This is our planet. We want it back

 

We need to abolish the out-moded and old-fashioned division of the world into nation states. Instead we need to cooperate on a world basis to meet our material needs and energy requirements. Only in a socialist society will the community be able to make decisions about energy production which are based on what is safe and in the human interest instead of decisions based on, and limited by, economic considerations. Only in a socialist society, when human beings can relate to each other as one family and not as units of labour to be exploited or national enemies to be destroyed, will the threats of environmental or military destruction really be removed. Socialism needs mass understanding and support — and then the world will be changed.  We in the World Socialist Movement can envisage a socialist party growing in the future along with many other expressions of working class organisation including trade unions and workers’ councils. We have never stood aloof from the industrial scene and class struggle, as our critics keep repeating until such claims have become an urban legend for many on the Left. However, what we strictly adhere to is that decisions about industrial disputes and work-place agreements are to be made by those directly involved and not by outside-the-union political parties.

The working class will organise itself to expropriate those who live parasitically upon it. It will link itself with the workers of every country, to achieve this internationally, when the workers understand their class-interests. Force is the foundation of capitalist domination, and that force is obtained through Parliament; capitalist control there means capitalist control everywhere. The workers therefore have nothing to gain by supporting any party which seeks to maintain that control. Concessions and reliefs may have been granted in the past by both parties, but none of these concessions, none of these vaunted reliefs have altered the general position of the workers in society. They are still slaves, and while Conservatism, or Labourism has their loyalty they will remain slaves. The workers alone can free themselves from the burden of their condition—this they can do when they wish by organising on a class basis. The SocialistParty preaches the abolition of the private ownership of the means of life. That is the only way of ending the war of classes.

‘The Socialist Party seeks to build an inclusive united working class movement as the next stage in the class struggle. Socialist Party members understand that a shorter work week and the creation of a new union organisation will not topple the capitalist system. But, as a first step, it would provide an example and a base of operations. The object is to continue the education of the worker, to secure badly-needed immediate improvements in working conditions, and, thus, through the organisation, to further the solidarity of the working class and to prevent premature violence. The workers’ revolt can commence on a regional basis, the socialist revolution must be national, continental, and, ultimately, world-wide. Let us determine that that demand for a new idea in the workers’ minds shall not be the sterile idea of nationalism but with the one fruitful conception for humanity, the idea of socialism, the aim will be to make the whole earth a common human possession.

The immediate task is to make socialists and the conditions for propaganda have never been more favourable. After the most devastating war in history, capitalism is still torn by dissension and struggle. It is as useful to write in dust as to work for peace on a capitalist basis. The way to prevent war is to establish socialism. Let us not bow our heads and complain of betrayal; let us organise together for the establishment of a worldwide society—Socialism. A socialist world is possible now, to-day. Make it a certainty by joining the Socialist Party to-day. Workers, for your own sakes and for humanity's sake study socialism. Then, when you understand it, you will organise to establish it and so emancipate yourselves from the shackles of wage-slavery. Clearer than ever before stands out the great fact that there is no hope for real peace in the world until these various sections of workers recognise the common fundamental character of their slavery and set to work to remove it, thus ending the enslavement of the human race by the establishment of socialism.