Socialism is for ourselves

Capitalism produces and perpetuates poverty and hatred.  Wherever capital rules it constitutes an instrument of domination over the vast majority of the population. 

Malthusians believe that the meagre resources of the earth would be insufficient for the needs of an ever-increasing population. As a result the vast majority of mankind would always be condemned to exist at the lowest level. Marx utterly repudiated this notion and showed that the evils of Capitalism flowed from the way it produced and distributed wealth. Marx denied that there was some abstract law of population. Different societies he contended would have different laws. Over-population, said Marx, was intimately connected with the growth of capital accumulation and took the form of relative over population i.e. an industrial reserve army.

That capitalism did regulate levels of wages, Marx did not deny; wages could not, he thought, proceed to levels which seriously threatened surplus-value, or eliminated it, but this had nothing to do with the Malthusian doctrine of an iron law of wages. Marx did not believe in an iron law of wages which maintains wages at a mere physical subsistence level. In fact, he devoted much time against Lassalle and others to show the falsity of such views.

There are many politicians appealing for your support to-day. Some of them do so with the claim that they are socialists, but you have no touch-stone to guide your judgment. You are bewildered by the multitude of political parties who all claim that their object is to help you. In fact, there is only one way out of your dilemma—to help yourself by gaining a little knowledge of the society you are living in; its basis, its capacities, and its contradictions, the Socialist Party.

A society is a group of individuals bound together by a common principle. The larger sense in which the word society is generally used refers to the common principle of obtaining a living. Whatever is referred to as “social" concerns a person in connection with others. Thus when we say a thing is socially produced we mean that a number of people produce different parts of an article and their combined efforts produce the finished article. That is the way almost all we eat, drink and wear, is produced to-day, and workers from all over the world produce different parts of the final product. No capitalist need spend an hour in this work, and very rarely does. But by reason of their ownership of the means of production the capitalists, as a class, own the products. Thus the products are socially produced but privately owned.

You are living in a society today in which the things produced, and the tools by means of which they are produced, are privately owned: that is, owned by one individual or by a relatively small group of individuals—either a single capitalist a small group of capitalists, or the capitalist investors in a State concern. The aim of the Socialist Party is to make these things social property; to convert these privately owned goods and tools into goods and tools commonly owned by the whole of society. One  who acts in such a way as to bring this state of affairs into being is a socialist: one who acts in a way that hinders progress to this end is evidently not a socialist, no matter what he may call himself.

Owing to the private ownership of the means of production the majority of the people of this country are unable to obtain the things they need except by working for those that own them; the capitalist class. These two types, owners and non-owners, masters and workers, broadly speaking make up modern society. They form two distinct classes, one of whom depends for a living upon working and the other upon owning what is produced.

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You, to whom we address these lines, belong to the working class. Whether you are paid wages or a salary, you depend for your living upon selling your mental and physical energies to an employer. Between you and your employers there exists a constant struggle over the destination of the wealth you produce. By wage-claims, strikes, or threatened strikes, you struggle to obtain as large a share of the wealth you produce as possible. It is a share you think of, you don*t think of obtaining the whole, because you think of and argue about a “high” or a “low" wage. Your thoughts are bound up with the wages system. The employers on their side resist your wage claims and try to pay you as low wages as possible. This struggle over the division of the wealth you produce is an expression of what the Socialist Party calls the class war.

As long as you accept the present class ownership basis of society there is no hope of a fundamental improvement in your conditions. Wars, recessions, bad housing and the other evils that are a permanent feature of your lives will continue, no matter what political party is in power. There is only one road to salvation—the establishment of socialism. When the wealth produced, and the tools by which it has been produced, have been made into the common property of society there will be no more war, nor will anyone lack either food or shelter. Each will give to society the best and receive in return the best society can give, regardless of age, sex or occupation.

We are members of the working class, and we want you to join us and help us to carry on the struggle for socialism. Why are we anxious for your help? We are in the same mess as you are, and we cannot get out of the mess except in the same way as you. We want socialism because it offers us the only means of leading secure, healthy and comfortable lives; but we cannot get socialism until we want it. Therefore we want you to want socialism and to join with us in the struggle to obtain it: then we will all have an equal opportunity of enjoying the best that life can offer.