Stand with the Socialist Party

 

No matter how hard we may work and save, you and I know that every one of us in the face of the rising cost of living is always “up against it.”

You toil along for a year and manage, perhaps, to save up a few pounds and someday you find a notice nailed up on the factory door telling you that the boss has closed down indefinitely.

If you think it over, while you are living along on your savings, and trying to get another job, you will realise that the boss has not shut down because folks have more food and clothing, or more homes than they need. He shut down because he could not make any PROFITS. The sole end and aim of business are PROFITS. No matter how much the bosses may talk, in public, you know that they consider everything connected with the shop, the business, the mine or the mill from the standpoint of whether it will bring MORE PROFITS to them. They install automated machinery because it will enable them to discharge men or women and thus make more PROFITS.

They adulterate food. They use poisonous preservatives in meat; they dye beef red to make it appear fresh; they sell condemned hams, and monopolize the egg supply; they skim the milk or adulterate it– all for the sake of MORE DIVIDENDS.

You go on strike for shorter hours and higher wages. The boss opposes you, because higher wages and shorter working hours for you will mean lower PROFITS for HIM.

You see the police force used to protect the scabs and the property of the Boss, to serve the interests of the Boss in order to prevent you from gaining higher wages and cutting down his PROFITS.

You see the media preaching contentment and thrift and economy and honesty, because the rich pay their salaries and the master class want you to be honest and saving, contented and obedient. These things mean more PROFITS for him. The media always side with the employers because the employers ADVERTISE and advertising means PROFITS.

Because the bosses own the factory, the mine, office and shop, they are able to buy your working strength for less than the value of the things you produce or make. This leaves a profit for the bosses. Socialism intends to make the factories and farms, mines, the collective property of those who work in them; to do away with bosses and to abolish the PROFIT system.

The Profit System is the cause of all wars today. The capitalist class has profits which it wants to invest in some other country in order to make more profits. And this is the cause of all capitalist wars. Wars are caused by the competition of various national capitalist groups for new markets, new natural resources, for new investments. Each national capitalist group wants the strongest military to protect their industrial and financial expansion. Socialism will prevent wars because it means the ownership of the factories, mines, shops, lands and all other instruments of production and distribution by the workers who use them. It means the abolition of the Profit System.

Profits are the cause of poverty. And socialism proposes to abolish poverty. This is why every working man and woman ought to be a socialist. The way to cure a disease is not to put salve upon the symptoms, but to remove the cause. The Profit System is almost the only cause of war today. Discard the system and remove the cause of war.

The Profit System is the cause of nearly all the suffering poverty, sickness, crime, as well as war. It is the one great enemy of the working class. Amidst the horrors of famine, poverty, crime and war there is one way out for the working class of every country. There is one way that means victory for the useful workers of that country. That way means socialism or industrial democracy.

Nearly all power lies in the hands of the workers. You can make the whole world your world with a united working class. But you must have an educated, organised class.

 The Socialist Party advocates a world where the whole of humanity is united about social relationships of equality and co-operation. The identity of the socialist is not with any national grouping, the brand of religion, any alleged “race” or local culture.

The Socialist Party holds no loyalty to Britain or any other country, to any religion, to the colour of any person, or to Welsh culture or African culture. By our perspective of history, by our knowledge of the economic nature of modern society, the Socialist Party has gone beyond the shallow allegiances that misdirect the attitudes of those who are still burdened by nationalism, religion or racism. Our argument is that if the majority were socialists, the security of all men and women in material comfort in a world of harmony and freedom would at last become a reality.We are denied this because the means of wealth production and distribution are owned by a minority class, who exploit this ownership and the labour-power of the workers for the purpose of profit-making. 

The Socialist Party has no hesitation in taking a stand. We condemn capitalism. All workers, whatever their skill and capability, have a common identity and a common interest as members of the working class. Their common problems can only be resolved, not by squalid differences between themselves, but by a confrontation between a united working class and the owners of the means of wealth production – the capitalist class. The world’s workers must destroy this private monopoly of the means of wealth production and convert it to the common property of the whole of man. Only then can social integration, co-operation, equality and freedom be realised where it really matters, in the production and distribution of wealth, in meeting the world community’s material requirements.

The Socialist Party will continue to show that there are no essential differences between peoples that prevent the establishment of a society where the human family can live in harmony and co-operation.