Workers, Bosses and Exploitation

Socialists maintain that the capitalists' profits are a theft from the working class because the working class produces all social wealth. Capitalists say they take risks when they invest their money in a business -- and therefore are entitled to profits as a reward for their risk-taking. Yes, some capitalists do take some "risks", a few venture capitalists, for example, in the sense that they may, in making a certain investment decision, risk losing their ownership of productive property and their position as a capitalist. That is, they "risk" having to join the other 95 percent of us in the working class, and having to work for a living. Actually, however, the concentration of wealth under capitalism is such that most top, established capitalists, with their massive and diverse stock and bond holdings, rarely face even that sort of "risk." Most of that "risk" is borne by the small-scale or petty capitalists operating in the margins of the economy, and by those workers who try to make it as capitalists by starting up a small business. That such "risk" exists on an incidental basis cannot justify the ongoing process of theft through which capitalists accumulate the capital they risk and continue to accumulate more capital after it is risked. Nor is the fact of exploitation altered by the occasional worker who risks his or her life savings in a (usually failing) bid to become a capitalist.

To say that the "risk" justifies the profit-making operation of that system is circular logic, for neither the system or the risk are necessary. In a socialist society, new products could be developed, tested, introduced, and if a certain threshold of interest in the product was shown, produced on a mass scale -- all without risk to anyone. Not only are the capitalists' "risks" unnecessary; so too are the far greater risks that the capitalist system imposes on the working class. For every day that they continue to accept living and working under this system, workers risk losing their jobs and livelihoods, their ability to feed, clothe and shelter themselves and their families, their health and even their lives. The fact that the likes of a Donald Trump may "risk" losing part or even all of their fortunes gambling on a particular business venture is no defense of the system that subjects the working class to these far graver risks.

Defenders of capitalism say it's the capitalists' entrepreneurial abilities and skills which organise the means of production in such a way as to make the most efficient use of labour and create the most wealth. Capitalists do have an interest in squeezing the greatest possible productivity out of each worker. But capitalists themselves no longer have much to do with the organization of production. More importantly, the overall social impact of productivity increases under capitalism doesn't exactly make an argument in favor of preserving the system.

Historically, capitalist "entrepreneurs" did play a vital role in bringing together the forces of modern industrial production. But the successful capitalists were those who were most "efficient" at accumulating capital, which means that they were most efficient, not merely in making the most productive use of labour, but in reaping surplus value through the ruthless exploitation of wage labour. Frequently, they were also among the most efficient at scheming against, swindling and otherwise robbing each other, the most successful of them in this country earning the epithet, "the robber barons."

Today there is very little "entrepreneurship" remaining in the capitalist system. New businesses are regularly being started up, but most either die within a few years or are swallowed up by long-established firms. New ways and means of stepping up the rate of exploitation, including, but not limited to, increases in productivity, are, of course, still being implemented by capitalist firms, but this is done by the capitalists' hired executives and management. Established capitalists may "dabble" in such activity; most don't. In any event, they don't have to.

It is important to recognize that the major capitalists who own and control the overwhelming majority of the means of production and distribution today did not become major capitalists by working hard, scrimping and saving. Most of today's top capitalists inherited their class status; historically, many top capitalists acquired their initial block of capital through inheritance or by crooked or illicit means. But however a particular capitalist gained entrance to that class, the fact is that no one can accumulate the large quantity of capital required to become a top capitalist through any means other than the exploitation of the working class. Small business firms exist in a viciously competitive climate. Eighty percent of all new businesses fail within 10 years! Thus, for most small business owners, even if they did get their start by "scrimping and saving," it is capitalism, not socialism, that will take their businesses away.

During their struggle to keep their businesses alive, the petty capitalists, besides putting in long hours themselves, are forced to be among the most ruthless exploiters of wage labor-often exploiting members of their own family. Those that do survive for any length of time do so only by extracting surplus value and accumulating capital through such exploitation. Thus, even if the business was started largely from what the petty capitalist saved when he or she was a worker, it increasingly comes to consist of wealth that was stolen from the working class.

Frequently, the petty capitalists are at the mercy of larger capitalists, and are not really "independent" owners. Many are but adjuncts to larger firms that own or control the "chains" of retail outlets, restaurants, real estate offices, etc. And petty capitalists generally are, at best, left with but a small share of the surplus-value contained in the commodities they sell, after they pay their suppliers, bank and other creditors, landlords and the political state. Thus, even the supposed great "merit" of small business and "free enterprise"- that it permits people to "be their own boss"- is largely a fiction even for the small minority able to start up a business. The only realistic way that workers today can truly become "their own boss," in terms of determining the policies that govern a workplace or industry, is by organizing as a class to establish a socialist society, in which all the people will own, and collectively and democratically control, all the means of production and distribution.

Socialism necessarily means abolishing the private ownership of all means of social production and distribution. However, this will not mean ruin and destitution for small business owners. On the contrary, they will become workers in a society in which all workers would be entitled to work, and to receive the full social value of what they produce. Thus, for most, if not all, of the former petty capitalists, socialism will mean greater affluence and a major increase in leisure time. And for everyone, socialist society means full economic security and the numerous advantages of life in a peaceful, harmonious and healthy social and physical environment.

All told, petty capitalists will be far better off under socialism than under capitalism. Due to the nature of their class position and outlook, only a very few petty capitalists can be expected to recognize this and act accordingly. But then, the socialist movement is fundamentally a working-class movement, more concerned with persuading and organising the vast majority of the people who belong to the exploited class of useful producers than winning over the minority that does the exploiting. When the working class unites politically and industrially to overthrow its exploiters and establish social ownership and democratic workers' control of the means of production, it is only taking back what it, and past generations of workers, created.

Today's top capitalists – many of whom inherited their class status, further indicating that they had little to do with the organising of production -- typically live off the surplus value from a diversified array of stocks, bonds, banking and other investments. They are far removed from the process of production. For example, a capitalist may have a few thousand shares of stock in an airline in the morning, sell it and use the proceeds to buy up shares of stock in a pharmaceutical firm in the afternoon, and sell that stock two days later to buy up shares in an electronics company. It is obvious that such a capitalist will have little or nothing to do with organizing the means of production in any of those firms. For that matter, many capitalists don't even have to involve themselves in such buying and selling. They have businesses such as hedge-funds to "manage their investments" for them too!

One could argue that the capitalists collectively are still ultimately responsible for the efficient organisation of production. But their profits are not the "rewards" of efficient organisation of production. The most efficiently organised production facility in the world wouldn't yield a penny of profit if its owners (or their hired management) did not hold the price of labor power (wages) down below the price of labour's product, i.e., if they did not exploit the workers.

Moreover, to whatever small degree some capitalists may still be "credited" for efficient organization of production within individual firms, the system of capitalist production is marked by anarchy, not efficiency. Separate firms competing for the same markets, with wasteful duplication of effort; the inevitable "crises of overproduction" that arise from that competition and the exploitation of wage labor; the waste of having 20 percent or more of the nations' productive capacity and 10 percent or more of the nation's potential workforce involuntarily idled at the same time; the colossal waste of potentially useful labor being channeled into advertising, real estate, "business services," militarism, regulatory agencies and other institutions that are "necessary" only to capitalism - these conditions are hardly indicative of the most efficient organization of production.

Finally, to whatever small extent capitalists may be responsible for the "efficient use of labor" within a firm, such efficiency, under the capitalist system, does more social harm than good. Productivity improvements under capitalism are used, not to lessen the necessary hours of labor for all, but to eliminate the jobs of many, and frequently entail stepping up the workloads or the pace of work for the workers remaining. All told, capitalists do have an interest in seeing production organized such that it will "create the most wealth"- for themselves. But for the vast majority of the people, who belong to the working class, this is hardly an argument in favor of capitalism.

A class of parasites is not needed for production to be organized in an efficient manner. Production will operate far more efficiently, in the social interest, when the workers themselves are in full control of production and distribution, and there no longer exists another class to "make...use of labor," for its own selfish ends.

It is sometimes argued that capitalists have an incentive to make the working class richer, not poorer? The more money the working class has, the more it will be able to spend on new goods and services, thus fueling the continued growth of capitalism.

Since profits are derived from surplus value, which can be extracted at an increased rate only by reducing the workers' share of their product, capitalists have every incentive to drive wages lower, not higher. The fact that capitalists as a class also must rely on workers to consume a certain portion of the total product in order to keep the economy growing doesn't change the incentive of each individual capitalist firm to push its own wage costs down. Indeed, this contradiction is at the heart of the system's cyclical "crises of overproduction" which periodically rock the capitalist economy. Some capitalists may well be aware of the contradiction, but they cannot resolve it. No individual capitalist firm is going to raise the wages of its own workers in order to contribute to raising the purchasing power of workers as a whole. The profit motive and the force of competition prevent such action. The firm that attempted to do so would have less surplus value than its competitors, would have less to invest in improved means of production, and sooner or later would be underpriced and ruined by the competitors that kept wages lower.

At least one capitalist think-tank, the Brookings Institution, recognised the essence of this contradiction in a book entitled, Income and Economic Progress. There it was argued that it was pointless to rely on a 'Voluntary increase of money wages as an adequate means of increasing the purchasing power of the masses," since "there is immediate gain for the individual business enterprise which can reduce wages below the existing market rate. To pay more than the market rate for wages," the book continued, "appears not only needless but also unstabilising in its effects upon business generally. Moreover, the very essence of competition is to pay what has to be paid and not more. Why should one ignore market considerations when he hires labour any more than when he buys raw materials?"

The idea that the capitalist system as a whole would, hypothetically, be more robust if wages were raised is not enough to cause capitalists to act contrary to their own immediate material interests. And this idea has nothing to do with the limited and qualified improvements in living standards that some workers have gained in this century-improvements that are now being reversed.

The American Election

Trump and Clinton would have you believe that there is one America, with everyone in the same boat and everyone pulling toward the same goal. This is a conscious deception. As socialists, we recognize that the 99% and the 1% -- those who produce all of the nation's wealth, versus those who, through various schemes, collect, control and oversee the disposition of that great mountain of wealth -- have opposing and conflicting interests. The interests of Wall Street, the giant insurance companies, and corporate conglomerates are different from those of working people. Socialists argue that our current economic system is fundamentally undemocratic because those who produce all of the wealth have no say in how it is put to use, and those who control most of the wealth had nothing to do with creating it.

Trump and Clinton say they care about the "middle class." This is a term used is to blur economic distinctions in our society. In their view, everyone is "middle class," except those at rock bottom (our so-called underclass) and the few at the very top (the 1%, or the top 10 percent of US households possess 76 percent of the total wealth.) Actually, the overwhelming majority belong to the working class. Those in the working class produce the goods and services that, taken together, are the sole source of wealth produced each year. However, by law and tradition, the wealth produced by working people does not belong to them and is not controlled by them. Rather, the wealth produced by so many is deemed to belong to a small class of capitalists. Because stealing from the poor to give to the rich is not a popular policy, the capitalists launder their wealth. This is accomplished by classifying the riches that the capitalists steal from working people as profit. When Clinton, Trump and other mainstream politicians pay homage to the "middle class", it's their way of muddying the water, trying to hide the fact that our country is made up of producers and exploiters -- workers and capitalists. You will never hear Democratic or Republican Party politicians say that their first priority is the working class. Socialists side squarely and proudly with the working class.

Under capitalism, full employment is impossible. Why? Because if everyone had a job, the balance of power between workers and employers would be significantly altered. Workers could demand higher pay and the boss would have no choice but to agree. Workers could go out on strike, and there would be no one to use as strikebreakers.

In a rational system, if there was anything society required, if there was any public need not being fulfilled, people would be put to work fulfilling it. And if putting everybody to work full time would result in too much being produced -- if full employment at 40 hour per week would produce more than what society needs -- then the sensible thing to do would be to reduce the work week dividing the necessary work among everyone. If you put human needs before profits, it's easy to have jobs for all. But if your first loyalty is to profits, as is the case for Democrats and Republicans, then these simple, rational solutions can't be considered. Democrats and Republicans are for creating jobs only if it's profitable to do so. That's why their proposals always involve giving money to corporations and the rich.

Trump and Clinton point to the current recession to explain why unemployment is so high. But what they don't tell you is that regular, recurring crises, such as the one we are currently suffering through, are themselves a direct result of putting profits before human needs. The way our economy is organised, there's an economic crisis every five or 10 years. No Democratic or Republican proposal has ever changed that.

Trump and Clinton will try to tell you that these economic recessions just kind of happen, like thunderstorms. But that's not true either. These crises occur when the economy produces more than can be sold at a profit. It's then that businesses cut back, close down, lay off workers, and wait until profit potential improves. No consideration whatsoever is given to whether there are unmet needs; whether people are hungry, or homeless, or jobless, or poor.

Trump doesn't believe that climate change is a serious threat. Clinton’s party are criminally incompetent environmental stewards. Within capitalism, there is room for reform, short of dismantling the entire economic framework. Every wage increase, union victory, advance in civil rights or civil liberties illustrates this. But some issues, like climate change, are different. Addressing climate change is not a matter of dealing with one power plant or one factory or even a single industry; it's a globalized, systemic problem. With enough pressure, you can get the powers that be to clean up a particular river, ban a particular toxic chemical or right a particular injustice, but there's no way to end systemic pollution, poisoning of the environment or generalized injustice without ending the incentives that encourage those behaviors. Under capitalism, those behaviors are profitable, and profit is deemed to be the highest measure of success. Socialists are for taking critical industries and resources out of private hands. Revolution, not resignation, is our only hope. Capitalists blinded by profit, cannot embrace the environment. Marx wrote that:

 "Even a whole society, a nation, or even all societies together, are not the OWNERS of the globe. They are only its POSSESSORS, its users, and they have to hand it down to the coming generations in an improved condition, like the good fathers of families."

 Only an enlightened working class can liberate the means of production, build socialism and ensure the survival of life on earth.

Living as we do in a class society, where the class you are a part of is determined by your place in the economy -- whether you need to work for a living and produce value, or whether you're able to get rich living off the value produced by others -- we can see that the scourges of racism, sexism, xenophobia, poverty, environmental destruction and endless war only benefit one class. Where wealth is so unequally distributed, where political power is concentrated in the hands of a few, where the government and the media are sold to the highest bidder, society is like a pencil, balanced on its point. It's a very unnatural, unstable arrangement. In a true, open democracy, the inequality and minority rule we have today would not be tolerated. The only way a minority can enrich itself at the expense of the majority is by keeping the majority divided and disoriented, and by using force, where necessary, to keep the majority in line. This is the role played by racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination in society today. Their goal is to keep us fighting amongst ourselves rather than uniting against our common foe.

Socialists intend to do about this? We will continue to do what we've been doing: organizing and working to win a majority to the understanding that to solve the critical problems that we face, the capitalist system must be replaced by one that puts human needs before profits; urging the labor movement to break with the two parties of Wall Street and form a party of its own that can extend the fight for workers' rights beyond the shop floor and into the political arena

Abridged and adapted from here 

Nothing will stop an idea which time has come.

All wealth comes from the workers, not from the useless parasite class who derive their wealth from the exploitation of us. 90-99% of the world’s population are wage slaves.  It's only when workers across the world discard all notions that countries and national identities are a central part of the political landscape that real changes can be made to all our lives.

 Socialism has never existed to fail. Many opponents of  socialism are simply restating capitalist propaganda about post-feudal attempts to kick start capitalism. In Russia the absence of a large enough capitalist class meant the state stepped into the breach. Effectively those examples of Leninism were state capitalist developments. Social evolution suggests that no mode of production is cast in stone and the dynamics of change also affects capitalism as a social system.

 Studies of social systems with distinct social relationships related and corresponding to their specific mode of production have identified, for instance, primitive communism, chattel slavery, feudalism, and capitalism. All of these societies changed from one into another due to the contradictions inherent in that society and also due to technological advancement which each society found itself incapable of adapting to. Capitalism reached this point over a century ago. It’s time to move on to socialism.

 Socialism is a post-capitalist society. The idea will seem strange alien at first. Just as capitalism must have seemed strange in feudal times. But nothing will stop an idea which time has come.

 The task of creating the socialist, post-capitalist, production for use, free access, commonly owned world is that of the working class itself. The nation-state also would cease to exist in a democratic socialist world, effectively we would become our own government, with delegatory democracy, locally regionally and globally, over things and resources rather than as presently, representative class government over people.

For sure, there are sincere but misguided Leninists, and many Trotskyists, taking their cue from Lenin, who think that workers need to be led into socialism, as it turns out, they lead them into state-capitalism. Socialism in one country is impossible. It is a global society. It requires a revolutionary transformation in that the immense majority become aware that the present mode of production and distribution is obsolete.

 Chavez was not a socialist but a social reformer of capitalism. During his presidency, he kept open the doors on the flow of Western capital into Venezuela, while introducing a familiar programme of nationalisation and social reform. He did not cease to preside over an exploitative capitalist economy, nor did he cut off economic relationships with the West.

  The degree to which the Venezuelan workers are exploited will continue to depend on fluctuations in the economy, on their own capacity and will to resist the inevitable downward pressure on their incomes, and on government policy. The fact of their exploitation, though, is inevitable. So is their relative poverty, their limited freedom of choice, and the lack of control they have over their lives.

 None of this will change until they and working people everywhere, have ceased to put their faith in governments and charismatic politicians whatever claims and promises they make.

Capitalism's other essential twin concomitant with war is poverty. With ownership and control in the hands of the few, whether individuals, corporations or state, a parasitic class, in direct competition with each other, (leading to wars) allied with production for sale on the market to enrich the minority, with a useful productive waged slave (rationed in access) class, the majority, producing all of the wealth, but, of social necessity, kept in conditions of poverty, relative or absolute.

 It is not a case of intentional 'evil', although undoubtedly there are some evil bastards, but a consequence of competition within and without, the social classes. There are many decent individual capitalists, would wish to reform the system but this cannot occur. Wage slavery is essential for the production of surplus value for the capitalist.

 Capitalism cannot be reformed of wage slavery. If profits were to be eroded by redistribution of them to the worker, the capitalist would be out-competed and go to the wall. Even cooperatives find themselves in this double bind.

Wee Matt

Against Terror

In a sane society, with a socialist economy, workers could enjoy all the wealth they produce, because they wouldn't have to support themselves and the capitalist class, too. It would take only a fraction of the time now spent to obtain the material goods a family needs to thrive because the necessary work would be spread out over the whole population. There would be plenty of time for everyone -- men, women, young and old -- to exercise their talents, fulfill their potentials and grow to be all they could be. And children would be able to enjoy plenty of quality time with all of their family and friends. It follows from the fact that we live in a totally integrated world- -no part independent and all parts interdependent upon one another. Interdependence follows from the present productive organisation of society. The cooperation needed on the assembly line, between all points of production, distribution, and consumption, compels society to act harmoniously if it is to act successfully.

The Socialist Party unqualifiedly condemns terrorist bombings and shootings and as the depraved acts of depraved minds. It deplores the wanton massacre of innocent men, women and children, and denounces any individual or group who perpetrated such despicable acts for whatever perverted motive prompted they say they commit them. There is and can be no justification for barbarous crime.

At the same time, the Socialist Party condemns the reckless and inflammatory capitalist news media, which, in its usual sensationalist style, jumps from one conclusion to another about who the perpetrators of terrorism might be, and then seek to excuse itself by attributing errors to the population at large rather than to itself.

At the same time, the Socialist Party condemns the politicians who appear bent on using the acts of deranged individuals to undermine the civil liberties and human rights of people. It is dangerous, imbecilic and naive to believe that society can be defended against terror by repressive legislation. Legislation against terrorism can no more root out the social causes of such violent crimes than a law against water could abolish thirst or a law against hunger could abolish starvation. Whatever the immediate motivations behind terror acts, the root cause of all such insane antisocial acts is deeply embedded in the fabric of capitalist society itself. Capitalism incites barbarism. Terrorists have no answers for today's social problems. They see or feel the effects of something they have no understanding of, and they take refuge in religious fantasy and/or conspiracy theories and other mystifications. A solution to the manifold ills of a social system is to be found in a social act. That act can be performed only by a social class. And the sole class capable today of revolution to a better society is the working class.

Today, capitalism is a worn out, regressive social system. It operates for the benefit of a tiny, owning class upon the labor and at the expense of a large laboring class. The social situation is one that demands revolution because all alterations and reforms for the better operation of capitalism continuously fail to benefit the majority of society. The cooperation that production demands is the material condition that prods the working class to take, hold and operate industry in its own behalf. In this way alone can society become a cooperative commonwealth free from the conditions now giving rise to expanding terrorism, and to all the other social evils capitalism breeds and which fester in the modern world. Capitalism is a politically, as well as an economically, repressive system. This is no idle assertion. Capitalism may pretend otherwise, but it, too, relies on terror, or the threat of it, to uphold order. There is also capitalism's use of terror to scare people and push them to the right. The whole scare campaign has a racist element.

Karl Marx asked: "Is there not a necessity for deeply reflecting upon an alteration of the system that breeds these crimes, instead of glorifying the hangman who executes a lot of criminals to make room only for the supply of new ones?"

Socialists maintain that the solution to terrorism and viciousness of capitalist counter-terrorism is the abolition of capitalism itself. Effective action for the creation of the cooperative commonwealth of socialism must be taken.

Reorganise the economy on socialist principles

The Socialist Party understands full well that the class struggle is a vital part of life today. The Socialist Party seek to abolish the class struggle by calling attention to it, by exposing its meaning, by pointing to its consequences and by organising the workers, as a class, for the construction of the class-free society of socialism. The Socialist Party understands full well that the class struggle is a vital part of life today. The effects of capitalism reach into every corner of our lives.

 Some reform-minded men and women active in the labour movement understand the fact of the class struggle, but who nonetheless rejected the revolutionary conclusions of engaging in that struggle. These are facts, and it takes nothing away from their reputations as courageous men to recognise that, in the end, they accepted capitalism and rejected the genuine socialist movement.

Many capitalists try to pretend it doesn't exist. Because capitalist interests are in conflict with the interests of humanity the class struggle is denied. The capitalist class has an interest in raising future generations of wage slaves who are schooled to obey authority without question, not to think independently, to support capitalism and hate socialism. Outright lies must be used to defend capitalism. Our children are being cheated and robbed. They are being deprived even of childhood itself. We know that our children are being harmed by an economic system that runs on profits exploited from workers. We know that the degree of harm is growing as exploitation is increased to make up for shrinking profit margins. And we can predict that this harm will continue as long as we live under capitalism. Why are things this way? It is because of the very nature of capitalism. Capitalists control the entire economy, and capitalists care about nothing except what is profitable to them. They care about the well-being of their workers only if this well-being leads to production and profits. They care about the nurture of working-class children only as new workers to replace a spent generation in the years ahead. Capitalists may cherish their own children, they aren't fond of working-class children. They see a worker's family as a drain on a worker's time and energy, resources that the employer wants an opportunity to consume. There is an ongoing tug of war between our children and our bosses. All too often our children lose the contest. Capitalists apparently care very little whether the workers reproduce themselves. As automation and productivity rise, the number of workers needed to produce a certain amount of goods diminishes, and the number of available replacement workers increases. Thus, individual workers become disposable because it is so easy to replace them. It is not necessary to keep an employee who is less than satisfactory in any way because another worker can be employed instead. And it certainly is not necessary to support a worker who is spending time and energy on a family, because that worker is easy to replace with a worker who will spend this time and energy on the job.

It should be obvious to even the most casual observer that the interests of the family are directly opposite the interests of the capitalists. If we as workers controlled production and distribution of goods, the wealth we created with our labor could be used to meet all of our needs. We could allocate our resources to the areas we considered most important. We could surround our children with the love and attention of entire families, without fear of want. But we can't do that as long as we are burdened with capitalism.

The whole system is quite insane. It is not meeting the basic needs of people. In a sane society, things would be different. Production schedules would be determined by needs, not by profits. Workers would no longer have to support these parasites that make up the capitalist class, and so plenty of material goods would be available for all workers and their families as well. The necessary work would be shared by everybody, spread among a large number of workers. The workload would be lighter and the workweek would be shorter. All workers would have time to spend and enjoy with their families. Sane and sensible social relations and economic conditions do not exist under capitalism, and they never will. That day will not come until the working class wakes up to these facts and organises its political and economic power to take over control of production and reorganise the economy on socialist principles. The first step is for those who already understand this to act on their knowledge by coming forward to help spread the socialist message and to join the Socialist Party.

The working-class can no longer afford to waste time looking to politicians for answers. Governments cannot solve a problem that is inherent in the economic system. The economic causes of our problems are clear. The failure of government to solve them is a matter of record and is being demonstrated once again. The fact that -- because of the "expense" involved -- it presently balks at the barest measures to even ease the economic burdens of workers further indicts the capitalist system. The failing family and the poverty, unemployment and hopelessness that engender it cannot be prevented under capitalism. Capitalism is the family's destroyer. Workers must look to themselves for a solution, for the solution lies in making a basic change to a new social system: a change that only an organized working class can make -- a change to a socialist system. Socialism alone -- with democratic, social control of industry in place of the dictatorial control of a parasitical capitalist minority, with production for human wants and needs in place of production for the profit of a few -- can provide economic security and material abundance for all. Socialism alone can give leisure time back to workers and their families so that they may nurture each other and spur the advancement of humankind. It alone can establish the social and economic conditions for a new era of relations between the sexes, liberated from the pressures and constraints of archaic capitalism. It is now time that workers begin taking matters into their own hands and begin building a movement for socialism -- to save our families, our children and society's future.

Defend the right to strike!

The majority of the people, too, face an oppressive system even more powerful. They confront the domination of a small capitalist class of the wealth, and which thrives on the labour of the working majority. Under the domination of this small ruling class, political freedoms are being eroded; the power of monopolies and government bureaucracy grows; militarisation, economic exploitation and inevitable and rapidly approaching environmental suicide. If democracy means control of society by the majority of the people, then democracy does not exist. The tyranny of the aristocracy which ruled through the king has been replaced by the tyranny of a capitalist class which rules through its political servants. Every revolution means getting rid of the old order and building the new. To accomplish this will require the most organized and conscious revolutionary movement in history.

 It means organising all working people into the One Big Party and the On Big Union, a movement that takes the shape of working class itself. The Socialist movement speaks to the needs and problems of the people in a way no other political party can. It ties all the many and varied problems confronting workers today, from economic crises to racism, from eroding democratic rights to environmental destruction, back to their common origins in the system of capitalism. It bears the basic reason why people increasingly dissatisfied with the oppression and deteriorating quality of life have not been able to gain the freedom and security they've sought for decades. The obvious reality is that the great majority of people have no control over their lives and no way to ensure even the basic necessities of life for themselves and their families. In every sphere of society, they confront the rule of an economic elite whose ideas and interests predominate.

The Socialist Party cuts through superficial excuses for this inequality and gets to its root. It shows that tinkering with the system as it is, or waiting for "better times," or relying on politicians, are ways that the class that owns and controls keeps the majority from challenging its domination. Anything short of a revolutionary change is a formula for leaving control of society right where it is, in the status quo ruling-class hands, no matter how that control may be modified. Capitalist political power will be used, as it is today, to exploit workers on the job, to rape the environment for profit, and to amass mountains of wealth for the few. It will keep pitting worker against worker, race against race, and sex against sex, fighting over scraps while the capitalist class reaps the harvest. The owning class will continue to use its monopoly on the means of life to shape the entire course of nations. If control of the State remains where it is now, governments will remain an instrument for advancing the interests of a ruling minority against the rest. It will continue to serve business interests at home and abroad. The repression and deceit which have become daily practice will grow more drastic and dangerous. The system will head toward ever-worsening crises and more conflicts.

To change this course the political and economic power of society must be transferred from the ruling class to the working majority. In essence, this is what socialism is all about. Socialism does not mean control by the state, or domination by one party, or the regulation and legislation of capitalist rule with  more reforms and palliatives. It means the transfer of power over all social institutions and operations to the people themselves and their communities.

Have you ever had to go on strike? Most of us have and for pretty familiar reasons. Sometimes it's the only way we can win a decent wage, especially when the cost of living is rising fast. Sometimes it's the only way to fight back against working conditions that are going from bad to worse. Other times it's necessary to defend a co-worker who's been treated unfairly... and to stop the practice before it happens to someone else. There are plenty of problems workers face that can force us out on strike. And while none of us want to risk our jobs or incomes, a strike is often the only weapon we have to fight for our rights.

The one weapon workers have -- the right to strike -- is constantly under attack. Public opinion is immediately whipped up against the strikers. The courts pass injunctions and the police harass pickets. The press writes indignant editorials and loud demands are raised for tougher anti-strike laws. The whole campaign to curb the right to strike is a step toward disarming workers in their struggle for economic survival. The overwhelming majority of people have only their labour power to sell and they survive by selling it to the employing class. If they give up the elementary right to withhold that labor or bargain for a better price or better conditions, they become little more than slaves. No one "enjoys" strikes, least of all workers and their families who lose their incomes while bosses live off past profits. Strikes, at best, are defensive actions. To really get to the heart of our economic problems, we have to change the whole economic system that repeatedly forces us to fight for a decent living.

Such revolutionary changes can only come through the direct activity of the people themselves. They must break with the illusion that they have to endure capitalism forever, or are powerless to change society. Through their conscious political and economic organisation, they can not only overturn class-ruled society but, in the same process, build a better one in its place. Politically workers must draw together in a party that stands for their own collective interests. For too long workers have relied on capitalist politicians to speak for them. They must build their own political organisation, to challenge the domination of the capitalist class and help all workers realise how socialism serves their needs, and how it can be won. But a political party by itself is not enough. Socialism means more than a change in ideas, or a different set of political figures in government. It means that the masses of working people must build the new forms of socialist organisation and administration. Building a movement for this kind of economy requires a long struggle. It also requires the defence of the few rights we have now -- like the right to strike. If we lose those rights, the fight for a democratic socialist economy will be even harder to win.

Karl (and) William's ) Quotes

As Socialists, we state firmly, in a Socialist Society money will not exist because the very conditions for its existence will have been abolished.

Marx, with a little help from 'The Bard', had something to say about it.

Shakespeare attributes to money two qualities:

1) "It is the visible deity, the transformation of all human and natural qualities into their opposite, the universal confusion and inversion of things; it brings incompatibilities into fraternity."

2) " It is the universal whore, the universal pander between men and nations."

"The power to confuse and invert all human and natural qualities, to bring about fraternization of incompatibles, the divine power of money, resides in its essence as the alienated species - life of men. It is the alienated power of humanity."

"What I as a man am unable to do, what therefore all my individual faculties are unable to do, is made possible for me by means of money therefore turns each of these faculties into something which in itself it is not, into its opposite."

 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts – 1844

Just think of the anti-social behaviour of many caused by the need for money and then think, what a terrific burden would be lifted from people, individually and collectively if it wasn't needed - a society based on "From each according to his ability to each according to his need."

John Ayers

What is Socialism? What are the facts? What are the distortions?

Societies are not eternal but are mortal. Like the people who compose them, they are born, mature, decline, and eventually die. The history of capitalist society shows it is no exception. It too has gone from birth through maturity to decline and is now approaching its final days of life. Capitalism is in its death-throes because of a serious malady. It is no longer a progressive system from which humanity can benefit. Immense social wants are being left unsatisfied. Capitalism is plainly damned for its inefficiencies. More and more nails are being hammered into its coffin. And capitalism has brought forth its gravediggers. The very workers whom the system employs to carry on production. Unable to secure comfortable lives within capitalist society, they will be compelled to recognise that their well-being and aspirations require the construction of a new form of society. Once people have reached a revolutionary frame of mind, they will quickly discover a number of important truths: They will learn that they are endowed with the power of the vote.

The productivity of an average American worker has reached an all-time high. You should be rolling in clover, should you not? Actually, you've never had it so bad, isn’t that right? Low wages, declining work-benefits, climbing unemployment.

Socialism is the common ownership by all the people of the factories, mills, mines, means of transport, land and all other instruments of production. Socialism means production to satisfy human needs, not as under capitalism, for sale and profit. Socialism means direct control and management of the industries and social services by the workers through a democratic administration based on both geographic nd economic organisation. All authority will rest with the people. All persons elected to be a delegate for any post, from the lowest to the highest will be directly accountable and recallable at any time that a majority of those who elected them decide it is necessary. Such a system would make possible the fullest democracy and freedom. It would be a society based on the most primary freedom - economic freedom and independence. Socialism means an end to economic insecurity and exploitation. It means workers cease to be commodities bought and sold on the labour market and forced to work as appendages to the machinery owned by someone else. It means a chance to develop all individual capacities and potentials within a free community of free individuals. It means a class-free society.

What socialism is not is government or state-ownership. It does not mean "nationalisation," state capitalism of any kind. It does not mean a state bureaucracy as formerly in the U.S.S.R., with the working class oppressed by a new bureaucratic class. It does not mean a one-party or one-leader system without democratic rights.  It means a complete end to all capitalist social relations.

To win the struggle for socialist freedom requires enormous efforts of organisational and educational work. It requires building a political party of socialism to contest the power of the capitalist class on the political field, and to educate the majority of workers about the need for socialism. It requires building industrial union organisations to unite all workers in a class-conscious One Big Union, and to prepare them to take, hold, and operate the tools of production. In socialism, production and distribution will be socially controlled. There will, accordingly, be no further need for the tricky means of exchange and money, required by the capitalist system of private control over production and distribution.

Whether or not socialism will be achieved depends on you. Don't look so surprised. You're a very important individual. You have a political and economic power that, intelligently used, can make short work of peacefully abolishing capitalism and establishing a socially-owned economy administered by the working citizens for the benefit of all. Is the information you will receive worth the little effort involved? Well, isn't the possibility of winning a real and secure prosperity for your family and your fellowmen worth even a lot of effort on your part?

We can have well-being for all

We have all the material requirements for establishing socialism. It is common knowledge that we have developed the most productive technology in the world, capable of producing an abundance for everyone. Once this technology is socially owned, controlled and administered no longer will we need to work for wages. Instead, we shall all be useful producers, each contributing his or her fair share to the total product. In return, each of us will receive directly and indirectly the equivalent of all that we have produced. We say "indirectly" because we shall get part of our product back through social services - public health, education, recreation, etc. In a socialist society, we shall be able to enjoy the material well-being our productive capability makes possible. In a socialist society, there can be no poverty or involuntary unemployment. Computerisation, robotics, and automation will be a further blessing. The greater the number of workers, the better the tools, the more modern the methods, the greater and more varied will be the wealth we can produce; and the shorter the hours each of us will have to work.

We shall be secure, healthy, happy human beings living in peace, harmony, and freedom, in marked contrast to the capitalist jungle of strife, misery, and insecurity in which we live today. So great is our capacity to produce an abundance that we can easily ensure that our youth will be educated, the aged provided for, and the sick and handicapped given the finest care possible. All this will be done without depriving anyone of his fair and more than adequate share. It will not be charity but the rightful share of every human being in the affluent socialist society. We shall achieve the highest standards of mental health and physical well-being. We shall enjoy great material well-being individually and collectively, but it will not be at any one else's expense. We shall be secure, healthy, happy human beings living in peace, harmony. and freedom, in marked contrast to the capitalist jungle of strife, misery, and insecurity in which we live today

How can we get such a society? The answer is easy. The task confronting workers is to organise their political forces into a socialist party of their class to demand the abolition of the wage system and effect an orderly socialist reconstruction of society. The crying need of our time is determined, resolute action to awaken the working class to the imperative need for a socialist cooperative commonwealth, a social and industrial democracy. It is within the power of the workers to establish such a society as soon as they recognize the need for it and organize to establish it at the ballot box. This is the peaceful way to social revolution.

The problems of poverty, slums, unemployment, crime, water shortages, air and water pollution and many more -- have been with us for a long time, a very long time and they make living so difficult today.  Every politician who has run for office for the past 50 years or more has promised to do something to alleviate or eliminate these evils. Despite all the pledges and promises, and despite the implementation of reform, these problems have defied solution. Whatever the problem is it is worse now than before. And we still keep on electing politicians to office to solve those problems. DUH! You have asked yourself why things are going from bad to worse, in spite of all the so-called brains at the disposal of our local and national governments. The reason is simple.  All the political experts and specialists at all levels have been dealing with effects and ignoring the cause. And the cause of our problems is the capitalist system.

Mankind's survival is being threatened from a number of directions. The capitalist class who squeeze immense profits out of workers are plainly ready to risk extinction in order to go on keep doing so. 

Workers of the world use your ballot to abolish capitalism and establish socialism! Unite and peacefully exercise your mandate for socialism so to regain control over your economic activities.

Join us in the cause of human liberation

Willing and able to work, with a family to feed and house -- but jobless? Such is the tragic plight of millions of today in a land of plenty. Why? What is wrong? Workers need a clear and candid answer to this question.

The cause of unemployment is inherent in the capitalist system of society. It is a notorious fact that tens of millions have basic needs that are unsatisfied. But under capitalism things are not produced to satisfy human needs; they are produced to be sold at a profit. When the capitalists cannot sell what the workers have produced assembly-lines are shut down, factories close, and unemployment spreads.

Every worker knows it takes only a few weeks or months of unemployment to wipe out any "gains" from years of employment. Homes, cars, and furniture are being repossessed at a rising tempo. Even highly touted "fringe" benefits -- pensions, insurance, hospitalization -- are down the drain.

All this is the inevitable consequence of capitalism -- of a system in which the capitalists, a numerically small class, own the factories, mines, railroads, and land, etc., in short, all the means of social production, while the overwhelming majority, the working class, owns nothing except its labour power.

Recurring recessions are the inevitable result of a central contradiction in the capitalist system. The capitalists can't stop an economic crisis any more than they can stop earthquakes or hurricanes. Their so-called "built-in stabilizers" are wholly inadequate for coping with the central contradiction in their system. Defenders of capitalism say automation makes jobs. But as production is concentrated in highly automated plants, the cruel and devastating effects of automation on workers' jobs become apparent. That is the grim reality of capitalism. And all that the capitalists and their politicians can do about it is to let the unemployed vegetate on the ever-reducing welfare or relief. Capitalist handouts, whatever their form, are degrading. The jobless worker stands in line for long hours to demean himself before some bureaucrat or do-gooder charity worker in order to qualify for food-stamps or food-bank parcel. He feels his degradation keenly. If he exhausts his unemployment compensation and goes on welfare or relief, the humiliation to which he is subjected is many times worse. His private affairs are pried into. He and his family are regimented in a kind of purgatory of poverty that erodes his self-respect. Reforms cannot solve the problem.

We have everything it takes to make our planet a veritable paradise. All that stands in the way is (a) the outmoded system of private ownership of industry and (b) the workers' failure to see themselves for what they are under this system -- namely, wage slaves, enslaved as a class to the capitalists as a class.

To end the curse of unemployment we must eliminate the cause of unemployment. We must replace private ownership of the industries with social ownership (i.e., the industries must be owned by all the people collectively). And we must replace production for sale and profit with a system of production for use. Then instead of kicking workers out of jobs, automation will shorten the working day, working week and work-year. Technological progress will no longer be something for us workers to fear, but an unqualified blessing that will ensure abundance and leisure for all.

BUILD A NEW SOCIETY

It is the aim of the Socialist Party to create a society in which wars will be but bad memories, a society in which poverty will have disappeared, in which freedom will have been made secure, and in which democracy will have become the prevailing order of society for all. The ideas of socialism, as advocated by the Socialist Party, are embodied with the hopes and dreams of the ages, a society of peace and abundance. We of the Socialist Party believe that socialism can be attained peacefully.

In a socialist society, there will be no private ownership of the land and the industries. When we say this, we are not talking about personal possessions; your house, or your clothes, or your car, or any of your personal belongings. What we are talking about are the factories, the mills, the mines, transport - in short, the instruments used in the production and distribution of goods. We say that these means of production and distribution must belong to society as a whole. In a socialist society, there will be no wage system where the workers receive in wages only a fraction of the value of the goods they produce. Instead, with socialism, we shall receive the full social value of our labour. We shall produce for use, rather than for sale with a view to profit for private capitalists. We shall produce the things we want and need rather than the things for which a market exists in which the goods we produce are sold for the profit of the private owners. Socialist society shall have a complete democracy - - an industrial and social democracy. There will be full democratic administration inside the socialist cooperative commonwealth. Contrast such a society with our system today. Today, ownership and control of industry rest in the hands of a numerically small class (the capitalist class) who contribute nothing to production. The rest of us (the working class) own nothing but our ability to work, whether it be physical or mental, or both. And we, the useful producers, who constitute the vast majority, produce everything. But we are permitted to work only so long as a market exists for the goods we produce. When there is no profitable market for our products, plants close down, and we suffer want in the midst of plenty.

The evil of the system of capitalism has long since outlived its usefulness. We have shown that a parasitic class, which contributes nothing to human welfare exists in luxury based on the exploitation of another class that, producing everything worth-while, yet exists in mortal fear of misery.

In socialism we shall own in common the factories and means of production, we shall have full and free access to the means of wealth production and distribution, we shall receive the full social value of our labor there will be no unwanted surplus, we shall collectively produce the things we want and need for full and happy lives. We will benefit from all to find new technologies, new means of production, improved means of distribution. Society as a whole will have a vital interest in providing opportunity to each individual to find the work for which he or she is best suited and happiest. There will be the fullest freedom and opportunity. It is within the power of the working class to establish such a society as soon as they recognize the need for it and organize to establish it. The Socialist Party points the way. By supporting the Socialist Party at the ballot box you will say that you demand the end of capitalism and the establishment of socialism.

And, we repeat, there will be a complete and full democracy. Democracy that will truly be based on the broadest lines. Democracy in which the final and only power will be the great mass of our people, the useful producers, which in Socialist society will mean everybody. No more will society be split into two contending classes. Instead, we shall all be useful producers, collectively owning the means of production and distribution, collectively concerned with producing the most with the least expenditure of human labor, and collectively jealous of the rights of the individual to a full, free and untrammeled life of happiness and accomplishment.

How can we get such a society? The answer is easy. It is within the power of the working class to establish such a society as soon as they recognise the need for it and organise to establish it. The  Socialist Party points the way. By supporting it at the ballot box you will say that you demand the end of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. This is the civilised way of revolution. 

The Exploitation of Wage-Slaves

The capitalist class, as a class, robs the working class, as a class. The individual capitalist exploiter does not pocket the whole loot taken from the workers. Out of the wealth, the workers produce come rent, interest, fees for insurance, advertising, taxes etc.  When workers read of the net profits of corporations, small or large, they should always bear in mind that these represent only a fraction of the total plunder.

The exploitation of wage-labor is the story of a robbery so colossal that it defies measurement. The robbery is confined neither by time nor space. It is continuous, unremitting. It proceeds wherever society is divided into classes, wherever one class owns the instruments of production to which another class, owning no tools of its own, must have access in order to live. There is nothing illegal about this robbery. It is considered the normal "way of life." But it is robbery nonetheless. For the capitalist class uses its ownership and control of the factories the same way that a highwayman used his gun -- to extract a tribute from its victims. When the serf of feudal times was forced to yield part of what he produced to the feudal baron, he knew he was being robbed. But capitalist robbery is more subtle. The worker may perform but one-minute operation in the production of a commodity requiring thousands of operations. Nevertheless, his labour has created new value equal to his day's wages in the first hour or two on the job and this new value -- together with the value added by his fellow workers -- is embodied in the finished product.

Marx gave a name to the part of the working day in which the worker reproduces his wages. He called it necessary labour time. During the rest of the working day the worker produces values for which he is not paid, or -- let us call a spade a spade -- values of which he is robbed! This part of the working day Marx called surplus labour time. For purposes of simplification, take the case of a worker who sells his labour power -- to be expended in eight hours -- for the price of $100. The first two hours of his working day are necessary labour time. In these two hours, he produces as much as the boss pays him for eight hours of labour. During the remaining six hours -- surplus labor time -- he produces three times as much or $300 worth of new values. In the science of political economy we call the wealth that the worker produces, but of which he is robbed of surplus value.

What in the degree of robbery, or exploitation? It varies as conditions vary in the different countries. In a country where more advanced techniques and methods of production are applied (such as the United States), the degree of exploitation is greater than it is in less advanced countries. At first sight, this may seem contradictory. Why, you may ask, should workers who are more productive receive less proportionately of what they produce than workers who are not so productive? The answer is simply that wages are not determined by what the worker produces. Leaving aside their temporary rise and fall due to fluctuations of supply and demand in the labour market, wages are determined by what it costs the worker to live and raise a new crop of wage slaves to take his place when he dies or is thrown on the scrap heap.

Everyone is familiar with the expression a "living wage." Our grandfathers got a "living wage"; our fathers got a "living wage": and. normally, we get a "living wage." Thus, in terms of food, clothing, shelter, etc., we receive substantially what our grandfathers did. Yet we produce vastly more than our grandfathers and considerably more than our fathers. Why, then, haven't we advanced beyond the "living wage" concept? The answer is that we cannot advance beyond this concept, no matter how much our productivity increases, as long as capitalism lasts. And the reason is that, under capitalism, labour power is a commodity, an article of merchandise, whose price is governed by the same economic laws that govern the price of any other commodity. Price may fluctuate according to the supply of a commodity and the demand for it in the market. Just as a pendulum swings back and forth, but is always drawn toward the center by gravitation, prices may go up or down -- but always it oscillates around its value in accord with the economic law of value. In other words, price, in the long run, coincides with value. And the value of any commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor time required to produce it. In the case of the commodity labor power, this means that its value is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor time required to produce the food, clothing, shelter, etc., needed to keep the worker in working condition. He or she gets a 'living wage."

The more highly developed a nation is industrially, the less labour time is required to produce the workers' necessities. Hence, instead of the workers' share of their product increasing proportionately as their productivity rises, it is the other way around. As new methods and techniques -- such as automation -- are introduced, the articles workers consume are cheapened and wages fall accordingly. Thus the workers' relative wages (what they receive in relation to what they produce) tend to fall as productivity rises. In other words, as labor productivity rises, the necessary labor time grows shorter, thus lengthening that part of the working day when the worker produces surplus value.

For purposes of simplification, we have used a single worker as an example. Actually, exploitation "is not the act of any individual capitalist, or set of capitalists, perpetrated upon any individual worker or set of worker. Exploitation is a class act -- the act of the whole capitalist class-perpetrated upon a class -- the whole working class. Apologists for capitalism sometimes try to refute socialist charges of high-degree exploitation by pointing to the net profits of corporations. But socialists have never contended that the corporations pocket all the surplus value their workers produce. On the contrary, socialists point out that before a capitalist can count his net profits he must pay off the landlord, tax collector, banker, advertising capitalist, insurance company, and all the other parasites on parasites. By the time taxes, interest, rent, etc., are deducted, net profits of the immediate capitalist exploiter may be only a fraction of the surplus value of which workers are robbed. But this in no way disputes the fact that the working class is robbed by the capitalist class of wealth so vast that it defies measurement.

DISPOSING OF THE LOOT

Now, let us examine this thievery from another angle. We measure surplus value in dollars. But the workers do not produce dollars, they produce commodities -- and a commodity, Marx tells us, is an article that will satisfy some human want and that is produced for sale. Hence, before the capitalists can enjoy their plunder, they must first find buyers for it. If they don't get rid of their commodity loot, it accumulates in the warehouses and production stagnates. In wartime the solution is simple. In wartime the surplus steel goes into tanks, ships and guns. the surplus textiles into uniforms, tents and bandages, the surplus lumber into training camps, barracks and caskets, and so on down the line of commodities. But between capitalist wars -- in the intervening periods of "peace" -- the capitalists do not have this ready outlet for their wares. In peacetime, they must find other means of disposing of their loot. How do they do it? First of all, it is self-evident that the workers do not consume more than they can buy with their wages. And, as we have shown, this is just a fraction of what they produce. What happens to the remainder of labor's vast product?

A part is consumed by the capitalists in prodigal living. Some capitalists -- the plutocracy -- live in opulence surpassing that of kings, and often maintain not one palace, but many. In every city, the capitalists form a community of super-consumers. They are the patrons of the night clubs, the purchasers of costly luxuries, the members of expensive clubs. Yet, despite their prodigality, the capitalists can use up in personal consumption only a fraction of the immense wealth created by labor and appropriated by their exploiters.

Another part of this wealth -- a much larger part -- is used up in running a huge, bureaucratic, capitalist political State. The cost of running the political State -- including city, county, state and federal governments.

Capitalist rulers have no ears for the voice of sanity. Socialism would put an end to capitalist robbery of the working class. By raising the worker out of his commodity status to that of a free human being with a voice and vote in the administration of industry, by guaranteeing to every producer the full social value of the product, in abort, by replacing capitalist anarchy and exploitation with socialist cooperation and harmony, the world could be made into a veritable paradise of peace and plenty.

Perish under capitalism or survive with socialism

We have reached the fork in the road where mankind must choose between continue down the path of an outworn and outmoded social order or taking the direction of a new social system. The workers’ movement is not short of anti-austerity, anti-cuts reformist campaigns – far from it. What it is short of, and has been for too long, is any serious attempt to link together anti-capitalist activists in order to build an effective socialist organisation for future struggles.

 Are we going to keep the system of private ownership? Shall we attempt to preserve a social system that has proved its incapacity to solve the problem of poverty in the midst of plenty? Do you favour prolonging the existence of a society in which a few own all the means of wealth-production, in which labour-saving technology, instead of lessening drudgery or lightening labor's toil, throws workers out of their jobs onto the industrial scrapheap? Must mankind pass through still another vicious cycle of recession, and crisis?

Or shall we do the common-sense thing, make the means of production our collective property, abolish the exploitation of the many by the few, and use our productive genius to create leisure and abundance for all?

Capitalism has deteriorated to the point where it threatens the existence of civilization and of mankind. The system faces problems it cannot possibly solve. Most serious of these is the rapidly escalating threat of environmental destruction by global warming and climate change but neither should we forget the continual threat of nuclear war and the possibility of  massive, permanent unemployment as a result of automation. All these are symptomatic of a doomed system that is taking us toward social catastrophe. In such a grave situation, the Socialist Party's views deserve close attention. For the Socialist Party when founded in 1904 recognized that capitalism was outliving its usefulness to the majority, the workers. And during the ensuing decades, the SPGB has been proving that this obsolete system breeds ever multiplying evils -- above all, the twin evils of war over resources and economic slumps.

Capitalism is an economic system in which goods are produced to be sold at a profit. The goods are produced by the working class in industries owned by a small class of capitalist parasites. The capitalist owners of industry become the owners of the products. The workers get for their creative efforts a wage (or salary), an amount just sufficient to maintain themselves and their families. It is the relation of this amount to the value of the workers' output that is at the bottom of capitalism's depressions and wars. For the fact is their capitalist exploiters have always paid the workers only a fraction of the value of their products. Worse still, this fraction keeps growing smaller as technological improvements step up labor's productivity while, at the same time, steadily wiping out jobs. The Socialist Party says this: Depressions and wars are inevitable effects of capitalism, therefore they can never be eliminated as long as the system survives. Only when our economic life has been entirely rebuilt on a new foundation can lasting peace and economic well-being for all be achieved.

Production for private profit must be replaced by production for the common good. Instead of letting a tiny useless class appropriate the lion's share of our collective product, the workers who create it must retain its full social value. Likewise, the existing despotic capitalist control of the national economy must yield to a democratic management of the industries by the workers who run them. And, of course, to permit the foregoing fundamental changes, the industries, and natural resources must become the common property of all the people. In short, we must establish a new society -- a socialist society. Don't get any wrong impression. We mean genuine Marxian Socialism and emphatically not the monstrous counterfeits with which the Russian and Chinese workers have been deceived.

If you agree with the Socialist Party that society must be reconstructed, then there are certain things we must mutually understand. The first is that we can expect no help whatsoever from the beneficiaries of capitalism. Here and there a capitalist may see the handwriting on the wall and join with the workers, but as a class, the capitalists, like the slave-owning and feudal classes before them, will strive to prolong their poverty-ridden, war-breeding system. The workers of hand and brain must build this new world and emancipate themselves through their own class-conscious efforts. The second thing we must understand is this: Though the workers are in the overwhelming majority, and have tremendous potential power, they can apply their collective strength to the task at hand only through organisation to effect their emancipation. This means the working class availing itself fully of the right of political agitation and the ballot. This is the peaceful method. It permits the forces of progress to proclaim their purpose openly and mobilize themselves for political victory and the conquest of the capitalist political State. The function of “government” in socialism is that of administering social production for the benefit of all. There can be no bureaucrats or technocrats in socialism. This will be a living, vibrant democracy in which all power is in the only safe, place for power to be - with the people. There can be no peace or economic security without socialism! Nor can we solve our other tragic problems until we get rid of this capitalist cancer! Put your full influence behind the only movement that can transform this world into a model of peace, abundance, freedom and social sanity.

The Ineos Rat - Jim Ratcliffe

Billionaire Ineos Grangemouth boss, Jim Ratcliffe  wants to axe the morning tea break for his workers in Scotland in a bid to save money - as he leads a 'life of luxury'.

One worker said: “Ratcliffe enjoys a life of luxury. We hear he spends a lot of time on his yacht in the south of France. Yet he’s trying to deny his workers a simple tea break. I’m sure he gets 10 minutes for a cup of tea in the morning.”

Managers at the petrochemical plant want rid of the 10am tea break for 1,200 staff because they claim it leads to “high levels of unproductive time” in the mornings. They say it’s not being scrapped, but “rescheduled” to the end of the shift, and workers will get an extra half hour’s pay per day as compensation.

Another worker said: “We get to work early and do hard, physical work in all conditions. By 10am, we’re often in dire need of a break. Some guys use the time for a cup of tea. Others have a bite to eat. With winter coming, it will be a time when we can simply heat up after working in the freezing cold.”

In 2013 in a dispute over the suspension of a shop steward, he closed the plant and vowed to walk away for good unless workers accepted major cuts to their pensions and conditions. Staff with families to feed gave in to Ratcliffe’s demands and the plant reopened. 

More recently, Ratcliffe has been an enthusiastic backer of fracking in Scotland, which is currently banned by the SNP Government. He is shipping huge cargos of fracked shale gas from America to be processed at Grangemouth, with the first shipment arriving last month.

Socialism and socialist principles

What is the difference between the Socialist Party and all the rest of the political parties that call themselves socialist or communist? That or similar questions occur again and again. They arise because of the confusion engendered in the minds of a great many people by the claims and pretensions other organisations who contend that they are representatives of "socialism". For this reason, it is important that, once again, we restate in definite terms what the Socialist Party stands for, and at the same time pointing out the anti-socialist character of such self-styled socialist or workers parties.

Let us define socialism. First, with socialism, there will be no private ownership in the necessaries of life, i.e., the industries and the system of communication and distribution, as well as the social services. Second, there will be no political State and, accordingly, there will be no state ownership or bureaucratic control of these necessaries of life. Third, there will be no wage system, hence, no exploitation. In place of private ownership, we shall have common ownership of the means of production and distribution. In short, socialism is a social system under which all the instruments of production, distribution, education, health, etc., are owned, controlled and administered by the people, for the people, through industrial representatives who will be directly and at all times responsible to the people.  

These other parties that call themselves socialist have for decades advocated a hodgepodge of nationalisation, municipal ownership, cooperatives, etc., all of which (apart from being a denial of socialism) would make necessary the retention of the political state. In their effort to be "all things to all men," they also defend the private ownership of small businesses. They pay only lip service to "social ownership" and "industrial democracy" and "production for use," in the very next breath they promise to increase wages for the workers, increase unemployment insurance and expand social security, etc. -- all of which implies a continuation of capitalism! These parties are reformist seeking political power by making meaningless promises in the name of "Socialism," while the Socialist Party is a revolutionary political party whose aim is, and always has been, the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. They opportunistically trading on socialist sentiment whenever the opportunity presents itself. They speak and write in a jargon liberally sprinkled with socialist terms and phrases. They condemn capitalism at times in almost hysterical terms and then propose a series of reforms. Time and again, they have all shown themselves capable of coldly and brazenly sacrificing the interests of the workers, and even of collaborating openly with and defending the capitalist exploiters in supposed national liberation movements or united fronts. At no time did they represent the true interests of the working class, nor did they ever enable the workers to establish a socialist society. And, accordingly, they were and are the exact opposite of the Socialist Party.

The Socialist Party, founded in 1904, is the only organisation in the United Kingdom that stands uncompromisingly for the abolition of capitalism. We deny that there is any possibility of real or lasting improvement for the vast majority, the working class, within the framework of the capitalist system. On the contrary, the Socialist Party warns that the longer capitalism lasts, the worse becomes the condition of the workers as a class, and the more difficult will become the transition from capitalism to socialism. And this despite the persistent efforts of the liberals and reformers, whether they pretend to be socialists or not. The Socialist Party has learned through the hard school of experience that reforms lead away from socialism and progress. We call for the unification of the workers on the political field under the banner of the Socialist Party to demand, via the ballot box, the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class. Every clear-thinking worker should support the Socialist Party for a socialist reconstruction of society. Do not be deceived by those who lack sound socialist principles.  

The Middle Class Doesn't Exist.

For the last three years, Ontario's Legal Aid Staff Lawyers, have been attempting to unionize, claiming it would help them negotiate fair working conditions to better serve their clients.

Legal Aid Ontario (L.A.O.), a provincial Government agency, has refused to recognize their union and now, employer and employee, are locked in a legal battle that could turn out to be lengthy and expensive.

The lawyers, many of whom work out of courthouses, often representing people who can't afford counsel, have launched a constitutional challenge with L.A.O.'s refusal to bargain with their chosen representative, The Society of Energy Professionals.

The case is set to be heard in Superior Court on December 5th.

Obviously, this is just another worker-boss dispute, but it clearly shows that professional people are workers too, which includes dentists, accountants, and doctors, including, those who are self-employed.

If there can be any doubt, all they would have to do would be to quit work and see how quickly they would need money.

Some may consider the above as middle-class, but it doesn't exist chum, you're either a worker or a capitalist. 

John. Ayers.

"Do It Yourself"

In the political and economic world we are expected never to "do it ourselves" but instead we are advised to "let leaders do it." Professional politicians are paid to do our thinking for us. The Socialist Party almost alone have warned of the dangers of dependence on "leaders." For 112 years we have explained that since the working class is intelligent enough to plan, design build and operate the wondrous marvels of technology industries throughout the world, it is also intelligent enough to share and administer those same productive forces through self-management democracy of socialism. Socialism means the social ownership and democratic management of all the machinery of production and distribution, as well as the natural resources and land. The working class today creates all wealth for the private owners of industry in return for a fraction of that wealth, called wages. With socialism, the same producers will create the wealth for all of society to enjoy. With those now unemployed, or senselessly occupied, put to useful endeavour, and with all the ingenious labour-saving inventions put to use, the hours of the working day will be shortened tremendously. Automation will cease to be a threat to job security, it will bring the blessing of greater abundance and more leisure time to enjoy that abundance. Instead of workers being divided into hostile groups competing for jobs that will pay enough to keep a family until next payday, we will work in harmony, cooperating to produce most efficiently the best possible products, since we will all directly benefit from each improvement in quality and quantity of the goods and services we have made available. Socialism is not a paternalistic society in which the good things are handed down to you. It is a society of economic equality, which is to say, equality of economic opportunity. You will have full voice and vote in the industrial democracy.  What a relief from strain and worry self-directed socialism will bring.  Increased leisure and general well-being made possible for all of us to lead decent lives. All will enjoy better health. The modern scourge of mental illness will be largely eliminated in a society freed from the causes of anxieties and tensions that now plague mankind.  The leisure which our shorter hours of work will give us will mean a great enrichment of our lives. Travel, the development of cultural appreciation, the best of entertainment -- all these will be ours.

Best of all, we will know the full pleasure of family life, without the cares which frustrate our happiness today. It is obvious that it is capitalism which is the home-breaker, with fathers and mothers both working to make ends meet, and children left without proper family guidance. Marriage will cease to be a property relationship in the sane social order of Socialism. Mutual love and understanding will be the fundamental principle upon which the family of the future will build.

At this point, you might be thinking, "Sounds like a heaven on earth. But we have to contend with human nature” Would you be opposed to helping create a "heaven on earth"? Do you really prefer voting for politicians who are pledged to maintain the present social system which is the exact opposite of that "heaven on earth" we have described? Is it your nature to desire peace or war? Are other humans different from you? Is it your nature to prefer the insecurity of employment and the exploitation under capitalism, or does your whole being yearn for economic freedom and security for yourself and your family? Are you proud of the fear-instilling and intimidating measures to curtail freedom of thought, or does your whole nature rebel at capitalism's encroachment upon your liberties? The Socialist Party maintains that the best in human nature will only be brought out by the best in social and economic conditions.

The Socialist Party calls upon this majority to vote for the change from private ownership and the political State to common ownership. You can "Do It Yourselves" at the ballot box. You are now carrying on all production in industry. You have only to take over and continue the operation of these same industries, producing for the use of all instead of the profit of the few. Having thus carried out your decision registered at the ballot box, you can then form new structure and networks to administer the new world you have created for yourselves.  This is the only way socialism may be attained - by "Doing It Yourselves."