banks, State, masters, government, laws, courts and police, we say only we don’t want any of them. These hopes are hopes of getting rid of capitalist oppression, of abolishing the rule of man by man, of Equality, of Freedom, of Socialism.
Private property - not the claim to use, but to a right to prevent others from using - enables individuals who have appropriated the means of production, to hold in subjection all those who possess nothing but their labour. and who must work that they may live? No work is possible without land, materials, and tools or machinery; thus the masters of these things are the masters also of the destitute workers and can live in idleness upon their labour, paying them in wages only enough of the produce to keep them alive, only employing so many of them as they find profitable and leaving the rest to their fate. Such a wrong is not innate in human nature. Socialism holds forth the principle that in the name of the common claim of all to a common share in the results of the common labour of all, each with an equal claim to satisfy as seems good to oneself, his or her natural needs from the stock of social wealth. The means of production ought to be under the power of the workers, then they need have no fear of new technology. That we may soon witness the real emancipation of labour is the sincere wish of the wage slave.
The ruling classes understand what they must do and it is to maintain by every possible means their possession of power and the instruments of production. Therefore, they will try first to hinder the spread of socialist views. If unable to do this, they will try to take hold of the movement, and to give it a direction that is less threatening to their privileges. But if nevertheless, the movement still takes a socialist turn, if it continues to grow in political power, if it seriously endangers their ownership, then they will offer a few concessions more illusory than real, and by these concessions, they will try to divide the working people. And if the workers are not aware of the danger of accepting these illusory concessions, if they let themselves be divided into two camps, then the well-to-do, without distinction of opinions, will unite so as to re-establish, their power and privileges on a basis as solid as before.
Do our fellow workers share in a similar unity of purpose to act in their own interest? Sadly, no. Many workers have little hope in the possibility of even approaching such a socialist solution for many generations to come, and thus do not care at all about it. A few welfare reforms, some laws to protect women and children, some laws to reduce the hours of labour - their demands go no further. They have no consciousness of their own strength, no belief in the possibility of abolishing privileges sanctioned by centuries of misrule. They trust in the coming generations to reach a more equitable mode of organisation but have no faith in their own. Instead, they believe some fine day the people will reject the rulers who oppose the wishes of the people and nominate new ones in their place. But what will these new rulers do? Will they all be nominated for the purpose of expropriating the present proprietors? Will they all be inspired with the very same wishes as the masses reduced to misery under the grindstone of capital? Will they have the magic power of improving the position of the worker, if the workers themselves do not know what to do for the improvement of their own position? If the workmen themselves have not formulated their wants and concluded that nothing short of putting an end to the evils of our present economical organization, ff the workers themselves, do not find and point out the ways and means by which the restitution of capital to the producers can be accomplished so as to benefit all classes of the community, how can they rely upon new rulers who hold the very same old belief as of that in a Savior who will come someday and settle everything for the benefit of humanity?
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