The many work to enrich the few

Tinkering with the capitalist system can never alter its fundamentally anti-social character. The relationships and values involved in a humane life demand that we abolish this system and bring into being one that reflects the interests of the people. The new system will be one that brings about the end of exploitation.

What's wrong with working part-time? Nothing, if you're making enough to live on. But, as everyone knows, part-time jobs don't pay enough to pay all the bills, nor as a rule, do they include necessary health insurance and other benefits. Most so-called part-time workers are actually full-time workers, holding down two or three part-time jobs in order to make ends meet. Millions of workers with legitimate full-time jobs also need another, part-time job because the full-time job pays too little. Americans work more hours per year than workers in many other industrialised countries. When workers are working harder for less, profits soar. The stock market rockets to new highs. The only thing that could upset this gravy train, it seems, is if wages should go up!  Surely folk can see that something is clearly wrong if economic health depends on its people doing poorly. Yet this senseless contradiction is the "normal" condition in our capitalist economic system, where the many work to enrich a few who don't do my productive work. Trying to get around this conflict of interest between capital and labour economists describe the trickle-down theory with the argument that if companies making more money will then pay their workers more - a theory proven to be false.  It's not a question of whether the CEOs are "greedy" or not. It's a simple matter of the law of the market: the law of supply and demand. Supply and demand determines the price of labour just as it determines the price of any other commodity. Yes, in this system labor is a commodity, bought and sold on the labor market. But today the labor market is not confined to national boundaries. You have to look at the global supply of labor because now it's possible for companies to move (out-source)  their operations overseas, especially to developing countries where dispossessed rural peasants stream to the cities looking for employment. So when wages started escalating it only hastened the exodus of capital, lowering the domestic demand for labor and driving its price down once again. And once the economy slipped into recession unemployment climbed and wages tumbled.

The fact that labour under capitalism is a commodity, ruled by the law of supply and demand, explains another puzzling contradiction: how people can get poorer by working harder and producing more wealth. Although workers produce all the economic wealth in the form of goods and services, they own none of it. The product is owned by their employers, be they small businessmen or multinational corporations. What the workers get from their product is what they can buy back from the owners, using the wages they are paid by the owners for the use of their labor. Since the workers are not working for themselves, they may increase their output by 10, 20 or 50 per cent and still not see a penny of the increase. What the worker receives for her work is something quite different from the product of her work, and that something is determined by the supply of and demand for her in the labor market. The output of goods and services has increased enormously as workers have worked longer hours and improved technologies have increased their output per hour. But since that time workers have received less in real terms for each hour of their work. The value of that added output has gone instead to capital, with the result that the owners of capital have increased their share of the national wealth and national income while the non-owners, the workers, have seen their share decrease.

Now imagine for a moment that instead of what actually happened we had had a different economic system. In this different system labour, instead of being a commodity bought by capital, was itself the owner of the machinery and facilities of production and distribution. As owner, labor would be working for itself, and so would own its own product. In one year so many goods and services would have been produced, which would have been distributed among their owners, which would include all the workers who contributed labour toward their production. This would be all the useful and necessary labor, including that of women and men working at home caring for children and doing all the other domestic labor required to maintain a household. The following year the population may have increased a bit so there would be more people of working age to help in production. Also, there may have been new technologies introduced which would have reduced the amount of labor needed to produce the same number of goods and services. What would have happened? The people might have decided to continue to work the same number of hours as before, which would mean more goods and services were produced and people had more things. Or the people might have decided they didn't need more things and instead wanted more free time away from work. The workday then would have been reduced for all, while their consumption of goods and services remained the same. In a system of labor ownership, where basic economic decisions are made democratically by the people through a workplace-based government, every advance in technology directly benefits all the people by either increasing the goods and services for consumption or shortening the workweek. With the rapid advances now going on in computer technologies, it's not hard to imagine producing everything we need with a few hours of work per person per week.

In the capitalist system, where goods are produced to sell for a profit, production has to keep growing whether we need the stuff or not. In a labor-owned system, once we have enough of whatever well quit making it, conserving resources in the process. When the current incentive for waste and obsolescence - in order to keep selling more - is removed, the overall level of production could actually fall, greatly easing the stress on the environment as well as on us.

If all this sounds too good to be true it's only because what we have now is too crazy to be true. But, sadly, it is true, and as a result, we've become accustomed to accept the irrational as normal, or at least unavoidable. But it eventually reaches the point where irrational contradictions become intolerable and must, one way or another, be resolved. While no one can set a date when people will finally rebel against the economic and social madness, the operations of the capitalist system itself guarantee the time will come. Of course, there's no guarantee that when the time comes it will be socialism that is adopted by the majority and put into effect. All kinds of crackpots and quacks will be in the field to lead the people in every direction except towards the economic reconstruction of society.

It will require an intense political struggle to win the day for socialism. This is a struggle that can be carried out only by a highly organised and dedicated political movement, the movement the Socialist Party is today working to create.

'Introduction to Socialism' (Edinburgh)

Wednesday, October 26, 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM

Venue: ACE

17 West Montgomery Place,

Edinburgh EH7 5HA

WHAT IS SOCIALISM

Socialism would be too idealistic or utopian if it depended on people following an ideal that was contrary to their material interest. But that is not the case with socialism. Socialism is grounded in material realities. It is rooted in the reality that it is now objectively and physically possible for society to meet the basic human needs and wants of all the people. It is rooted in the reality that capitalism stands as an obstacle to society realising its full potential to meet the needs and wants of all. It is rooted in the reality that the working class, which are those who do productive work, mental or physical, are denied their material needs and wants under the present system. Thus the modern working class has both a motive and the potential power to replace the present system with socialism.

All that's missing is for workers to recognise their true interests as a class, understand the socialist goal, and begin organising as a class to establish it. Socialism is realistic and a pragmatic alternative. We, the workers, already collectively occupy the industries every day and operate them from top to bottom. The only thing we don't do is own them, control them, and determine the product distribution. Properly organised, we can rectify that, and build an economic system that will truly serve the social interest and it is essential for human survival and continued social progress. To build socialism, workers must organise politically and economically.

Socialism can only be established by a class-conscious, organised majority of the working class. It can only be built by workers who understand the need to prevent any individual or group from gaining the power to control production or distribution. Socialism would be governed by active organisations of workers, educated by the class struggle and determined to keep economic power in the only safe place for it to reside in the collective hands of all. Control of society's economic resources would be in the collective hands of the working class. All persons elected to serve in the factory committees, the workers' councils and the commune assemblies administering social life and the economy as a whole, would be responsible only for performing designated administrative tasks. They would have no bureaucratic power to dictate production or distribution goals toward their own individual enrichment. Voting would determine the general goals of social production, based on their own needs and wants. Socialism's elected and recallable administrators would carry out the task of determining which facilities are to produce how much in order to meet the socially determined production goals. They would have no opportunity to become bureaucratic rulers even if they wanted to. And once a society of security and abundance for all is established, the motivation to even want to be become a bureaucrat is eliminated.

People clearly have the capability of being cooperative as well as competitive, supportive and helpful as well as antagonistic, egalitarian as well as selfish. We can and do choose to employ one quality or the other, depending on how our material circumstances and interests affect us, and how we perceive our own self-interest. It is also part of our human nature to think, to evaluate our circumstances and change our behaviour when we conclude that doing so is in our self-interest. Accordingly, socialism is not contrary to human “nature”. For the vast majority of the people who belong to the working class today, it does no good to be greedy, competitive or power-hungry; capitalism rewards them with hardship. Sooner or later, a majority of workers can and will come to the understanding that their own self-interest demands the creation of a new social system based on social ownership of the industries and cooperative production for the common good. Once a socialist society is established, the material and other rewards of that system will continue to reinforce cooperative behaviour and nullify selfishness, greed and the desire for power over others.

A democratically-controlled economic system.

Working people must set their sights on the real goal, liberation from wage slavery. The genuine socialist movement must educate its fellow-workers to the need of reaching this goal if they are to achieve the economic security and well-being they seek. Capitalism has substituted the motive of private profit in place of public duty. Capitalism is a system of social advancement based on individual merit and ability is the message that an army of media and academic errand boys are constantly trying to drill into our heads. That message is everywhere. You can hardly escape from it. There is just one problem with this picture. An examination of how capitalism actually works - who does the work, who gains the wealth and how that wealth is accumulated - reveals a reverse reality. Capitalism as it actually exists functions more like an inverse meritocracy, a system of social advancement based on the exploitation of the members of society who actually perform the work, and who therefore create all value. As they say, if hard work creates millionaires then every African peasant woman would be worth a fortune. The idea that personal wealth is capitalism's reward for producing economic value for society is an imaginative fairy tale. In fact, great personal wealth is either the reward for being born to wealthy parents, or for being the most single-minded and ruthless acquirers of other people's money, diminishing rather than uplifting the social good in the process. By the same logic those with the smallest incomes must be making the least contribution to society. But even a casual look at the facts shows the opposite is true. Food production is one endeavor no society can do without. But the people who do the work of producing food for consumption - farm-workers, slaughterhouse workers, cannery and processing workers, restaurant workers - mostly receive below average wages.

But the real chasm of inequality isn't between food-industry workers and higher-paid workers of other industries. It's between the productive workers of each industry and the major owners of each industry, the big stockholders who contribute no useful labor to production or distribution. Nor is it a matter of lower-wage workers being more or less important than higher-paid workers. All the necessary jobs have to be done in order for the workplace, the industry, the economy to function. For example, if the doctors in a hospital don't have the combined support of nurses, nursing assistants, various specialized technicians, clerical staff and custodial workers, they can't practice their advanced skills in healing patients. Take any group out of the mix and the hospital couldn't function. On the other hand, remove the hospital managers and medical insurance CEOs from the mix and the healthcare system would function much better! Administered instead as a democratic workplace community, with decisions made in an associated manner by all the workers of the workplace, what should be the top priority of a healthcare institution - patient care - would be the top priority.

Under capitalism those who do all the work are only allowed access to the workplaces and the chance to earn a living on condition that they fork over most of the value they add during the production process to the people who own the workplace. Thus, a person who adds $30 each hour to the product or service he or she works on may only be paid $10 for each hour she works. The rest goes to capital: the owner of the workplace, his banker, insurance company, marketing consultant, etc. To maintain this state of affairs the capitalist class uses its great wealth to control the electoral process and screens out any political candidates who might interfere too much with the very undemocratic running of the nation's workplaces. Whatever the political government does, it is forbidden to really interfere in the economic relationship between workers and owners, or to do anything, however sorely needed by the vast majority of the population, against the basic interests of the owning capitalists.

Defenders of capitalism are left to their fallback position: "Any other system just wouldn't work because people are different and you can't make them equal."

First, this confuses two separate concepts: difference and equality.

Equality in its social sense does not mean sameness. Obviously, people are not the same. Whether by nature or nurture, or probably a combination of both, people have different potentials for different areas of physical and intellectual activity. Changing the economic system won't change that. What it will do is insure that every individual has the opportunity to develop whatever potential talents and capabilities they do have. As it is today, despite all the blather about "you can be whatever you choose to be," most people fall into a career out of economic necessity rather than choice, and then get stuck there out of continuing economic necessity. Capitalism in reality blunts individuality rather than promotes it. Workers have to mold themselves to the needs of the system, which are determined by what is profitable in the marketplace, rather than themselves determining what their own needs are and how best to satisfy them. Equality means having the equal opportunity to develop your own abilities, without having the "right" to advance at the expense of others. It means having the equal opportunity to influence the decisions and outcomes of the economy and society, the equality in government that can come about only in a democratically-controlled economic system.

But today, as a result of economic inequality, government is controlled by an elite of big wealth-holders. Their corruption of politics is now so blatant that hardly anyone else believes their voice counts anymore. And they're right - it doesn't. The liberals and reformers who think they can change this with campaign-finance reform or new voting systems are on a fool's errand. One way or the other big money always finds a way to control government.  Those who seek real democracy must attack the economic inequality that blocks its realisation. The idea of economic equality may seem unrealistic to many people today. The aspirations of the majority for security and well-being, a clean environment and a peaceful world are blocked by the profit interests of a small minority. The only way out of the impasse is to create a new system of production and social administration, one that can direct our resources to meeting human needs and solving human problems.

In socialism, the community collectively are the co-owners of all the workplaces in the economy. All the goods and services created by the people who work belong to those same working people. Socialism cannot be 'given' to the workers by a political or intellectual elite, however sincere it may be. Socialist self-administration can only be built by the informed and united action of the workers themselves.

Let's Put Off Till Tomorrow!

The $70 million spent by Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne to set up the Ontario Pension Plan has caused a bit of a stink. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) is upset because the set-up cost was higher than expected. The group which represents 42,000 small businesses said it was a payroll tax, meaning they would have to pay it, and that Wynne should wait a year to see if the Federal Government increases the C.P.P. Boy ain't these guys all heart?

The plan is now being shut down, following a deal in June between the Provinces and the new Federal Government to improve the C.P.P.

The P.C.'s were upset because the plan included $12.1 million for a 5 year lease of two furnished floors of an office building, $17.6 million for consultants, and $3.5 million in legal fees.

Finance Minister, Charles Sousa, defended the planned O.R.R.P. on the grounds that two-thirds of Ontario workers, who don't have company pensions, will need more than C.P.P. at retirement.

So, there you have it, folks, a crowd of various politicians and businessmen who are upholders of Capitalism, squabbling about the implementation of another reform.

So why not scrap reforms, including pension plans, and while we're about it, why not scrap Capitalism? John Ayers

Liberating workers

People feel trapped on a treadmill from which there is no escape. Yet, at the same time, workers are working longer and harder for less, the amount they are able to produce in an hour's labor is greater than ever before, and this productivity of labor continues to climb. Probably everyone except workaholics, for whom work is an obsession or a way to escape other problems of life -- would choose to work less. But most would say they can't afford to, or that their jobs don't allow them to slow down. In other words, our way of living and working isn't something we can, as individuals, choose for ourselves. We have to live and work pretty much the way the system forces us to. In the system as it exists today, working less does mean sacrificing things that are part of the standard of living we expect- and it doesn't only apply to luxuries or frills. People are working long hours just to hold onto their homes, keep their cars running and send their kids - or themselves - to college. Most workers desperately want more leisure time, but giving up the income means giving up the means with which to enjoy the extra time. In addition, being willing to do without things doesn't necessarily mean ending up with more time. For example, because the economic system favors private transportation over efficient mass transit, not having a car means spending a lot more time getting around to do everyday chores.

But under the profit system, the workers do not get the benefit of their effort; the owners of businesses do. Corporations introduce technology to reduce the time needed to produce the product or service. But rather than spread the saving to all their employees by having everyone work less for the same pay, they lay off a number of workers in order to pay less in total wages and thereby increase profits. By lessening the amount of labor needed to make a commodity, the owners can sell it for less and hold onto market share against their competitors, who are also driving down costs by displacing labor. To survive in the competitive market each company must keep cutting its costs of production, which means the workers must be sacrificed to keep the company afloat. But in addition to layoffs, labor costs can be cut by having the remaining workers work harder and longer. This is done through speedup, or through overtime, which at time-and-a-half is still cheaper than hiring additional workers. Or costs can be slashed through outright wage cuts, the cuts that force people to get second and third jobs to pay the bills.

This is the "secret" behind the irrational situation of having millions of people who are not allowed to work at all or only a few hours a week, at the same time millions of others have to work  more hours than they want. Both groups lose. But it's better to have a shrinking income than none at all, which is why so many workers accept ever-more unreasonable work-loads to hold onto their jobs.

Currently, it takes only a small portion of the work-force to produce all the manufactured goods consumed, an indication of the great productivity of industry. Other workers produce useful and needed services, such as education, transportation, health-care, etc. But there is still a large percentage of the work-force that is "surplus" relative to the number of productive jobs in the economy. These workers are absorbed in non-productive activity, jobs which are necessary for the functioning of the profit system, but which don't add to the real wealth of society. They work in the financial and insurance industries, in sales and marketing, in government bureaucracies. Besides this great waste of labor -- and all the skills and creativity these workers have -- much of the productive labor expended in industry is being wasted. Planned obsolescence to ensure a renewing market and profit flow means more labor and resources are used than would be necessary if goods were built to last. To keep the auto and oil companies in business, more cars have to be built and sold each year, which means more efficient systems of transportation have to be kept out. So, besides the unused and underused labor of the unemployed and partially employed, there is the mis-used labor of tens of millions of full-time workers.

If all the wasted labor were devoted to productive and socially-beneficial tasks, we could produce enough to provide everyone with a decent standard of living working only a fraction of the time we do today. By dividing the labor time needed in all industries equally among all who can, should and want to work, the workday for everyone could be drastically reduced. This is not a utopian dream. It is a simple recognition of the facts of industrial production, of the level of productivity technological development has achieved. But it is a hopeless dream to imagine that an equal distribution of work can be achieved within the capitalist economic system. As long as the technology is owned and controlled by a few, and as long as their profit remains the motive of production, labor will remain a mere "cost of production"-a cost to be lowered by throwing some workers out of jobs while pushing the remaining ones to exhaustion.

If workers want a secure and comfortable livelihood, if they want productive and rewarding jobs, if they want enough leisure time to develop their individual talents and satisfying relationships -- if this is what workers want, they need to organise a new social system to take democratic control of the industry and technology that makes it all possible.

Olympic Pressures And Nationalistic Feellings

Most of us have enjoyed watching the Rio Olympics and there is much to praise in its planning and the performances over all of the competitors. However, Grinch that I am, there were some things that weren't so wonderful.

British athletes confirmed what they had shown in 2012, that they are a power to be reckoned with in world sports. This is a far cry from their performances years ago. In 1952 they won one gold medal, and, since it was equestrian, they needed a horse to win it.

The explanation I was given for their present success, is that, in the 1980s, the government decided to spend a lot more on sport, so, like everything else under capitalism, it all relates to money.

Another negative comment is that one could hardly fail to notice the sometimes, disgraceful behaviour of the Brazilian fans. They jeered the French pole-vaulter because he was a threat to the Brazilian who won. They taunted Russian swimmers. They booed a ball boy for dropping a tennis ball. They booed a German player when he twisted his ankle in a tennis match, also against a Brazilian.

In the air pistol finals, they tried to disrupt the concentration of non-Brazilian shooters as they pulled the trigger.

At show jumping, a bellowing Ring Master had the crowd jeering, to startle the horse when an Argentinian rider approached a fence. When the Brazilian team won the men's beach volleyball, their excitement could be best described as "hysterically happy."

Brazil is undergoing economic, hence, political crises, which, plus the fact that the majority of the population lives in abject poverty, causes them to seek an outlet by venting their feelings in sport. This is little different from British soccer fans from slum neighbourhoods, building their lives around the success of their local team.

The above and the nationalistic feeling it engenders, only accentuates the happiness, or sadness, the fans feel depending on the result.

Socialists do not condone such behaviour, but understand the economic pressures that cause it. John Ayers.

Why Work?

Workers are in the majority and their numbers could bring the system to its knees. By infusing religion and patriotism into the issues that confront our fellow-workers the owning class can channel workers' frustration over declining wages and benefits into diversionary dead-ends. Using nationalism and creed as weapons are part and parcel of the owning class's war against workers. It creates a smokescreen for the plutocrats and oligarchs in their financial maneuvers. Politicians will continue to provide empty promises and temporary band-aid solutions that can only continue this shameless wealth and needless poverty. Only an economy that is owned and democratically managed by the workers who produce all the wealth can deliver lasting prosperity and economic security for all.

Many people think that the word capital is just another word for "money" or "wealth." For instance, a person might say something like, "I don't have enough capital to buy a new car." But capital is not just money. In fact, capital doesn't need to be money at all. Capital is wealth that its holder uses to get more wealth. If a company takes a certain amount of its money, its assets, and buys a piece of machinery, has its capital gone down? No. The new machinery has replaced the money as part of its capital. But machinery is no more capital all by itself than money is. My car is machinery, but it's not capital. The thing that makes the machinery a company buys into capital is its relation to labor, the workers who operate the machinery. When the workers go to work, they use the machinery to make things. When those things are sold, they are sold for a certain value, all of which has been created by the workers. But the workers don't get all the value their labor adds to the things they make. If they did, there would be no money value for the owner of the capital, no profit. jnIt's this social relationship of owners and workers, the relationship that says the workers have to fork over part of the value they produce to the owners as the condition for being allowed to work, that makes wealth into capital.

Which brings us to the next question. Just what is "work?"

If I sit at a computer screen and type in data for eight hours, I put out a certain amount of effort, and in return I am paid. But what of a thief, who may put out a lot more physical effort to break into my house and steal my possessions? He takes the stuff to a fence and sells it, so he is getting paid for putting out effort just as I am. The difference, of course, is that his effort is not work that is useful and constructive for society. He is merely a parasite, living off my work.

Now let's look at another species of parasite, the CEO of a major company. Let's say that I, Joe Public , working at my $10-an-hour job, but must work overtime and put in 50 or 60 hour weeks in order to pay rent on my apartment, the payment on my car and my food and utility bills, plus an occasional night out or some new clothes. Compare that with the CEO who pulls in a million dollars or more per year in salary, plus half a million or so worth of stock options, etc., not to mention returns from other investments outside the company he works for. He also spends maybe 60 hours a week -- doing what? Well, first of all, he is busy trying to increase market share for his company. That means he is trying to replace another company's product with his company's in your shopping basket. Does this effort increase society's quality of life? Probably not. When one company, say Pepsi, succeeds in getting people to buy it instead of Coke, their production goes up and they may hire more people. But Coke's production goes down and they lay people off. The net number soft drinks produced may stay the same. The price for the consumer may also stay roughly the same, dropping when Pepsi is under-selling Coke and rising again later, after Pepsi's market share has grown, to help offset the cost of the nationwide advertising campaign. That's what the "work" of CEOs adds up to -  stealing each other's profits.

Second, the CEO is trying to increase profits by cutting costs. He can't do a whole lot about the costs of the raw materials except if he is retail food supermarkets and can bully farmers and growers his company uses. But he can do quite a bit about what you, the employees, cost. He can make you work harder with fewer breaks and by speeding up the machines, and he can figure out how to delay or minimize your pay rises or even cut your pay. All of this "work" done by the CEO increases profits but creates no new useful articles for society. And just because the CEO puts out some wasted effort, he thinks that entitles him to get paid for my work as well.

At least the burglar who broke into my house to rob me needs the money for food, or maybe he steals because he has to finance a drug or alcohol problem. What's the CEO's excuse? He has none. Not only does he make me work to produce what he then steals, he also thinks I should thank him for "giving" me a job. If anyone's doing the giving, it's me, the worker, Joe Public, the chump. Only my relatively weak position- legally, financially and socially -- keeps me from claiming the full value of what I produce and from telling Mr. CEO and all the wealthy capitalist shareholders he "works" for to take a hike and get a real job. But once we as workers have wised up to the game and get ourselves organized, we will be able to get these welfare bums of our backs.

A great struggle lies ahead of us. Whether we welcome it or fear it or deny it or want to avoid it, it will come, because the economic laws of the capitalist system will force it on us. Let's hope it ends in a fairer reconstitution and reconstruction of society rather than the common ruin of us all.

Lost on a dark road

Many defenders of capitalism admit the cold-heartedness of capitalism, but they claim the system is, nevertheless, the best because it is efficient. The claim of efficiency for capitalism is pure nonsense. Capitalism has given us traffic jams rather than efficient mass-transit systems; a high percentage of potential industrial output stands idle; the incredible waste of planned obsolescence and duplicated effort; dependence on oil instead of renewable resources; the destruction of our nation's topsoil and aquifers; depletion of wildlife and fish stocks; the burning of the rainforests; the massive production and use of weapons which destroy wealth rather than create it. The list could be extended almost indefinitely.

Self-styled visionaries assert that advances in computer and communications technology will bring about a fundamental and "revolutionary" transformation of society. The prophets of this so-called "knowledge revolution" proclaim that the rapidly developing information superhighway is a liberating technology which will irrevocably transform every aspect of our life-education, culture, politics and even national identification. It's easy to see what they are talking about. The computer has made enormous inroads into the lives of people everywhere. The power of silicon chip has sparked a meteoric rise in productivity. But what revolution?

Capitalism has been modified by "revolutions" in production such as the assembly line, transistors and by the introduction of telephones and television. But these changes haven't altered the system's fundamental operations geared to making profits for the corporations that own the technology. The true meaning of revolution is one class seizing economic and political power from another class. The oracles of the digital age overlook that the new technology does nothing to change underlying relationships of capitalist production. That genuine revolutionary change can't be accomplished by any machine, however, marvelous its technical capabilities. The relationships of production can be changed only by the human agency, by the working class organising to make the technology its own. The capitalist class finds, in the consequences of any new technology, only capitalist issues. A typical proof offered for the supposed revolutionary consequences of computer technology is that it will force a redefinition of property rights. The most valuable computer commodity is software, the labor-intensive product of highly-trained teams of programmers. Once written, software can be reproduced in unlimited quantities. To Silicon Valley, the replicative productivity of the new technology requires legal and technological solutions to ensure that "owners" get compensated for the use of their information. In other words, digital information, which can be made so readily available for use by everyone in society, must be "privatized" by copyright and intellectual ownership to the profit of an owner. Open-source is pushed to the margins, out-competed by brand advertising. When the industrialist hires workers to manufacture his product, that product loses the privacy of ownership that characterizes the work of a lone artisan. It becomes a social product, the product of the collective work of many people. To production by hired workers add the public availability of information with the new communications technology, and it becomes undeniably a social product. The "private ownership" of this intellectual property is a legal fiction. Converting it into the common property of all members of society changes the social nature of the product only by having it lose its class character.

Technocrats of robots and automation understand the new technology, and can even foresee why it will help some people and hurt others. But all the changes they predict amount to nothing more than the flourishing of some industries and the decline of others. Unless there is a fundamental change in the relationship between capital and labor, talk of revolution is pure hyperbole.

People considered "successful" in capitalist society such as Gates and Zuckerman are those who accumulate large sums of money and property. They automatically receive respect, admiration and deference - the very things the poorest people in society, who endure the chronic contempt or pity of society because they have no money, long most to possess. Since the manner in which the rich got their money is secondary to the fact they have it - if it is a concern at all-there is a hazy line between fortunes acquired legally or illegally.  The big corporations particularly those in the computer industry are habitual lawbreakers, convicted over and over of violating anti-trust, restraint-of-trade, price-fixing, bribery, workplace-health-and-safety, labour-relations and environmental-protection laws. If they were real persons instead of only legal ones, nearly all would be locked up for life without parole. As it is, corporation executives seldom spend any time in jail, and corporation stockholders don't even have to worry about being accused for their companies' illegal actions that may provide them millions in dividends.

Our Goal is Socialism

Economic, social and environmental problems cannot be solved under capitalism. Working for a new system is the only practical course of action. Given the global character of capitalism, it is necessary for socialists to build a world movement, where the goal of is the revolutionary destruction of capitalism and its replacement with a world socialist community. The Socialist Party seeks to bring the entire global economy under the ownership and control of all the people. A democratic economy will provide useful and satisfying jobs for all workers. It will end production for profit and will produce to meet human needs. By eliminating the profit motive, it will end waste and pollution and will make the conditions of work as safe, comfortable and gratifying as possible. The workers need a political party to spread the idea of social ownership, and to gain the support of the majority at the polls. The Socialist Party will educate and rally the majority for a revolution at the ballot box, the people's mandate for economic democracy. When this is achieved, the workers will assume control of their workplaces, and manage them democratically in a variety of ways, determined by local conditions and customs. Socialism is not state control from the top down. It's a state-free democracy from the bottom up. In practice, economic democracy means the end of the capitalist market, whose only goal is to realize the highest profit through the maximum exploitation of the working class. Labor power will no longer be a commodity to be bought and sold in the marketplace. Workers will no longer be exploited. Workers will collectively own and run the workplaces. Workers will democratically control all of our society. If the majority of workers are ready to vote for their revolutionary party, they'd certainly be ready to take over their workplaces and implement social and industrial democracy. The Socialist Party’s function is to educate and organise while providing the vehicle and mechanism for advocating fundamental change.

Production will be based on the needs and wants of all working people, taking into account environmental protection, conservation of resources and the needs of workers of other countries. Because we will be working and producing to meet our own needs and not for the profit of others, and because we will own and control the technology and use it to meet real human needs, we will be able to provide everyone a comfortable and secure livelihood working far less than we do now. The work-week will be reduced and leisure time increased for all workers. Under capitalism, almost everything that is produced is produced for profit. The needs of humanity, and the needs of all life, are subordinated to the bottom line. With capitalism, everything is turned into a commodity to be bought and sold.

All social wealth is ultimately the product of labour and labour alone. This includes the factories, technology and all other means of production, which are the product of past labour. Capitalist development has placed the modern facilities of production under the lock and key of private ownership. As a result, the working class majority suffers from growing privation and all the social ills emanating from that mal-distribution. The only solution is for the working class to organize and establish social democracy. In doing do, it can reestablish and reclaim possession of the wealth which past generations of workers created. Since this wealth was created by the collective labour of society, it rightfully belongs to all society. The fact that it today is privately owned by a few is the result of it being "legally" stolen from the working class. Society thus has the right to reclaim the property in the name of human survival, social well-being and progress.

Production and distribution will be planned to meet the needs of society. This will be a society of cooperating interests rather than conflicting material interests. People's priorities, their attitudes about life and their fellow humans, will change in an atmosphere of cooperation. The needs of the environment and consideration of all forms of life will be paramount. In our new society, we will receive the full product of our labour. Our compensation will be direct, as individual consumers of food, clothing, shelter, recreation, etc., and indirect, as social consumers of roads, schools, parks, and the repair and replacement of the tools of production that we cooperatively own. Socialism will abolish the wage system and thereby correct the imbalance between production and consumption that creates such catastrophic problems under capitalism.

De-fanging the capitalist beast

From cradle to grave, commercial interests infiltrate every aspect of our lives. Education has turned into vocational indoctrination, with predatory student loans and standardised testing, this schooling trains youth to become obedient wage-slaves who would never challenge the prescribed answers to ‘happiness’ as defined by corporate values. Health care systems have become insidious profit-making machines, where our bodies become a new frontier for exploitation for medical insurance and pharmaceutical profits. While low-income people (disproportionately those of colour) are sent to privatised prisons for minor offenses to engage in slave-labour camps. Those who manage to escape police repression are induced to volunteer to combat on the front lines of expansionist wars. The rule of conquest and blind eye to war-crimes have become entrenched within our very culture. This heartless system creates imaginary enemies and raises artificial threat levels to justify invasions of foreign countries. It crucifies innocents in “collateral” damage. Aggressors brutalise anyone who stands in the way of their conquest.

Capitalism is intent upon spreading its tentacles to conquer the globe. Some individuals may express regret for the crimes against peoples and nature but as a system, capitalism is devoid of empathy and remorse. Behind the supposed human rights and rule of law is the drive for profits, forever looking for the loop-hole to exploit to further accumulate capital. Corporations see everything in terms of quarterly business reports and profit margins. They legitimatize exploitation, making it rational to cheat and extract resources through sophisticated schemes of financialisation and privatisation which in another era would rightly be described as plundering and pillaging. De-fanging the capitalist beast calls for establishing socialism. We have to commit ourselves against capitalism and rediscover our own humanity.

Employees we are constantly struggling to keep up. And going on strike is the most publicised evidence of this. Militants emphasise that when everything else fails we must use the strike weapon.

We don't want more jobs. In fact, we don't want the jobs most of us have now. Bank tellers, bookkeepers and cashiers - all those who handle money. We don't want cops, lawyers and judges either. Nor soldiers and prison guards. But don't get us wrong. We do want to be useful and productive members of society. But first, we must be free. And that means a revolution to socialism. Socialism means production to satisfy social needs. So the next revolution must abolish capitalism and the government. It means the end to poverty, war, famine and tyranny: And the beginning of the true brotherhood of man.

It's difficult to understand exactly why Leninists reject so utterly the idea of a peaceful revolution. One explanation may be their romantic attachment to the model of urban insurrection played out in Petersburg in 1917. Another may be that the Socialist Party model of a political party leaves no role for the vanguard party and its leadership elite -- no place for Lenins, Trotskys, Stalins, Maos of such a revolution. Perhaps they feel that sacrifice at the barricades and blood-on-the-streets insurrection will pave the way for the CHEKA that will police their dictatorship of the proletariat.

The Socialist Party conception of the process to achieve socialism is a peaceful revolution through the ballot preceded by a period of economic and political education by a democratic mass party. An educated working class would result in an overwhelming victory at the polls. The socialist majority in parliament would abolish capitalism and disband the state apparatus. The power that will enforce the victory at the polls will be the class-conscious working class organised in their trade unions whose members do the work and are in a position to control production, communication, transportation and all other activity a counter-revolution would require.

Because we want a world without money: Free access to the necessaries of life, the only real issue in any election is the private ownership of the means of production and distribution. In one word, that issue is capitalism.

Who Are The Baddies?

The Toronto Metro News of August 17th, contained this delightful goodie, "Canada's top cops want to change the law to force people to surrender the passwords to their electronic devices - if a judge agrees."

R.C.M.P. Assistant Commissioner, Joe Oliver, said; "Baddies, from child-molesters to mobsters, are using encryption to mask their nefarious activities." It's that anonymity that allows them to operate.

The article concluded with the news that the Feds. are looking into it.

Mr. Oliver's comments shouldn't fool anyone. His talk of baddies is to make such an invasion of privacy acceptable to everyone, which Bush did after 9/11.

Let's ignore such talk about it being in the interest of the public, when it's really in the interest of the capitalist class in their attempts to keep the working class under greater surveillance. John Ayers.

Capitalism: Artificially induced scarcity

The Socialist Party expresses the truth about today’s capitalist society from the standpoint of working class interest. The will of the working class, the vast majority, is supreme. Since the general concept of socialism is mired in falsehoods, it cannot be expected of workers to adopt genuine socialist ideas until they purge their minds of misconceptions about socialism. In order to remedy this situation, an educational process must be set in motion to replace falsehoods with the truth. In our education we endeavour to convey an understanding of these concepts:

l) the law of value,

2) the law of surplus value,

3) capital, wage labour and profit

4) the material conception of history

These concepts uncover the secret as to how labour is exploited and why capitalism periodically lurches from one economic crisis into another. The subject matter is not difficult. Any worker acquiring this knowledge is most likely to become class conscious to the delight of their fellow class conscious workers and to the dismay of the capitalist class and their political lackeys.

The working class produces all wealth (all goods and services). The working class has the capability to easily produce an abundance for everyone. With this potential, want in the midst of plenty, is an outrage. Raw materials are everywhere. Anytime labour is applied to them, useful products are created to provide the needs of people. But presently these needs do not drive production. When the markets are glutted and the surplus commodities cannot be sold, the owners of the industries are compelled to shut down production, not because everyone's needs are satisfied, but because of declining profits. Of all the species on earth, only humans, with advanced productive technology, can produce many times more than what is required for their subsistence. Since it is the labour of workers that convert raw materials into something useful, then it stands to reason that it is the workers who should decide on when, how and why to conduct production, the "why" being production for use instead of profit.

A sane socialist society built by workers means:

l) all the means of production such as raw materials, production equipment and facilities belong to society as a whole,

2) workers collectively receive the full value of the product of their labour,

3) production is conducted for everyone's needs instead of profit for the few as it is today under private ownership of the means of production, and

4) social management and operation of the means of production with a political stateless economic system based on social representation from the respective industries and services. Exploitation of wage labour becomes extinct.

The principles of real socialism have never been in practice at any time anywhere in the world. "Look at what happened in the Soviet Union," they say. Did Karl Marx err? Did socialism fail? The global conflict has never been between capitalism and socialism but between the contesting ideologies of free-market or state capitalism. Most emphatically, socialism has never been tried. The condemnation of socialism by claiming that socialism has failed is mistaken and misleading. Marx insisted that only an educated working class could successfully carry out a revolution of socialism in a country that has developed highly industrialised production to the point where the vast majority of people have become members of the working class. All the countries that attempted socialism had an undeveloped industry which presupposes mass illiteracy and the working class constituting a tiny minority. The truth of the matter is that the idea of socialism has been under constant assault by strange bedfellows. They are the left-wing leaders who pay homage to Marx. All of them, in one form or another, help uphold the crime of exploiting wage labour, the mainstay of capitalism. Whether bureaucratic state despots or free marketeers, all these members of the ruling class sit in the saddle of the wages system and ride the backs of the working class.

Billions are without decent health care and billions, who are the working poor, struggle to receive the bare necessities such as food, clothing and shelter. Prisons are overflowing, the environment is being despoiled, natural resources are being wastefully depleted and education, the foremost element needed to solve these problems, is deplorably inept. Supporters of the status quo tell people they should have nothing to be concerned about. Many of the working class, the so-called middle class, are lulled into complacency. In every case, the false sense of security is eventually devastated by an economic crash. It is true some survive but at an irrecoverable price.

Reforms and compromises only re-enforce and perpetuate that system and will only tighten the iron collar of wage-slavery around the necks of the workers of the world. The political scene abounded with liberals hawking their feeble reform sops to the working class in every country. The do-gooders prostitute themselves by doing the capitalist class bidding. Capitalism has reached the point when it can no longer contribute to social progress; when it actually hinders it. The oppressed and exploited of the world is looking for inspiration. Let us work towards the overthrow of capitalism rather than tinkering with reforms which only strengthens the ruling class. The capitalist class is class-conscious and will always act in its own material interest. It has the compulsion to pursue this to the point of destroying civilisation. The only remedy for this is for the working class, the vast majority, to become itself class consciously educated and organise to promote its own interest. Since mainstream educational institutions are a reflection of capitalism's status quo, to achieve class-consciousness, workers must set up and pursue their own educational process, dedicated to educating their fellow working men and women about the class struggle between the capitalist class and the working class. Its guiding authority is the truth and principles that serve to emancipate the working class from wage slavery by replacing capitalism with the cooperative commonwealth.

The productive capability that advanced society has achieved, enabling mankind to produce an abundance for everyone, is based upon social production on a highly industrialised level. The catch is that this wondrous technological potential is deliberately prevented from being implemented. How can everyone benefit from society's capability to produce an uninterrupted abundance? Capitalism has no answer for that question. The very existence of capitalism depends on the private ownership of the socially operated means of production. The motive for capitalist production is first and foremost to reap a profit with workers receiving the small portion that is left. Dispense with the everyday argument of who deserves what share of the products produced for a moment and a clear view comes into focus revealing how monstrous this crime is: Every day after huge profits are made, workers are barred from continuing production to satisfy their unmet needs. If they were able to punch the start button of production for even an extra half hour for their use an avalanche of products across the country would appear. Keep this up for a few days and all the run-down neighbourhoods could be replaced and all the children would be well-nourished. Many more examples of overcoming want with plenty could be cited but the criminal capitalist system will hear none of that. It is compelled to persist in having human deprivation by placing profits before people.  Marx observed the contradiction that the private ownership of the socially operated means of production translates into the countless ills that afflict society today. The more that the efficiency of production increases, the more predatory capitalism becomes. Internecine economic destruction devastates the world as superior capital displaces inferior capital (capital that can no longer compete). That, in turn, creates the condition of vast want in the midst of plenty around the world. Our forefathers were helpless victims of nature's capricious fits of scarcity. Today's victims suffer from artificially induced scarcity. 

People not Profit

The Socialist Party realises that before any action is set in motion to promote a solution to social problems, the facts must first be ascertained and embodied in an educational and organizational theory. The deplorable state that the current workers’ movement is in indicates that this has not been done. While the saying goes, "the facts speak for themselves", it can be said that disinformation speaks for itself via the disarray of the workers’ movement. The Socialist Party believes that armed with the facts pertaining to their interests, workers have the capability to solve their problems together. The first step is eliminating interference from the vanguard elitists on the Left who desire to control the workers’ organisations for their own interests. We call for the working class to understand the mistakes of the past and continue forward to transform their workers’ movements into a real socialist movement, schooled in the cause of the working class and tasked with educating workers about what real socialism is and why it is necessary. The purpose of the Socialist Party is to inform workers about the facts pertaining to the capitalist system and the labour movement in every manner possible. First, such facts must be painstakingly extracted from the clutter of disinformation that obscures it while under the constant onslaught of disinformation that workers are battered with, which is a never ending task.

Socialism is all about cooperative control and common ownership of natural resources, utilities, social services, production, distribution, and allocation. What is becoming clearer is the need to change to an economy based on human wants and needs rather than profit and competition and the only way to end the tyranny and power of the very few, over the lives of us all. Rather than profit as the 'bottom line' in a system based on division and so much inequity socialism would become focused on solving social questions and providing for the welfare and safety, the best health, education and child-care, more leisure time for creative and recreational pursuits, for community and personal activities and a rich diversity of life-styles and opportunities. Our system would be based on people, not profit.

A simple reflection on what is at the core of our social problems - the huge economic crisis, poverty, increasing joblessness, the insecurity, crime and racism, unequal and inadequate educational opportunities, the lack of even basic healthcare for all, lost homes, the environmental devastation and inadequate safeguards to our families and communities, can all be narrowed to one basic cause: the capitalist economic system that presently prevails, who controls it and how it is being run. The planet possesses abundance yet our economic system and its political institutions have failed to give us a sustainable, peaceful, healthy, egalitarian and harmonious society. And now the very future well-being of the planet itself is threatened.

Societies are man-made which means they can be undone.  Nor are they static. They are evolving. Today we live within a system which has become capable of creating nearly unbelievable wealth with the minimum of human labour. Sounds good. But it is not set up to produce nor distribute that wealth to all. We have been hoodwinked into thinking we are incapable of any fundamental change. We have been told over and over again that without capitalism’s selfishness, competition, fear or greed to motivate us, we will be lost. Every day while we work and co-operate together, we credit it to the 'system', not ourselves. Without thinking, we believe the Big Lie. Corporate control of government and media has convinced us into thinking we have no right to control our economy, no right to interfere with profit-margins and the marketing of dangerous products that result in environmental pollution, or in the business strategies that leads to out-sourcing and job-losses, outrageous inequalities and Wall Street bank bailouts. We are led to believe that our economy is rightfully owned and ruled by capitalists because they are the best at making the 'right’ decisions by fearlessly following the 'free-market’, taking chances, taking risks to create profit thereby ensure our society's success.

Yet it has been long recognised that the real wealth, power, and creative energy belongs to those who produce it:  the majority, the plain 'ordinary' people who do the work every day, create the wealth we enjoy and from whom flow all the benefits that our society offers. From growing food to building laptops, from fixing roads to teaching our kids in the classroom it is not the capitalist who is necessary, but we ourselves who perform all the work. It is time to understand it is us who create the wealth, and it is the CEOs and share-holders who are the complete dependent on the people who do the work, and not vice-versa. 

Yes, we can

We in the Socialist Party are not reformers; we are revolutionaries.  We do not propose reforms. We should not forget the fate of Wat Tyler from the 14th-century revolt of English peasants when the rebels allowed themselves to be duped into placing their movement into the hands of Richard II, who promised 'relief’ -- and took them to the gallows and gibbets. We want a change of society. In our system of production, no one person, no one city, no one country can be said any longer to be independent of the other; the whole people of the world, every individual, is dependent and interdependent upon all the others.  The nature of the machinery of production; the division of labour, which aids cooperation and which cooperation fosters, and which is a requirement for the abundance of products that civilisation provides, compel a harmonious working together of all – a cooperative commonwealth. We know that movements make men and women, but they make movements. Movements cannot exist unless they are carried on by mankind; in the last analysis, it is the human hand and the human brain that serve as the instruments of revolutions.

Socialism will exist to organise and coordinate production on a basis and scale ensuring forever the elimination of want, and the fear of want, in society; and, further, to train, to organise cooperatively, and to coordinate functionally, the people. Socialism will bring into existence a liberated, class-free society where, there will be no need for either servants nor slaves, nor room for masters and bosses. Capitalism, having long since ceased to be useful in the evolutionary scheme of things, having in fact, become an obstruction in the path of social progress, must now be abolished, as former social systems were abolished. 

While corporate and media control of the political arena is strong, it still offers the best means for peaceful and meaningful change. Rigged to protect the existing regime, its 'two parties' are really just one - a duopoly. Both exist solely at the discretion of corporations and to serve their interests. The only 'fight' is for dominance between big and the bigger corporations, one capitalist interest or another. Republican or Democrat, Tory or Labour either party gains office only by how well it serves to protect capital and profits, not how well it solves our real problems. Why vote, some say? But what if we use our ballot differently? Not to vote for reform, but for a totally new society.  We do need well-informed candidates and voters. We need to help clarify the goals of our various 'groups' which recognise capitalism as the fundamental cause of our social ills. Change can happen, peacefully in the way and at the time it is needed. The idea is nothing new, but is, in fact, a few hundred years old.

  For fundamental change to begin, of course, will require a broad base of awareness, consistency and principles and the dialogue has begun. For the first time in many decades, dire economic and environmental conditions call into question the old assumptions about capitalism's ability to reform itself. Coupled with that, for the first time in many decades political activity is burgeoning. Yes, there is plenty of apathy and cynicism but that's not from being content. It’s from distrust of the old politics that haven't worked: The promise of reforms have no broader goal or deeper vision and therefore have limited mass appeal. Reform agendas have increasingly become suspect as ineffectual because it is known they're dependent on Big Money and/or big compromise, and trying to work within capitalism, are bound to fail. The so—called alternative option of the 'revolutionary theory' parties which seem remote. Rebuilding society democratically through the ballot has never had too much opportunity for success until now. With the advent of new ways of communicating our message and getting together 'on-line', we think that we may be at the start of a new era, a new chance to be heard. Through the use of the internet small no longer means what it once did. We can also hear from other voices who call for fundamental changes, discovering many of us are not that far apart so we should start to talk about our similarities not just our differences. We need to get political power and we can by using social-networking, blogs and websites, involving the internet to organise. We need people who want real change. And, importantly, we need to vote for them.

The idea that the people can change the way we do things as a society can actually progress and better our lives has become a difficult argument to make. Many have grown deeply disillusioned with our system, our politics, and rightly so. We see the corruption and collusion between corporations, and that so-called reforms are a sham. An uprising is brewing amongst voters. While we agree that much has improved, from technology to human rights, too many of us have become convinced that when it comes to real social or economic progress, it's impossible. Too many have been convinced that the present system, capitalism- with its basis in competition, greed and aggression- isn't perfect but the best we can do given our 'human nature'. We're endlessly told that 'co-operation' is for dreamers, idealists and while socialism sounds nice, it is utopian. Our gut-feeling tells us our present road is leading to a disaster that we must change. But with all evidence in front of us, the question has actually come down to 'can we?' We should know better.

Until we recognise the basic relationships and framework of our society are causing the problems and finally admit that regulations or reforms cannot 'tweak them away', we will not solve our problems.  We do have very real options, real and achievable. We can make peaceful, profound, positive change. We have the vote. Rather than automatically accept the conviction that greed, aggression and competition are what makes us tick, we need to be aware that these are behaviours that have been over- exaggerated as 'natural' to survival because they support capitalism.  But now the tipping point is being reached for the well-being and health of both the planet and its inhabitants. Our very survival is now being threatened by too much insistence on competition and individualism and thoughtless disregard for the future. Seeing that all life is interconnected and co-dependent, as the dominant species we need to create ways to a more constructive and sustainable path. The point is, we can

Displace the parasite class

There is a revolutionary idea in the ongoing "battle of ideas" that has been struggling against great odds to make itself known, an idea that must win out if mankind is to be saved from the environmental threats to civilisation. Socialists have laid bare for all time the truth that the employing class is a parasite class, that it sponges off the wealth produced by the wage working class, moreover that this exploitation is a built-in feature of the wages system resulting in mass working class misery. No wonder that socialists everywhere are hated by the exploiters of wage labour.

Poverty represents a lack of the necessities for physical and mental well-being. It means having to skimp on food and clothing to pay a bill and having to make-do with second-best. Fear of poverty robs the day of joy and the night of peaceful sleep. Government figures place millions below poverty lines and despite politicians' recurring pledges of "war against poverty", the number of poor continues to grow. Unemployment or under-employment, like poverty, is found everywhere. It strikes the skilled as well as unskilled, professional as well as non-professional, affluent workers as well as the low-paid, with devastating impact on many of its victims, shattering morale and breaking up families. Increasing numbers of workers are not merely finding that "job security" is a myth but through no fault of their own are joining the ranks of the permanently unemployed. Increasing numbers of youth are learning that their help is not needed despite educational qualification.

Wage exploitation is the most subtle form of slavery. The chattel slave and feudal serf knew full well they toiled in bondage but wage exploitation is hidden and modern workers seldom suspect they are being duped. The fact is the capitalist class take possession of labour's product at the point of production in return for which workers on average get in wages or salaries just enough to maintain their families and keep themselves in an exploitable condition. Despite the most intricate evasions invented by economists, the case has long been proved that profit is simply unpaid labour and nothing but unpaid labour.

There exists a cruel paradox in the process of wage exploitation. It is that the harder worker toil and the more they manufacture, the more likely they sink in joblessness and the ensuing poverty. This paradox of the system ridicules all the schemes advanced to improve the worsening conditions of the working class. Under this head can be placed the rosy election promises by the major political parties, the empty rhetoric from the various so-called socialists of a "social democratic" persuasion (whose only aspiration is increased state regulation of the capitalist economy for more "welfare" band-aids to ease the misery and suffering among the exploited), also pseudo-socialists (who compromise the socialist goal by pandering to workers' illusions they can get "something now" under capitalism.

The cure for poverty and unemployment is SOCIALISM. The Socialist Party urges workers to make socialism their priority. We urge the working class to establish the common ownership of industry and services thus abolish economic classes and wage servitude. Socialism is industrial democracy, the most complete democracy yet conceived. Class-free administrations replace the political state of class rule. It unites all useful producers in the socially-operated production and distribution enterprises throughout the land into one inter-connected network, with local and regional subdivisions according to industry. It affords workers control through who they will elect (and at any time replace) as their industrial delegates in their factory committees or neighbourhood councils and finally, congress or communes to administer industry and the services for the good of all. By replacing production for sale and profit with production for the needs of the population, and by harnessing our ability to produce an abundance with a minimum of labour, socialism will cure poverty! By reducing the hours of the working day, instead of putting workers out of jobs, socialism will cure unemployment! Socialism waits only upon the understanding and determination of the working class majority to build it!

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the capitalist class constantly improved its labour-displacing machines in a mad rush to satisfy their insatiable hunger for profit. And to kill-off their fellow capitalists who lacked the means to compete in this claw and fang struggle. Karl Marx, noted: One capitalist kills many. The workers' attempt to resist these "monsters" led to the formation of the Luddites who rioted and smashed the textile machines in their vain belief that this would reduce the terrible unemployment they suffered. But they could not stop the relentless march of technology. The beginning of the 20th century accelerated the process. Mass production swept throughout the capitalist countries and the industrialists progressively improved the labour-displacing machine. Automation had become a household word.

In the last decade or so workers have become acutely aware of the frightening consequences of improving technology as they recognise the revolutionary implications of computers and the silicon chip. Modern computers are the latest extension of the Industrial Revolution and the same economic compulsions and motivation brought them into existence. Millions of workers will feel their full impact as more and more are forced into the ranks of the permanently unemployed, eking out an existence on the "dole."

In Capital, in the chapter dealing with "Machinery and Modern Industry," Marx wrote with prophetic insight: "But machinery not only acts as a competitor who gets the better of the workman, and is constantly on the point of making him superfluous. It is also a power inimical to him, and as such capital proclaims it from the roof tops and as such makes use of it. It is the most powerful weapon for repressing strikes, those periodical revolts of the working class against the autocracy of capital."

As if to confirm this truth with a vengeance, tireless, efficient and reliable, industrial robots are performing dozens of tasks. The robots work around the clock without demanding time off for coffee-breaks, meal-times or trips to the bathroom. They also never ask to be paid. Robot makers say the automatons pay for themselves in 12 to 24 months by reducing human labour expenses while increasing productivity, quality and yields.

And so the technological explosion leaves the workers hanging by a thread until they understand that what is desperately needed is a revolutionary change in our economic and social structures, a new and sane society of socialism, where the useful and productive workers will preserve their human dignity and enjoy the full fruits of these marvelous machines that will then become the collective property of all the people and a blessing to mankind.

Build a sane world

Socialism rejects capitalism lock, stock, and barrel. It repudiates a system that supports a parasite class, therefore in place of production and sale for profit, it substitutes production and distribution according to need. The contrast between the rapacious motive behind capitalist production and the social motive of socialist production is well marked by the contrast between socialism and capitalism.

Capitalism has demonstrated its inability to cope with the problem of unemployment except when it is engaged in full-scale all-out war. In peacetime, capitalism cannot prevent mass unemployment. It cannot prevent the so-called labour-saving machinery from being, in reality, labour-displacing machines. As a result, the extension of automation is wiping out jobs at an amazing rate and is creating a growing army of millions of permanently unemployed. But with socialism, there will be no unemployment problem. Since, instead of being owned privately and operated to produce things for sale and profit, the industries will be owned in common by all the producers, and operated to manufacture things for use, there will be no such thing as involuntary idleness. Instead of putting people out of work , robotics will enable us to shorten the work day, work week, and work year, while at the same time it will vastly increase the basis for material well-being. Technological progress will no longer be something for workers to fear but will ensure abundance and leisure for all with a minimum of toil by each.

Robotics and automation can be a blessing. It greatly increases our productivity. It can eliminate what is called the 3-D work, dirty, dangerous and demeaning, the unpleasant, boring, drudgery of many of today’s jobs. It can result in immense improvements in mankind's material and cultural welfare. It can do all this, and more, without imposing the horrors of economic distress on millions of workers and their families. But it can do all these things only if the workers accomplish a socialist reconstruction of society. Only with Socialism can new technology really fulfill its promise of abundance for all with a minimum of labour. Only in Socialism can cybernetics be introduced without causing a single worker to suffer economic distress. In fact, with socialism, robotic processes will be installed and operated as rapidly as it is developed. But, instead of throwing workers onto a scrap-heap, as happens today, the new equipment will make possible a general reduction in working hours. All will then benefit, both in the greater abundance that will be available and in the enjoyment of increased leisure. Robots will be a curse to workers as long as the means of social production are privately owned, and production is carried on for sale and profit. But when this outmoded contradiction-ridden capitalist system is abolished, when the industries are socially owned and democratically administered, and when production is carried on to satisfy human needs -- that is, when socialism is established -- robots will be a blessing for everyone.

Modern production is a social act. All goods and services are the results of the collective efforts of the entire working class. The factory-plants and machines have been designed and built by generations of cooperative labour, and our collective lives depend on them. As the industries and the services are run socially they must and should be owned socially, and carried on for the use of and to satisfy the needs of all the people. Workers of all races and nationalities must unite and organise in accordance with the social conditions and the political traditions of each of their nations. We must be organised politically as a class to demand at the ballot that all the means of life become the whole property of society. The dream that in the attainable future mankind shall live at peace when no person's hand shall be raised against his brother or sister; when family shall become something more than just a matter of kith and kin; when it shall be the solidarity of all the children of earth dwelling together in peace, in harmony, and in abundance.

Isn't it time to understand that instead of hacking at the branches of the evils of capitalism it is far better to strike at the root? Haven't decades of palliatives and reforms have failed to cure or even contain the social ills we have all grown up with? Unemployment, poverty, pollution, racism, crime, violence, war. Who still believes that politicians have meaningful solutions for these scourges? Surely the evidence is overwhelming that if society is to achieve social well-being instead of social catastrophe it must remove the root cause of the problems that afflict it. The root of the trouble is class ownership and control of the industries and services upon which all of us depend on for our lives. Therefore let us not talk about band-aids and quack remedies but about economic class division and what can be done about it. The exploitation of wage labour is global and the evil fruits of that exploitation are global also. The dreadful social results of the wages system are inseparable from it. No wonder society is sick and in turmoil. No wonder workers suffer tragic absurdities such as "overproduction," unemployment, and poverty in the midst of plenty! No wonder industrial "health and safety" is a continuing record horrific disasters and tragedies. No wonder the stewardship of natural resources and the environment plays second fiddle to profit! No wonder the system engenders militarism.

If the wage system imperils society, society must abolish the wage system and its organ of oppression, the state. That is, the immense majorities that comprise wage workers must replace class possession and class rule with social possession and a socialist administration. We must transform capitalist or state-run economies into socialist cooperative commonwealths. What society desperately needs is not more protest demonstrations or "single issue" reforms but knowledge of socialist ideas.  We must caution workers to put on their thinking caps because "socialism" is a much abused word. Socialism means social and industrial democracy that is incompatible with the wage exploitation and despotism of "government ownership," "state control" or "mixed economy" schemes.

The socialist project requires the working class to be of ONE MIND and it requires working class UNITY on the political field in order to challenge the ruling class at the ballot box.  And here it should become clear that the political field affords the ballot, gives a chance to the peaceful settlement of the great social question at issue. Socialism conveys a plan whereby if so minded the working class majority can take social possession of the means of life and thus at last release mankind from the terrible outrages inflicted upon it by blind, ruthless, ruling class greed. Socialism is truly the one hope of humanity!

Why we are revolutionary

Unquestionably the Socialist Party aims at a revolution. It offers no apology. The Socialist Party holds that the very essence of socialism is inherent in the word itself -- a SOCIAL system that, freed from economic class rule, serves the common interests of the people-as-a-whole. Socialism is that social system under which the necessaries of production [factories, technology, land, etc.] are owned, controlled and administered by the people, for the people.  Accordingly, the cause of political and economic despotism having been abolished, class rule is at an end. That is socialism, nothing short of that. Capitalism is a two-class system in which the ruling class is fit for nothing except riding the back and sucking the life out of the producing working class. Capitalism attacks and destroys all the finer sentiments of the human heart; it ruthlessly sweeps away old traditions and ideas opposed to its progress, and it exploits and corrupts those things once held sacred. The capitalist class misrepresents socialism that would destroy individuality. Capitalism is a fraud.

Labour alone produces all wealth. The capitalist class is a parasite on the body social. To take away the property of the capitalist class is to restore it to the working class, to the overwhelming majority, and thereby reorganise society in such a form as may promote the happiness of its members. This course has become unquestionable justice. The exploiting and idle class struggles upon the lines of their class interests. They aim to conserve the power they now enjoy to live in luxury without work, to ride the proletariat, to fleece the workers. That their aim should be such is not to be wondered at; it is natural. But for the very reason that "conservatism" is natural with the capitalist class. "Conservatism" is the motto of the upholders of the present system. They invoke "patriotism" to their aid; "the flag" becomes their symbol. The working class has nothing, no economic or social powers, worth conserving.

Capitalism commits crime behind the mask of righteousness. The property of the working class, the product of its labour, does not remain in its hands to enjoy; it is stolen from it by the capitalist class. The members of the capitalist class have cared little how the working class was robbed; the beneficiaries of the theft, they glorified it by singing the praises of the sacredness of private property. Wage slavery and oppression is the inevitable lot of the working class -- under capitalism. Working-class advancement is only possible when the working class, acting in conjunction with industrial evolution, rise en masse, economically, politically and socially, for the overthrow of capitalism. Socialism's aim is, is not to "lessen" poverty but it is to "abolish" poverty. Socialism spurns the goal of "lessening poverty" as a miserable reform.

By seeking to establish the cooperative commonwealth and to abolish all class distinctions, the Socialist Party is the party of the people. Socialism, democratic workers' control of the economy, is an attainable goal. To attain the goal, however, our fellow-workers must have a greater understanding of society and the social forces with which they must contend, and be better prepared and organised than any other revolutionary class in history. The more thoroughly the working class is already organised around a sound socialist party and its principles, the better its chances for success. The determined message of the Socialist Party, still the only party educating and organising for the revolutionary self-emancipation of the workers, continues to be voiced loud and clear.