This is what socialism is

Socialism is about removing the constraints that prevent working men and women, the actual producers of all wealth, from controlling the conditions of their own lives and work. Socialism is about how working men and women can create a truly free society in which all contribute according to their ability and receive according to their needs – a society free from exploitation, free from oppression, free from racism, from unemployment, from war, from poverty and inequality. Socialism is about freedom. Is this pie in the sky? Socialists show how it can be achieved by the collective efforts of working people themselves. Socialists argue that capitalism itself had created the force that could overthrow it and establish a classless society – the modern wage-worker. Socialism is the self-emancipation of the working class. There is no socialism without collective, democratic rule by the people who do the work and create the wealth. The claim that countries like the old Soviet Union were socialist is fraudulent.

The Great 2007 Recession should have been teaching people that something is basically wrong with the present system. History itself is driving home the utter senselessness of unemployment, hunger, and misery existing side by side with industrial and agricultural technological marvels ever built by mankind, productive capabilities adequate to fulfill every normal need of every person. Every day has been  demonstrating more clearly the incompetence of our political leaders to solve our problems. Many are beginning to realise that this incompetence is not due merely to the stupidity or corruption of individual CEOs of industry and politicians the government, but that the system itself cannot work properly any longer, whoever is in charge. Some are beginning to understand that the present system of society must itself be done away with and a new system substituted - that we must have not merely honest men, reforms, and new regulatory legislation, but a revolutionary change in the whole structure of society. Such people, however, have not always clearly formulated the exact nature of the required change and, even if they have done so, they do not know what group or party to support in order to help bring the change about. The failure of the revolutionary movement to develop effectively up to the present time is clear to everyone. The Socialist Party claims to know the nature of the revolutionary change that alone can save our society from continuing and increasing disintegration. We call upon all workers, upon all who are no longer willing to suffer needless injustice, who have decided not merely to complain at but to change society, we call upon all the forces determined to bring a new social order out of the ruins of the old, to unite and muster our banner.

The aim of all political parties is the achievement of state power. This must include working control of the apparatus of state: the armed forces, the bureaucracy, police, prisons, and courts. It must also acquire the support or confidence of the majority of the population. A truly democratic society necessarily presupposes the economic and social equality of all the individuals composing it. Capitalist society, in which a small minority owns and controls the means of production, means and must mean capitalist dictatorship. The political forms of capitalist society (monarchy, democracy, military dictatorship) are only the means by which, in a given historical situation, the actual dictatorship of the controlling minority expresses itself. Our apparent political freedom, then, our freedom to vote for "the candidate of our choice," affects in no important way the question of who actually controls society and the state. Whatever real democracy exists is restricted to the individual members of the controlling minority, among whom, in a capitalist society, the real issues of power are decided. The technique for maintaining this necessary minimum of consent and confidence is so complex and extends so intimately into every social detail that it cannot be adequately summarised. Certainly one of its chief supports is the belief that the government is the freely chosen representative of the whole of society, independent of any class or group conflicts and therefore able to be fair and impartial to carry out "the will of the people."

The Socialist Party is a political party, and this means that all of its activities must have a political orientation. Our party does not rest upon the mere demand for better living-more pay, shorter hours, higher relief, better working conditions. Our conception of political action directing the Party's activities differs radically from the traditional notion of "politics." The task of a revolutionary party is to change society. The political action that matters is the kind that brings large masses of people into motion. The Socialist Party, wherever and whenever it is possible participates in local and national elections. Our electoral activities give the Party opportunities to appear openly before the people of the country, to present its aims and goals, to expose the sham issues, to highlight the real issues that face us that must be solved. Any success in elections will put Party members in a strategic position to harass the capitalist control of the state, to show publicly the real nature of government policies, to uncover their hypocrisies and deceptions.

Our social system is outworn. Our society is out of tune with the enormous progress productive processes has made. Due to this discrepancy between our productive development and our social system, we starve while we have plenty, and unless the prevailing social system is totally overhauled we shall die as a people. Catastrophe will be avoided, and happiness of all will displace misery of the many millions if the need of a drastic change will be realised by the people and they will act from that realisation. The capitalist dictatorship cannot last forever against the resistance of a workers' democracy. Wage slavery must be abolished. The profit system must end. Our technology combined with our natural resources can be made the basis of a prosperous and sustainable life, if only the people will realise the extent of the evil that the dominant system does to them, and use their strength to do away with it. The battles of the past lacked a far-reaching social outlook. To-day we set out to unite in harmony and solidarity for humanity’s  revolutionary goal of a classless society and workers' democracy that labour in all countries has embraced.

A world socialist society is the only solution for the contradictions in present world-society, and even for the complete solution of the contradictions within a single nation. Only a socialist society can utilize rationally the natural resources and productive machinery of the earth in the interests of the peoples of the earth. A federated community of socialist “republics” can alone solve the conflict between the efficient development of productive forces and the restrictions of artificial national boundaries. A socialist society alone will be in a position to grant the rights of free cultural self-determination and self-development to all peoples and all individuals. Only world socialism will remove the causes of wars that under capitalism now seriously threaten to send mankind into barbarism or complete destruction.

It is well to remember that this socialization of the means of production injures only the small handful of financiers, landlords, and industrialists whose private control of the productive resources of the country is now and will continue to be the source of hunger, eviction, unemployment, and insecurity for the great bulk of the people. Indeed, not only have the majority at present no interest of ownership in the productive resources in the country; they are left with scarcely any private property even of a personal kind: their homes and small farms are mortgaged; much of their household appliances and cars are owned by corporations, through the installment system of buying on credit; their savings are controlled by banks which make profits on them; their insurance is manipulated by capitalist enterprises for the benefit of stockholders and directors. In fact, under modern conditions, socialisation of the means of production is the only way to protect and increase possessions of a personal nature. Common ownership by freeing production from subordination to the control of the capitalist elite in its own interests, and from the necessity of operating at a profit, will release the productive forces to serve the needs of men and women, and will enable production to be planned rationally in terms of actual social requirements. It will allow the utilization of every technical improvement. It will assure immediate and steadily increasing material advantages to every worker. And the leisure and educational opportunities which will accompany these material advantages, together with the removal of the deadweight of the perverted capitalist culture, will offer every individual the possibility for the fullest creative development.

This brief compass represents the chief objectives of the Socialist Party. The nature of the historical process makes detailed blueprints of the future co-operative society impossible. But it is a clear vision of the revolutionary goal. 

Socialism is about freedom.

In defence of socialism, the Socialist Party states socialism is not an authoritarian creed despite the fact that some mislabelled socialists are authoritarians. Socialism is a society without a government. It is a free society; a society without rulers and ruled, leaders and led, masters and slaves. The Socialist Party does not intend to lead workers towards a free and classless society because they are a part of that class themselves and adhere faithfully to the motto of the First International: The emancipation of the workers is an act of the workers themselves. If the people wait for a revolutionary vanguard to lead them to the classless society or the free society, they will neither be free nor classless. Imposing freedom is a contradiction in terms for imposed freedom is not freedom. There is enough evidence to support such a claim. One of the functions of the Socialist Party is to expose and fight false ideologies. To argue that a free society is impossible is historically incorrect. If people wish a free society then its materialisation could be realised. The social revolution is social precisely because it destroys all barriers preventing the realisation of the libertarian society. If today we rarely talk of the social revolution it is because we are not interested in it but in coups d’etat or party dictatorships.  In a community of slaves, you are free to be a slave.

We have all been told a lie. The lie says there is no alternative to capitalism. Millions live paycheque to paycheque, with minimal social safety nets, leading to insecurity, uncertainty and cynicism towards the future, and crippling anxiety. Politicians routinely show they do not care about the working class and the poor. People leave all the hard decisions to scientific experts and technocrats. We no longer exercise control over our basic needs, food and shelter. Corporations inundate us with false needs through advertising and manipulation of the media.

The potential for social change can be detected but whether a genuine movement can blossom remains to be seen. However, there is much to learn. The task of socialists is not to talk to each other, but to go out and persuade everybody else. Are you a socialist? The gap between the World’s rich and poor, the suffering and misery of millions from poverty, hunger and disease and war are not caused by accident or sent by god. On the contrary, they are connected. The poor are poor because the rich are rich, and vice versa. The explanation is exploitation. That is the control of the means of production by a small minority who organise the wealth they control to their own advantage, and to the disadvantage of the people who work for them. This exploitation explains the horrors we see around us. Capitalism, the rule of the rich minority, is the enemy. Socialism will abolish the landlord class, the capitalist class, and the working-class. That is revolution; that the working-class, by its actions, will one day abolish class distinctions.

The peoples of the world, through coordinated effort, will progress toward the complete classless socialist society, where all the various workers' organisations which have been instruments and tools of the class struggle, that is, the socialist parties, the trade unions, the workers councils, and general assemblies will lose their original functions. As the classes are abolished and class struggles consequently ended, all these instruments of class struggle will tend to coalesce into one united body. And that one united body will be the organised world society of the free and equal. The “International” shall really be the human race. The working class can be really united only when it becomes a class for itself, consciously fighting the exploiters as a class. In its struggle against the workers’ emancipation movement capitalism plays upon all the dark sentiments of ignorance, prejudice and superstition. This is seen in its endeavours to divide the workers and oppressed people along national, racial and religious lines. The struggle for the solidarity of labour is also a struggle for enlightenment upon these questions.

People everywhere are looking for a new way of life under which they can be free to guide their own destiny: to set and establish their own way of living, own conditions of work, and own forms of association with each other. The antidote to capitalism is socialism, a democratic system of society where the wealth is owned and controlled by the people who produce it. any movement towards freedom is a movement towards socialism.

What is socialism?

Political parties can be very “revolutionary” by promising things they cannot deliver. The Socialist Party does not make promises of what it will do for fellow-workers. The Socialist Party is concerned with the effective dissolution of the capitalist society and its replacement by a fundamentally different social system, based upon common ownership and control of economic activity, and guided by principles of co-operation, civic freedom, egalitarianism, and democratic arrangements far superior to the narrowly class-bound arrangements of capitalist democracy.

The present capitalist system depends on the collective labour of billions into what is in effect a global system of cooperation. Just look at the clothes you are wearing. They are made from cotton or wool from one part of the world, carried by ships made from steel from somewhere else, woven in a third place, stitched in a fourth, transported using oil from a fifth, and so on. A thousand individual acts of labour are combined in even the simplest item. On the other hand, the organisation of production is not based on cooperation, but on ruthless competition between rival businessmen who own the means that are necessary for production – the tools, the machines, the oil fields, the modern communications systems, the land. What motivates the capitalists is not the satisfaction of human need. It is the pressure to compete and keep ahead of the competition. The key to keeping ahead in competition is making a profit and then using the profit to invest in new means of keeping ahead. Sometimes these investments do indeed produce things of use for consumers. But they are just as likely to be directed towards building a new supermarket next door to an existing one owned by a rival, spending money on rebranding old drugs rather than researching new ones or invading countries to seize control of their resources. Such a system necessarily leads to repeated crises, since the drive for profit leads rival capitalists to rush to pour money into any venture that seems profitable, even though the result of them all doing so is to force up prices of raw materials and to produce goods that the world’s workers cannot afford to buy because their wages have been held down to boost profits.

The socialist alternative to such a state of affairs is simple. It is to replace decision making on the basis of competition between rival groups of capitalists by a genuine democracy where the majority of people democratically decide what the economic priorities should be and work together to plan how to achieve these. It is said that such planning cannot work because modern productive systems are too complex. Yet every major capitalist enterprise undertakes plans to fulfil its objectives. Corporations plan years in advance to guarantee the supplies of the thousands of products available in every big store. They organise elaborate and complex supply-chains. Those who do the planning, it should be added, are not the boardroom directors but rather they employ technical staff to do the job for them. In the same way, it is employees, not investors or the CEOS, who carry out scientific research, develop new production techniques and make all of the advances. If planning and innovation are possible under the present system, they are just as possible under a system based on meeting human need through democratic decision making, rather than competing in order to make profits to direct towards further competition. Indeed, under such a system, planning would be easier. The planning that takes place in any capitalist corporation at the moment is always distorted by the impact of the planning taking place in rival corporations.

To reshape society a socialist society would involve the mass of people in democratic debates to plan production to meet human need. What stands in the way of such an approach is not its lack of viability. It is that those who own and control the production of wealth today will do anything in their power to keep things that way. Only then can the new democratically controlled associations of producers that have at their disposal all the resources needed can society provide a better life for all of humanity.

The alternative to capitalism is socialism. Capitalism is obviously detestable but is not “socialism” detestable too? The Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc plunged the common people into the most unspeakable poverty and deprivation. Wasn’t “socialism” a system of society which is even more unfair and unjust than capitalism? The people overthrew the “socialist” governments in favour of capitalism, so does that show that capitalism is preferable and it can be reformed a little to make it better? 1984 imagined a World where words were used by governments to mean their opposites. Socialism is entirely different from what it has been held up to be by the Soviet apparatchiks and nomenclature. We stand for real socialism as the only alternative to capitalism and it is still worth fighting for. The socialist alternative is realistic and such a perspective ought to appeal to the imagination of every genuine socialist.

World capitalism is skirting the edge of profound crises. Capitalism can no longer offer its minimal sops and reforms. People feel themselves powerless, lacking any credible alternative. Many workers resign themselves to the forlorn hope that there might be some sort of respite in the future. People are still searching for an alternative. The real solution to the looming disasters, the only real deterrent to the attack upon the working class by capitalism is the socialist revolution. 

No Equality

An article in the Toronto Metro News of April 18th focused on unequal pay between the genders in the retail sector in Ontario. Though 60% of Ontario's retail workforce is female, men outnumber them in management. Sixty-five percent of males are in full time jobs, compared to 57% of women.

The average retail wages per hour in Ontario in 2015 were -- managers in retail, food and accommodation: men $30.79; women $25.06. Salespeople and clerks: Men $15.51; women $13.10. Cashiers: men $12.34; women $11.84.

This will anger many people, both women and men, but it is pointless to fight for equality within capitalism, because its very nature causes it. Nor do the above facts mean the men earning more money don't live in poverty. Equality is a fine thing to desire and work for, but only in a society where all will stand equal in relation to the tools of production can it be produced. John Ayers.

Coping With The Miseries Of Life

Some Rabbis in Toronto recently held a public debate entitled "Putting God Second." The question was asked: "Why are the great monotheistic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam unable to fulfil their own self-professed goal of creating individuals infused with moral sensitivity and societies governed by the highest ethical standards."

The significance of this question is that finally religious leaders have concluded that religion has failed to solve the world's problems, and nor could it; as Marx said, it was "the opiate of the people."

Only when the majority grasp the central fact that superstition is a way of coping with the miseries of life and reject it can we really start to abolish the cause of all misery.

John Ayers.

Socialism or nothing changes

When feudalism was overthrown, and “free” capitalist society emerged, it at once became apparent that this freedom meant a new system of oppression and exploitation. The essential feature of capitalism, the very thing which makes the system one of exploitation and robbery of the wage workers by the ruling class of capitalists, is the private ownership.  For the workers, capitalism has meant widespread unemployment, accompanied by poverty and homelessness. At the same time, the exploitation of those in jobs has become more intense. Mass poverty escalates while multi-billion dollar fortunes are accumulated by the big capitalists and landlords.

Capitalism is a system of commodity production (that is, the production of goods for sale and not for direct use by the producer) which is distinguished by the fact that labour power itself becomes a commodity. The major means of production and exchange which make up the capital of society are owned privately by a small minority, the capitalist class (the bourgeoisie) while the great majority of the population consists of proletarians or semi-proletarians. Because of their economic position, this majority can only exist by permanently or periodically selling their labour power to the capitalists and thus creating through their work the incomes of the upper classes. Thus, fundamentally, capitalism is a system of exploitation of the working class (the proletariat) by the capitalist class. As new technology brings about the greater productivity of labour and increased social wealth, it cannot get rid of the evils of capitalism or solve the problems of the working class. Rather, it intensifies them. Only socialism, which results from the class struggle of workers against capitalists, can solve them. Social production and the socialisation of labour are enhanced by the advance of technology, creating a material basis for the transformation of capitalism into socialism i.e. classless society. By replacing private ownership of the means of production by social ownership, by transforming the anarchy of production which is a feature of capitalism into planned proportional production organised for the well-being and many-sided development of all of society, the socialist revolution will end the division of society into classes and emancipate all of humanity from all forms of exploitation of one section of society by another.

If a worker becomes aware that society is suffering from the rotten, cancerous growth, do we continue with more wars; more unemployment; more totalitarianism? Or do we engage in social revolution and cut out the capitalist tumour. Capitalism produces its own grave-diggers, the wage workers are nearing the point where it is no longer possible to live, they see the limitations of the trade union struggle in the persistence of insecurity. More are growing aware that private ownership must go, social ownership must take its place, socialism. The Socialist Party has a basic starting point to its politics - that the working class is the potentially revolutionary class and as such is capable of overthrowing the capitalist system and establishing the socialism. It is an idea we have to defend every day against those who tell us that the working class are so imbued with the ideas of capitalism that they can always be diverted at the crucial point. This does not mean that workers are consciously seeking revolution – it means that the working class are objectively revolutionary. Our confidence springs not from romanticism but from Marxism as a scientific theory. We see the working class as an exploited class, driven by the realities of class society into conflict with their exploiters at the point of production. It means that at moments of history when all the conditions are present, the overwhelming power of the working class, as the producers of all wealth, can be harnessed to make a revolution.

The Socialist Party is Marxist. The Socialist Party is revolutionary. Our goal is the emancipation of the working class. We will not go just a part of the way – or even half of the way – we are going all of the way. The debate is about the road the working people must follow to free themselves from capitalist slavery. That is why the Socialist Party is still involved in this battle with the same energy and enthusiasm that we have put in 112 years ago when we began this socialist party of ours. A real socialist party is one where workers use their collective strength and power to transform society. The Socialist Party bases itself on the idea of a socialism which workers make for themselves. We want the working class to become conscious of itself and its power in society. Genuine revolutionaries understand that all political consciousness begins with the recognition of the fundamental class division: the working class versus the ruling capitalist class. Success in the class struggle demands working-class independence from all capitalist parties. The Socialist Party will use its electoral campaigns to encourage working-class struggle and promote socialist consciousness among workers. But we always tell our fellow workers the truth: serious social change has been achieved just by electing socialist delegates but also by opposing the ruling class in the workplaces and the communities.

It's not the size of the dog in the fight that wins, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

The Choice Before Us

Working people make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population. But in nearly every country they are the oppressed majority, labouring to support the luxury of a handful of exploiters Everywhere people are waking up to the reality that oppression and exploitation is a daily fact of their lives. The lies of the ruling class are being further exposed every day. The situation in health care, housing and welfare services is rapidly deteriorating. The unjust man-eating system of capitalism is set up with one thing in mind – to make the most profits possible for the handful of people who own the big banks and corporations. It is the system under which we, and our parents and grandparents before us, have done all the work. We mine the mines, build the buildings, the manufacture all the products: and then get just enough to live on – if we fight hard enough for it! On the other hand, the small capitalist class builds up huge fortunes off of our work. The Socialist Party stands for the complete overthrow of the capitalist system, and the establishment of a socialist system. Once it is no longer possible to make a profit from the general misery of people most social problems can be quickly solved. We must be mindful, at all times, to keep the forefront of all our activity: the need to raise the socialist consciousness of the working masses and convince them of the necessity for socialist revolution. Every political party defends the interest of one class or another in society. On all questions, in every battle, our Party defends the interests of the working class. The Socialist Party’s role is to educate. We explain the true nature of the system that oppresses workers and the need for socialist revolution. Our task is to bring class consciousness to the working class – the understanding of workers’ historic mission. As we carry out our political and economic education in the heart of the class battles against the capitalists, we strengthen and win ever more workers to our cause, a just cause. It is the cause of all those who are exploited and oppressed by capitalism. It is the cause of the liberation of all humanity.

A handful of capitalists control our country and make vast profits on the labour of the working people and the natural resources of the land. All the major means of production - the factories, forests, farms, fisheries and mines are in the hands of a few hundred capitalists. Capitalism is a system of exploitation. A handful of parasites lives off the backs of the workers. Every bit of the capitalists' vast wealth was stolen from the working people. The capitalists get rich from the fruit of our labour. At the end of the week, a worker collects their pay. The capitalists and their flunkeys claim this is a fair exchange. But it is highway robbery. In reality, workers get paid for only a small part of what they produce. The bosses get rich, not because they have "taken risks" or "worked harder," as they would have us believe. The more they keep wages down and get fewer workers to do more work, the more they can steal from us and the greater their profits. If the bosses think they can make more profit somewhere else, they just close their factories and throw the workers out on the street. Capitalism is a system of economic anarchy and crisis, plagued by periodic economic crises, such as recessions. Economic crises are aggravated by speculation, hoarding and other schemes of the bankers, financiers and industrialists. Each tries to profit in the short run, but their individual greed eventually throws the whole system into turmoil, leading the working class and people to suffer. Capitalism is an obstacle to the further advancement of the material well-being of society. It is unjust, wasteful, irrational and increasingly unproductive.

People live in misery so a small clique of very wealthy individuals can live in luxury. The idea that everyone can get rich under this system is a lie invented by the rich themselves. Under capitalism, the only way to get rich is to trample on someone else. There is only room for a few capitalists - at any time, the great majority must work and be robbed. This is why workers have only one choice: either submit to this wage slavery or fight it. This exploitative and oppressive system, where profit is master, has choked our entire society with economic crises, political reaction and social decay. The drive for profits holds thousands hostage to hunger and want; it has poisoned the very air that we breathe and water that we drink; it spawns cynicism and violence, drugs, crime and social devastation. Capitalist society callously mistreats people because everything is geared to the drive for profits. The elderly and the disabled are also treated unfairly. The elderly toil their entire lives, but after retirement, they lead lives of fear and worry. Capitalism has no regard for its senior citizens; once it has squeezed the working life out of the workers they are tossed away.

Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism in the World. Today the whole system of production is socially interdependent, but it is controlled by private hands. In place of private control of social production, there must be social ownership if society's problems are to be addressed. The problems of capitalism - exploitation, its anarchy of production, speculation and crisis, oppression of nationalities and women, and the whole system of injustice - arise from the self-interest of the tiny group of capitalists. Socialism will be won through the seizure of political power by the working class. Having overthrown the capitalist class, the working people will take over the economic forces developed by capitalism and operate them in the interests of society. Socialism will be a better society, one which will present unprecedented possibilities for the improvement of common peoples' lives. Because working people will control the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures. The end of exploitation of one person by another will be a resounding liberating and transforming force. Socialism will not mean government control. Rational planning will replace anarchy. Coordination and planning of the broad outlines of production by public agencies will aim at building an economy that will be stable, benefit the people and steadily advance. Redirecting the productive capacity to human needs will require a variety of economic methods and experiments. Transforming the main productive enterprises from private to social ownership will allow workers to manage democratically their own workplaces through workers' councils and elected administrators, in place of the myriad of supervisors and consultants today. There would be a combination of central planning and local coordination. But no matter what means are chosen, a socialist economy must uphold the basic principles of social ownership, production for the people's needs, and the elimination of exploitation. With socialism, goods and services will be distributed on the basis of to each according to their needs, from each according to their ability.

Social Revolution NOT Social Reforms

In previous revolutions, the cry was “the king is dead, long live the king” when the lawyers and lackeys, the profiteers and opportunists, on the look out for personal advancement and positions of authority took political power and assumed political influence. Once in power, they feathered their own beds and offered their services to the industrial barons and financial lords. Many say times are changing and the old politics are being transformed or breaking up with new ones are taking their place. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Reformism regards socialism as a remote goal and nothing more, and actually repudiates the socialist revolution and advocates not class struggle, but class collaboration. Reformism is a policy of relying on gradual change and making things a little bit better, slowly. It develops out of faith in the fair-mindedness of the ruling class. Reforms are regarded as a partial realisation of socialism. Reformism is a belief in the possibility of major improvement in conditions under capitalism, and a rejection of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.

Have the reforms the State was forced to make in the fields of union organisation, occupational health and safety, day care, abortion, etc., enabled the “vast majority of workers to participate directing in the exercise of power”? What has happened to the various experiences of self-management in the work-places? We would not try to imply that the accumulation of these reforms gave the working class more power, that it brought the working class closer to socialism. We do not think we will capture the state machinery by nibbling away at it gradually, bit by bit. Reformism is the illusion that a gradual dismantling of the power of Capital is possible. First of all, you nationalise 20 percent, then 30 percent, then 50 percent, then 60 percent of the capitalist property. In this way, the economic power of Capital is dissolved little by little. Reformism is therefore essentially gradualist. Eduard Bernstein defined it with his celebrated formula: “the movement is everything, the end is nothing”. In contrast, Daniel De Leon called the reformists the “labour lieutenants of Capital”. They seldom emerged from the ruling class but come from the working class organisations of the workers’ movement. Being powerless to change by themselves the course of evolution, people placed their hope again in these representatives who institutionalised class collaboration to increase their slice of the cake. This increase implies some sacrifices from the capitalists who appreciate the fact that the reformist leaders provide relative stability. But, always as good businessmen, the ruling class want to know what extent is the price that has to be paid to justify surrendering some of their profits and the ruling class is always divided on this subject. Reforms like the welfare state were the price to pay to avoid possible revolution. Now, many capitalists have decided that under changed circumstances it is the price they no longer wish to pay and believe that there are other ways to manage the system. The less of a threat to their existence then the less need to buy off the working class. The employers’ policy of austerity to restore profitability did not result in a return of militancy. No compromise, no concession, required, except perhaps on minimum or living wages.

Many times in history people lived in 'objectively' poor economic conditions, suffered hunger, disease, slavery, all kinds of indignity, but this did not lead to social mobilization of the kind that we have witnessed. This is because most of the time we accept our conditions of social existence or perhaps even see them as inevitable. We are not aware that our consent is necessary for the status quo to continue even when not in our interests. In other words, objective circumstances, however unjust, on their own cannot trigger collective social action. We don't think crises are necessarily an opportunity because things can go from bad to worse. For change to happen there needs to be an understanding our conditions as no longer tenable. Socialism is essentially about democratising power over decision making within society, both through the principle of common ownership and the principle of self-management. Socialism embodies participatory principles.

Every struggle of the working class, however, limited it may be, by increasing its self-confidence and education, undermines reformism. Capitalism can no longer afford reforms that improve the life of the mass of people, reformism as a powerful ideology within the workers’ movement is disappearing, although not as quickly as we would wish to see its demise. It is not an era of social reforms that we hope for, it is the great epoch of social revolution that we aspire towards!

Eugene V; Debs proclaimed:

“It’s better to vote for what you want, knowing that you have little chance of getting it than to vote for what you don’t want, knowing that you are sure to get it.”

Marx, class and socialism (1988)

From the August 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Class and class struggle are central to an understanding of the case for socialism. Marx and Engels had been concerned to show the "class struggle as the primary motive force of history, and especially the class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat as the great lever of modern social change" (Circular letter to Bebel, Liebknecht, Bracke and others).

Marx, however, undertook no systematic definition of class. While he certainly planned to do so. the unfinished chapter of Capital intended for the purpose ends after a few paragraphs with a note from Engels that the manuscript breaks off. The omission has certainly fuelled the confusion and ignorance surrounding the meaning of class and its relevance to the socialist case.

It would however be surprising if, in the whole of the writings of Marx and Engels, we were not able to understand what they meant. Indeed, the whole of their writings is about understanding the historic dynamic of class, the class struggle and the abolition of class society. Within the body of their writings there exist enough references for us to constitute what they meant by class. Marx did not, of course, invent class. His contribution was to articulate and conceptualise the existing historical reality. Class is not some figment or idea emanating from the mind of Marx.

In the unfinished chapter Marx prepared to answer his own question - what is a class? - and began by writing of three “great classes" in modern society. He identified these, firstly, on the basis of income: wage for labour, profit for the capitalists and rent for the landowners. But note here that income is the result of different property relationships, different relationships to the means of production. The word "great" was not intended to imply numerous, but the importance such groups had to the functioning of society in a particular manner. The working class is the most numerous but the capitalists constitute a tiny and parasitic minority. The greatness of the latter arose from the fact that they constitute the ruling class in modern society by virtue of their legal ownership and monopoly control of the means of production and distribution of wealth. This position allows a class to dominate not only in the economic sphere but, as Marx and Engels stated:

in every epoch the thoughts of the ruling class are the ruling thoughts; ie. the class that is the ruling material power of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual power. The class that has the means of material production in its control. controls at the same time the means of intellectual production (The German Ideology).

Capitalism has now succeeded in absorbing the landlord class, leaving society polarised between two classes: capitalists and workers.

Marx stresses the importance of production as the determinant of social class and differs fundamentally from the apologist sociologists who stress status differences. His reason is simple, for. since it is productive activity that creates history, then it follows that an understanding of humans' quest for subsistence, their production, holds the key to the understanding of historical change. In order to live, to satisfy basic needs, humans must work. And work is a fundamental aspect of human life.

There are generally two ways of organising work. One is where individuals or collectives of producers use their own means and objects of production and distribute their own products. The second is class society, where a particular class owns or controls the means and instruments of production and organises the work of the producing class with the intention of producing and expropriating surplus wealth. Inevitably there is a conflict of interest between producers and expropriators over the control of the means of production and the division of the products; between feudal lord and serf, between capitalist and worker. In class society there always exists class struggle.

In societies dominated by owning classes - in Europe, slavery, feudalism and capitalism - the slaveowner, lord or capitalist is not concerned with the production of wealth as such, but with the production of surplus wealth. Surplus wealth requires surplus labour, or exploitation. Marx put it thus:

The essential difference between the various economic forms of society, between, for instance a society based on slave-labour, and one based on wage-labour, lies only in the mode in which this surplus-labour is in each case extracted from the actual producer (Capital, Vol I. chapter 9. section 1).

and again:

Capital has not invented surplus-labour. Wherever a part of society possesses the monopoly of the means of production, the labourer, free or not free, must add to the working time necessary for his own maintenance an extra working time in order to produce the means of production (Capital, Vol I. chapter 10. section 2).

He shows that the struggle between the exploiter class and the exploited class over the organisation of work, distribution of the social product, working conditions and the results of production is the living contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production.

Above all Marx is concerned to show that ownership is a social relationship; that it is not simply based on the individuals property holding but is a relationship between people, through objects. Marx posed the simple question of how people stood in relationship to other people, how some people managed to acquire vast amounts of wealth while the sole role of others was to engage in its production. The production of wealth was a relationship in which the great majority produced but did not own and a small group owned but did not produce. Such origins of class society lay rooted in historical development. Keys to understanding lay in the study of the past as a guide to the present and future. To say that society is based on class is to articulate the real life experience of people's social relationships with one another. The capitalist class owns and controls the means of production through the legalised power vested in it by the state. The producers have no such property and are forced to sell mental and physical energies for wages or, what is the same thing, a salary.

When modern sociologists use the term class they omit this fundamental fact and fail to address the issue of the social relationship of production. People are classified in some hierarchical logic based on income, occupation. education, or some notion of status. For all that this tells us about human and property relationships, we might as well classify people by the size of their noses.

When scientific socialists speak of classes we are discussing property relationships and social activity. Marx asks first how income is obtained, but warns against commuting class differences into differences in "the size of purses".

The size of one's purse is a purely quantitative distinction whereby any two individuals of the same class may be incited against one another at will" (Moralizing Criticism and Critical Morality, 1847).

The language used by those sociologists who bolster the society of oppression is carefully chosen to avoid the real issue of the prevailing class struggle. They present us with a gradational picture of class society. Classes are described as "above" or "below" other classes. Little mention is given to the inherent antagonisms that are the inevitable result of class society.

Socialists rightly do not speak of "upper", "middle" and "lower middle" classes. Instead we use the language that best describes the social relationships that actually matter in society: we speak of capitalist and worker, feudal lord and serf, master and slave. Neither do we accept that class relations are based on forms of technology, the level of industrialisation or the technical division of labour. Members of the working class are not just blue collar workers, and neither are technical workers part of some lower middle class or "new petty bourgeoisie". For, as stated, class relations are socially determined by reference to the property relationship and are not defined by some notion of an occupational hierarchy. Class operates in the social relations of production and not in the realm of consumption. Owning a car or possessing a mortgage does not alter the fact that you are a member of the working class.

In the English preface to the Communist Manifesto Engels sums up the aim of the movement for socialism as “once and for all emancipating society at large from all exploitation. oppression, class distinction and class struggles". The role assigned to the World Socialist Movement is to assist in building a class-conscious working class the world over who understand the nature of class society and who will take, through majority action, the necessary steps to end oppression. With the abolition of minority ownership of production and distribution will come the abolition of class society.

Ewan Knox

Our dreams have become real

Progressives and liberals base their ideas that capitalism can be humane and can function for the greater good. Many of those types of reformers seem to genuinely believe in their approach. Yet in any economic system that depends on the exploitation, in the end, they will ally themselves with the ruling class. When the employers want to keep their profits high and the rising cost of materials conspires with the lower prices in the market due to increased competition, the difference must be made upon the backs of the employees. This is the fundamental truth of capitalism. It is also why working people who are not organised are more certain that their pay will be reduced or their jobs will be lost. This basic reality of capitalism is employers will fight unions and it is almost inevitable that the intellectuals and academics will justify such attacks, claiming it is a natural law of society and workers can’t defy its logic. The progressive liberal helps the bosses keep the lid on the rest of us. The still claim the possibility of global poverty reduction and when they fail they resort to simplistic excuses such as to blame “overpopulation”.

There are essentially only two models of social production in the modern world. Despite some superficial differences, one is the capitalist system dictates production for profit throughout the world to benefit the owners of capital. The other still only a potential than actuality is socialism, which is production for use to meet the needs of the working class. The people exercise no control over social production, and it was the same in those so-called workers’ states where workers were subordinated to an all-powerful bureaucracy.  Marx spoke of the ‘free association of real producers’. It is through such a free association where production will rest not upon decisions of either the boardroom of investors or the ministries of technocrats, but of the freely determined wishes of the producers themselves. Socialism will have no need of the irrational remnants of a past age, such as prices or wages. Money itself grows redundant and superfluous.

Humanity has reached a turning point in its history. The dreams of the past have become real possibilities for a future that can already be foreseen, because the material conditions necessary for achieving them are here right now and in place, just waiting to be utilized and implemented. A workers’ revolution can put an end to the capitalist relations of exploitation that are now the fundamental obstacle to further progress for mankind. This is the meaning of the struggle for a society of abundance, of justice and of freedom: socialism. The working class cannot free itself without freeing all of Humanity at the same time because the ultimate goal of its struggle is not to replace the power of one class with that of another but rather to abolish all classes. This is the only way to put an end to all the social divisions and inequalities that have characterized class societies thus far.

The capitalist’s power is rooted in the appropriation of new wealth produced by the labour of the working class. Workers are forced to exchange their labour-power for a wage that allows them to survive but that represents less value than that produced by their labour; this is the source of capital accumulation. In this way, the capitalists, the owners of the means of production, constantly deprive the workers of part of the fruits of their labour. Capitalists have only one reason for existing– to accumulate more and more capital. They are therefore always looking for ways to increase the productivity of labour. This stimulates the development of science and technology and leads to an ever greater division of labour. It also results in very keen competition among capitalists themselves; many are reduced to bankruptcy while a minority get richer and richer. Capitalists seek to increase the productivity of workers. They impose speed-ups . They attack the democratic rights of working people and continually try to control any organization of workers and if they don’t succeed they destroy them. The State is controlled entirely by and in the service of, the capitalist class. The abolition of classes will in turn lead to the withering away of the State and its extinction,  for the State is not, and can never be, anything other than the instrument of the dictatorship of one class over others.

Capitalism has created the very conditions for its own destruction. Capitalism, undermined by its own contradictions, will inevitably be overthrown, just as all previous systems of class exploitation, including slavery and feudalism, have been. The working class has the mission of carrying this task out to its conclusion: the abolition of class society. The emergence of socialist society will permit a steady reduction in the human work needed to produce goods. The socialist society is based on the free association of all individuals who work together to produce the goods necessary for their collective well-being. All will work according to their capacities and their needs will be fully satisfied. 

Socialist Party Summer School (Birmingham)

Friday, July 22, 6:00 PM

to Sunday, July 24, 2:00 PM

Fircroft College

1018 Bristol Road South, Selly Oak, Birmingham B29 6LH (map)

• Money Talks
• Money flows through every aspect of society, and therefore affects every aspect of our lives. What possessions we have, the efficiency of the services we use, and how we are supposed to value ourselves are all shaped by the money system. We’re encouraged to think of the economy in much the same way as we think about the weather – something changeable, but always there. When the climate is ‘good’, life feels brighter. When the climate is ‘bad’, we huddle down until we can ride out the storm. Although we’ll always have the weather, the economy doesn’t have to be permanent. Our weekend of talks and discussion looks at the role of money in our society. In what ways does money affect how we think and behave? How does the economy really function? How did money come to be such a dominant force? We also look forward to a moneyless socialist society, which will be – in more than one sense of the word – free.
  
  Sessions arranged so far...
  Janet Surman will discuss a moneyless society: 'Profiting From A Moneyless World'
  Adam Buick will present 'An Idiot's Guide To Banking: How To Avoid Being A Currency Crank'
  Darren Poynton will select some short videos on 'The Root Of All Evil?: How money affects behaviour and attitudes'
  
  Full residential cost (including accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £100. The concessionary rate is £50. Day visitors are welcome, but please book in advance.
  CLICK HERE TO BOOK ONLINE
  To book a place, send a cheque (payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain) to Summer School, Sutton Farm, Aldborough, Boroughbridge, York, YO51 9ER, or book online. E-mail enquiries to spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk

Socialism Now Is Our Battle-cry.

Socialism is a society that will be based upon principle of equal maintenance for all and no wages for any. Our goal is a socialist world, based on common ownership of our resources and industry, cooperation, production for use and genuine democracy. Only socialism can turn the boundless potential of our people and resources to the creation of a world free from tyranny, greed, poverty and exploitation. The capitalists are incapable of turning their technology and organisation to the needs of people. They have robbed us of our wealth and of the very power to determine our own future. World-wide poverty, hunger and war are their legacy. Instead if the means of production was harnessed to popular administration and planning, new technology could help us achieve an era of abundance for all, release us from monotonous toil and enrich our store of accessible knowledge. The socialist option is the only alternative. The inherent flaws of capitalism are too basic, the gap separating the compulsions of profit and the needs of people too wide, for anything less to succeed. Capitalism has failed, and so have efforts to reform it. That failure puts the socialist alternative on the immediate agenda. There is no more promising field for socialist activity than organising and crystallising the sentiment that already exists against the capitalist system. There has never come to socialism so plain an opportunity as that currently being offered. No more compromise or tinkering.  Today is the time of socialist emancipation.

 The needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of a socialist society. Under capitalism, labour is a commodity. Workers are used as replaceable parts, extensions of machines—as long as they provide dividends. Employers use their power of ownership to devastate the lives of workers through layoffs, speed-ups and neglect of health and safety. Trade unions, despite their courageous efforts, have encountered difficulties eliminating even the worst abuses of management power. The Socialist Party believes in the ability of working people to manage their own productive institutions democratically. The Socialist party is the political expression of the interests of the working class. It is made up of working men and women, its candidates are workers and they have been nominated by workers. Whether elected or defeated it will be at the hands of working people. Humanity faces the danger of complete destruction. Only socialism can save it. It will end the domination of capital, make war impossible, wipe out state boundaries, transform the whole world into one cooperative commonwealth, and bring about real human brotherhood and freedom. The victory of the workers of the world means the beginning of the real history of free mankind.

The capitalist class have chorus line of hirelings to sing their praises. Intellectuals and academics of all categories exalt the ruling class. The media depict the wealthy and rich and powerful always in a favourable light.

Our aim is socialism and our means to achieve it is to organise politically at the ballot box to secure the election of delegates adhering to socialist principles. The Socialist Party pledges itself to pursue, unfalteringly and undeviatingly, its object – common ownership of the means of producing and distributing all wealth. It will assist by offering clearness and effectiveness to the gathering working class movement. Political action is not to be despised, nor disparaged, nor is any other methods that will help to break the domination of the master class and hasten the emancipation of fellow-workers.

Socialism or The Market

In an article in The Guardian on April 29th entitled " Making poverty history didn’t happen. We should have been tackling the rich" by Selina Todd ,she asserts that, "We must change the terms of the debate about poverty – and that means looking at the behaviour not of the destitute, but of the super-wealthy ",she continues to make a reasonable point that, "But those of us who want to turn austerity Britain into a fair and democratic society might want to stop talking about the poor so much. Rather than wringing our hands, we could acknowledge that destitution and poverty are just extreme manifestations of the economic inequality that is, as Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson point out, bad for at least for 99% of us. The Rowntree research points out that the destitute, like the poor, are a fluid group who have more in common with the rest of us than we often acknowledge. Most people live in poverty or destitution for limited periods of time, with millions of us vulnerable to experiencing poverty at some point in our lives. If we are to make poverty history, then we need to change the terms of a debate that has gone on for more than a century, and ask not what makes particular people poor – thanks to researchers, we know the answer – but how to wrestle wealth and power away from the 1% who have tenaciously clung on to it".

 But as for solutions she offers none save more hand wringing.

My own contribution to  the discussion that,"She should have been tackling the naive belief that capitalism could be reformed in a way in which poverty could be eliminated. Poverty, absolute and relative are essential conditions of capitalism. It requires a working class which is relatively poorer than the owning class to induce it into waged slavery in order to create all of the worlds wealth for the owning parasite capitalist class. Poverty and war are essential concomitants of capitalism and will remain so, until it is replaced by a post-capitalist, production for use, moneyless, free access society, run by us all in conditions of real social and economic equality", elicited the following response from another contributer,"What level of oppression would you need to stop people trying to get a little more for themselves in your "post-capitalist, production for use, moneyless, free access society"?"
To which I replied,"It would not need any level of oppression to prevent such silly behaviour, as access would be free and self determined in conditions of relative superabundance, once we had production for use. Coercion is only required when goods are rationed via the wages and prices system and production is for the profit of an economic elite minority parasite class."

Which prompted a further defence of market system ,
"Err, who decides what is "production for use"? Actually, we already have a mechanism to decide that, it's called the free market and it's proved much more effective than any law making at matching producers and customers.Rationing by price also works well. The experience of providing stuff as a right is not a happy one. It's a recipe for waste and abuse".

My rebuttal,.."The Market does not satisfy human needs. The market is not the answer. There is only one way to escape for workers from the detrimental effects of capitalism and that is for the economy to be run by the immediate producers themselves. Once in control of the process of production they would have no interest in wasting effort on producing goods that no one wants, on turning out goods of low quality, or resisting innovations that would make their work easier.

The price mechanism does not let firms know what to produce in advance any more than the free associated producers are able to foresee all needs and all links in the production process. But they would be quite capable of working out what their main needs are likely to be, if only because they can calculate what is needed in the same way that capitalism does – by seeing what was needed in the past – and then adjust it according to their own democratically expressed preference. Supply can be made to correspond to demand.
Socialism is a system of planning and management in which the workers allocate resources and democratically determine priorities themselves. Such a system demands that the people themselves articulate their needs as producers, consumers and citizens, in other words, that they become the masters of their conditions of work and life, that they progressively liberate themselves from despotism and diktat of the market and its tyranny of the wallet.
Socialism will be a delegatory democracy of various diverse workers and community councils. The rule of bureaucracy or technocracy is irreconcilable with the conscious control and direction, through planned democratic association of self-managing producers.

Well if you have read this far ,what do you think?

Matt

The Inhumane Economy

Capitalism dominates the globe. Whether you admit it or not, there is a capitalist class and a working class pitted against each other in an irrepressible struggle. These two classes can never be permanently harmonized or reconciled. It is this that is called the class war and there can be no peace. Politics is simply the expression in political terms of the economic interests of certain classes. The employers realise this fact and they are in politics, not for altruistic reasons but to engage in political warfare against workers. Working men and women have already organised upon the industrial field against the power of their masters. But they have yet to learn that it is necessary to unite independently for the political battle, only too frequently dividing and fighting each other at the ballot box, instead of class unity.

The class now in power cannot rule honestly. They must rule corruptly. They are in the minority. They have not the votes of their own to put them in power, but they have the money with which to bribe the electorate. They have the money with which to pervert the courts and to buy the law-makers in the legislatures, and to corrupt all our institutions. They have the power to do this because they have the money, and they have the money because they own the means of production and distribution. The great mass of the workers depend upon them for employment. In this system no working person is in any sense free. They have little means of making themselves heard. Nevertheless, workers are beginning to open their eyes, beginning to understand that they have brains as well as brawn, that they can think as well as work, that they are fit for something better than wage-slavery. They are beginning to stand up and to realise that what is done for them must be done by themselves. And so they are gradually developing their own solidarity. For sure they are still in a small minority but others are awakening, people all across the globe are stirring.  They are beginning to realise their interests, their power, their duty, their responsibility as a class more and more now. People whose life consists of a long, hard, fierce struggle all the way from youth to old age are starting to wonder how strange it is that in this world of abundance and plenty there is still so much poverty and want. The capitalist media tries to obscure it in every way possible yet it is impossible to disguise the failure of the system to provide for all the people and those people will continue to search for the reasons and seek the answers.

 The class struggle battles is part of the war for the existence of humanity. The demands of people for access to food, housing, education, health care and an opportunity to contribute to society are summed up as the demand for a cooperative society. Such a society must be based on the common ownership of the means of production and the distribution of the social product according to need. These demands are antagonistic to capitalism, which is based on the buying and selling, including of labour power. This antagonism is economically, socially and politically polarising society, making social and political revolution inevitable.

Few can deny that the world today is in upheaval. That is reflected in the widespread anarchy, turmoil and conflict. The fact that such conditions prevail generally throughout the world, and have prevailed for a long time, logically suggests the presence of a dominant common social factor. That common social factor, the Socialist Party has repeatedly demonstrated, is the capitalist system that does not and cannot work in the interests of the majority. Socialism has unfortunately been presented as a system not of abundance but of scarcity, as a system not of increased leisure and comfort, but of sacrifice and back-breaking toil.

The Socialist Party has come together to inspire the working class to the conscious, effective struggle to overturn the outlived, rotten system of capitalism, in order to replace it with a society on a socialist basis, free of class exploitation, oppression and inequality. 112 years ago, when the Socialist Party was organized, there were no planes, no computers, no satellites or space stations in orbit, and no nuclear power stations or nuclear weapons. Nor was there a particular great concern regarding pollution of the land, air and water on which all species—humanity included—depend on for life. But there was widespread poverty, racial prejudice and discrimination, spreading urban chaos, brazen violations of democratic rights, the material and economic conflicts that contain the seeds of war, and a host of other economic and social problems. All of those problems still plague the world but have grown to even more monumental proportions in regard to the destruction to the environment. Unending reform efforts have failed to solve or even alleviate these long-standing problems to any meaningful degree and have only inflicted further decades of misery and suffering upon millions of workers and their families.

Against this insane capitalist system, the Socialist Party raises its voice in emphatic protest and unqualified condemnation. It declares that if our society is to be rid of the host of economic, political and social ills that for so long have plagued it, the outmoded capitalist system of private ownership of the means of life and production for the profit in the interests of a few must be replaced by a new social system. That new society must be organised on the rational basis of social ownership and democratic management of all the instruments of social production, all means of distribution and all of the social services. It must be one in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. In short, it must be genuine socialism. Accordingly, the Socialist Party calls upon the workers to rally under its banner for the purpose of advocating this revolutionary change, building class-consciousness among workers and developing the organisation that the workers can use to implement towards this end.

Despite the many threats to workers' lives, liberty and happiness today, despite the growing poverty and misery that workers are subjected to, a world of peace, liberty, security, health and abundance for all stands within our grasp. The potential to create such a society exists, but that potential can be realized only if workers act to gain control of their own lives by organizing, politically and industrially, for socialism.

The Socialist Party calls upon all who comprehend the critical nature of our times, and who are increasingly aware that a basic change in our society is needed, to place themselves squarely on working-class principles and join us in the effort to put an end to the existing class conflict and all its malevolent results. Let us place the land and the instruments of social production in the hands of the people as a collective body in a cooperative socialist society. Help us build a world in which everyone will enjoy the free exercise and full benefit of their individual faculties, multiplied by all the technological and other factors of modern civilisation.

Struggle, Solidarity, Socialism

We can go forward

Socialism proposes wealth and abundance for all and the good things of life for everybody. No poverty anymore, no more filth and disease and crime. You say all this is a dream? No, not dream at all, but an immediate possibility. By means of the vast new technology of this modern world, we can produce wealth enough for all without any trouble whatever. Modern science have so increased the productive capacity of mankind that all men and women could have abundance of wealth by working only three or four hours a day, two or three times a week.  Socialism proposes to get this abundance for each and every one of us.

In order for this to happen, we must do something. What is it we require to do? It is this: Take to ourselves these vast new inventions and robotic machinery and use them for producing new wealth for all instead of producing it for a few. Mankind would no longer be the slave of the machine. The machine will become the servant of humanity. Every increase in productivity would bring with it two things:

1. an increase in the things required for the need, comfort and even luxury of all;

2. an increase in everyone’s leisure time, to devote to the free cultural and intellectual development of humankind. Man will not live primarily to work; he will work primarily to live.

This is our practical perspective. Even today, with all the restrictions that capitalism places upon production, there are specialists and experts who declare that industry, properly organised, can produce the necessities of life for all in a working day of four hours or less and a working week of only a few days. Organised on a socialist basis, even this figure could be cut down. As the necessities and comforts of life become increasingly abundant the differences between physical and mental labour, between town and country are eliminated. A rationally planned society, efficiently using our present productive equipment and the better equipment to come, could easily assure abundance to all. In return, society could confidently expect every citizen to contribute his best voluntarily. Announce a shortage of bread, and immediately a long line will form, with everyone racing to get there first. But if everyone knew that there is an ample supply of bread today, and there will be just as large a supply tomorrow and the next day, there would be no line. In the midst of abundance for all and with the changes it will imbue within members of society development that will accompany it, there is no reason to expect people to be still poisoned with the old spirit of greed, selfishness, cheating and other evils of a class society where only the few enjoy abundance and opportunity. What will there be to steal in the midst of abundance?

The only reason we are not all sharing in these advancements now is that a few people own these great modern tools and refuse to let us work at them except when they can make a profit for themselves.  If we owned the factories, offices and mills ourselves and all of us worked at them to produce wealth for our own use and happiness, all the troubles of poverty would disappear at once. The only thing that lies between us and the free access to the fruits of our labour is this private ownership of the means of producing wealth. The men and women who are denied the right to use their own machinery are the men who now work for wages, a bare living. They have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. This is the working class. Socialism appeals to them on the ground of their self-interests, the ground on which all practical people base their appeals to others. We say to the workers: “Come with us, join our party, vote yourselves into power, use that power of government to capture back those means of wealth production which the capitalists have stolen from you, and then you will get all that abundance which modern inventions entitle you to.”

The mission of the Socialist Party is to gather together all those workers whose real interests lie in abolishing the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, and to shut out of the parties the class whose real interests lie in the preservation of the present system. We wage a war of ideas on the battlefield the ballots. Socialism, based upon the planned organisation of production for use by means of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, is the abolition of all classes and class differences. Many challenge us that this it is only an ideal which cannot be realised in practice. The Socialist Party declares it is a practical possibility and an urgent necessity.

Production should not be organised on the basis of the blind pull and push of the capitalist market, but in accordance with the needs of the people. Production for profit will give way to production for use. Capitalism’s motive of production was, is, and always will be profit. It is not the needs of the people that determines its production. If, however, production were carried on for use, to satisfy the needs of the people, the question immediately arises: Who is to decide what is useful and what would satisfy these needs? Will that be decided exclusively by a small board of planners? No matter how high-minded and wise they might be, they could not plan production for the needs of the people. Production for use, by its very nature, demands constant consultation of the people, constant control and direction by the people. The democratically-adopted decision of the people would have to guide the course of production and distribution. Democratic control of the means of production and distribution would have to be exercised by the people to see to it that their decision is being carried out. Production for use, aimed at satisfying the needs of society and of freeing all the people from class rule, would be impossible if production would be regulated by the autocratic, uncontrolled will of a bureaucracy. Democratic control, the continual extension of democracy, is therefore an indispensable necessity.

Socialism is not a utopian ideal, a blueprint for society that exists only in the minds of some people. It is a social necessity; it is a practical necessity. It is the direction that people must in order to satisfy their social needs, take in order to save society from disintegration and destruction. The abolition of private ownership would remove the last barrier to the development of production. Production would be organised, planned and expanded, and aimed at satisfying the needs of society. To be a socialist, merely means to be conscious of this necessity, to make others conscious of it, and to work in an organised manner for the achievement of the goal.

“Abundance for all? Freedom for all? A society without a state? Impossible!” No, it is, at long last, humanity coming to its senses. Men and women will prove that class division and oppression are not inevitable, poverty and hunger are not unavoidable and the state is not indispensable. In the socialist society we will show that abundance, freedom and equality are not only possible but the natural condition for the new history of the human race.

Workers Wake Up

Capitalism remains, for all the tinkering, a system of crisis. For more than a century the domination of the capitalist mode of production has posed before humanity the alternatives: Socialism or Barbarism. The crises arise out of the private ownership of the means of production and the private acquisi­tion of the goods produced by social labor for social consumption. Capitalism, while having developed the highest level of production, is a system of waste and inefficiency, through useless com­petition and the alienation of men and women. Socialists seek to change the economic laws governing society and human relations, by bringing order and plan into production. Once collectively in control of the means whereby we live via common ownership, we will develop more efficient means. Common ownership eliminates the crisis in society by removing all the areas of class conflict, since we would all be owners of the productive forces of the community. The only definitive solution to these problems is the elimination of capitalism and its institutions, and the establishment of common ownership of the means of production, rational economic and social planning. The fundamental task of The Socialist Party is the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. Capitalism has developed as a world economic system. It is illusory to believe that the much higher development of the productive forces that socialism entails can be achieved within the framework of a single country. The division of the world into different states imposes a definite form on the revolutionary process. The proletariat must and can take power and begin to build socialism in the territories defined by different existing states. But the construction of socialism can be completed only on a world scale.

People live in a society racked with crisis. This society can neither guarantee them a secure future nor even promise there will be a future. The threat of environmental destruction or nuclear war casts a shadow over the lives of all of us . It is our generation that must end capitalism because future generations may not be around to do it. This society places a premium on wealth, not ability or dedication. The vast majority of our people work out their lives for the enrichment of the small minority of profiteers who own the bulk of the economy and through their wealth control the entire society. Our world staggers from one crisis to another, increasing chronic unemployment—particularly among youth, a vicious and unending drive against the rights of labour, and a budget in which one-third of the funds are marked for weapons of mass murder—all these are hallmarks of the "system" we live under. The system is capitalism. Under it a small minority rule in fact if not in name, and profit is the be-all and end-all of economic life; human needs come second—if at all. We live in a society which puts a price tag on everything. Even poets, writers and artists find the road to "success" demands that they shape their art to the whims of the wealthy and privileged.

Man is divided along class lines determined by his relations to the means of production—there are those who own means of production—capital—and those who only possess the ability to work at the means of production owned by others. Between these two forces there is a conflict over the division of the fruits of labor. This struggle is the class struggle. The class struggle is a fact. If it were not so there would be no need for trade unions. And if it were not so, there would be no basis for a socialist party. The Socialist Party holds out the possibility of a new society of production for use, not for profit. Freed from the clutches of the profit-gougers and their hangers-on, the major industries must be brought under common ownership and the economy must be planned by the people themselves in their own areas of work. The profit system cannot make use of automation for the benefit of society; socialism will! The future society that will be constructed under socialism will reduce work to an insignificant part of daily life and offer the individual the fullest possibilities to pursue his or her own abilities and interests. Our heritage is rich let everybody have the opportunity to freely access it. Despite the relative passivity and docility of the working people, it is clear that their very life situation forces them to come repeatedly into conflict with the system. They find themselves in daily conflict with the employers in the struggle for decent wages and security.

People are increasingly disillusioned and many seek new paths, new roads forward. They search for social change.  The world can be changed. For the sake of humanity it must be changed. Around the world humanity is saying "Enough" and is beginning to move. Though our lives and conditions be different; though we live in different parts of the world; though our struggles take different forms; ours is a common goal—an end to the oppression and exploitation of man by man. How can our planet be changed? Certainly no elite will serve the task. We do not want to replace one group of masters with another. Nor do we want the patronising assistance of those whose real interests lie with the present system. We must look to those whose interests lie in change—to working people, the people who work in the factories and offices of our society. They built the society—and they too are cut off from power and progress by the tiny minority that owns the wealth in Canada. The bosses need the working people—but the workers don’t need the bosses. For most people democracy remains a word without meaning. We are cut off from the ability to make decisions affecting our own lives. The giant corporations and the capitalist magnates determine all the key questions. Only when we have economic democracy, when production is planned for use and not for profit, when the right of all to share in the abundance of our country is established - only then will democracy be truly established.

When we say that we are revolutionary socialists we are not talking about a change in society that would take place when a small group takes over the local city council office and runs up the red flag. We are talking about a change that will involve the vast majority of people consciously acting to change the entire society and all the relationships in it, from the way people relate to each other, to the way that the government operates to the way people relate to their jobs. We're out to change the whole system. We see that all the problems we face are intimately tied to the problems throughout the whole country, the continent, the world. And therefore if we are serious about changing the system, about changing the world, it is necessary to confront the whole system. To be effective you have to build an organisation capable of doing that.

As socialists we believe in the great task of transforming this society—of building a new world. We stand for a world which can eliminate poverty and hunger and war; a world in which freedom is more than a word in a textbook; a world in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the producers themselves and the products of mankind are available to all. The potential of mankind virtually limitless, if it is freed from economic and social oppression. We stand for socialism. We have no illusions that the way will be easy, no visions of quick success. But the future belongs to humanity and socialism!

Raking in the cash on poverty

ANTI-poverty campaigner Sir Bob Geldof has charged Australian organisers $100,000 to give a speech about world suffering.     

  

Geldof, 54, spoke about the tragedy of Third World poverty and the failure of governments to combat the crisis at a Crown casino function in Melbourne on Thursday night.   But he charged about $100,000 for his troubles - a speakers fee that included the cost of luxury hotel rooms and first-class airfares.

Fellow activist, World Vision CEO the Reverend Tim Costello, spoke for free. An event insider said the Geldof payments, which included the costs of a minder, appeared hypocritical.   "It was an inspiring speech. But when you think he got paid $100,000 to talk about poverty it seems like a bit of a contradiction," the insider said:

http://bit.ly/1qCDkXY

How Green is my Capitalist Nonsense

TWENTY-ONE year old Ross Greer is celebrating a personal victory today after becoming the youngest-ever MSP at Holyrood.

The former Bearsden Academy student gained a seat for the West of Scotland region having first joined the party when he was just 15.

It used to be said, "there is no fool like an old fool", but the legacy of utopian reformism seems to be carrying on through even younger apologists,however well meaning and sincere they may be personally.

His posts on the Greens website appears to be in keeping with the Green party politics but more generally capitalist politics:

'Only the Scottish Green Party offered the practical solutions that I wanted, combining social justice and equality with sustainability and practical solutions to tackling climate change.'

All of the parties say this, with some variations on the theme and it is a nonsense in the context of a social system which depends upon the exploitation of a majority of wage enslaved workers, to produce for sale in the profitable interests of a minority parasite economic class.

Only a commonly owned, production for use ,free access society can deliver real social equality and do away with waged slavery, rationed access and governments 'over' the people.
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/what-socialism