Socialism - the revolutionary idea

We are living in a class society. Every person born in human society is thereby a social being. In society divided into classes, every person is necessarily born into a class. Since social being determines social consciousness, in class society there can be no consciousness but class-consciousness. As Marxists, this is our basic materialist premise. Marxists did not invent the term class, nor did they invent the class struggle. Many had already recognised the class struggle, but they did not see it as the motivating force in society. In itself class-consciousness is not revolutionary (capitalists possess class-consciousness).

For Marx and Engels, to the contrary, the advent of classless society would result from economic sources (the development of the productive forces, the socialisation of labour) and social and political sources (the maturation and organisation of the proletariat, the unfolding of the struggle between Capital and Labour) which flowed precisely from these advances and contradictions.

For Marx and Engels, to the contrary, capitalist society could only be abolished as an entity, not factory by factory, village by village or farm by farm. Its abolition, therefore, required the active participation of the majority of the population.

Marx and Engels based themselves on the common interests of individuals belonging to a social class called upon to become the majority in bourgeois society: the proletariat; this was the force that would open the road to the advent of socialist society. But their approach negated neither the importance of propaganda and education, nor that of reason, nor that of a series of emotional feelings in the fight for socialism, insofar as all these motivations facilitate to one degree or another the gradual awakening of the proletariat to its class interests, the achievement of class consciousness.

 Marx and Engels conceived the advent of class-free society as the result of the real movement of self-organisation and self-emancipation of the great masses. Class-consciousness must make a qualitative leap to socialist consciousness. “The emancipation of the working class must be conquered by the working class themselves; proletarians of all countries unite!” That, in a nutshell, was what was newest and most revolutionary in Marxism’s contribution to human thought and history, what represented the most radical break with all the other doctrines.

Marx and Engels designated the working class the 'grave-diggers of capitalism’ not by virtue of any intrinsic merit it possesses as a class qualifying it for that role, but because of the objective role it plays in the production process of capitalism.

Socialism is the most revolutionary idea that has ever existed in the history of mankind. Socialism will be the classless society. Socialism is rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is to work. A classless society means that a privileged minority of the population are not in a position to enjoy the wealth, while the majority live only on their labour to produce it. Socialism means that privileged individuals cannot invest in the instruments of production with which others work, thus reducing them to a position of fixed subservience. It means an end of rent, profit, and interest on stocks and shares, an end of “surplus value,” an end of the exploitation of labour. Marx and Engels revealed the class nature of the state; they showed that ever since classes had appeared in society the state had always been an organ of the ruling class, an organisation of a handful of exploiters, of the minority, for the suppression of the exploited. No ruling class has yet been able to dispense with ideology. All ruling classes feel a need to rationalise their power, to find some presumably admirable objectives in the name of which they act.

The idea that state ownership of the means of production constitutes socialism is wrong. Engels pointed out in Socialism, Utopian and Scientific:

 “...the transformation, either into joint-stock companies or trusts or into state ownership, does not do away with the capitalist nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious and the modern state, again, is only the organisation that bourgeois society takes in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of the individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution to the conflict...”

Come Rally, Comrades!

Humanity is in an age of great revolutionary change. The technology exists to produce all that we need for a peaceful, plentiful world. For the first time in history, a true flowering of the human intellect and spirit is possible. Our fight is to reorganise society to accomplish these goals. Our vision is of a new, cooperative society of equality, and of a people awakening. The revolution we need is possible. Let us embrace this revolutionary mission and make it a reality. Humanity stands at its historic juncture. Can we today visualise tomorrow with enough clarity? Visionaries portray a future made possible through an examination of objective, material forces in the real world. Dreamers create impossible hopes.  Humanity has never failed to make reality from the possibilities created by each great advance in the means of production. This time, there is no alternative to stepping across that line and seizing tomorrow.

Revolutions come about because of historical economic forces at work. The reasons change comes about can ultimately be traced to economics. Everyone knows the economy is undergoing a profound change, that is fundamental and irreversible. It is so great it is causing great change in every aspect of our lives. The change is the replacement of human laboUr by new and ever-expanding technologies, computerised automation and robotics. Throughout history, such fundamental changes in the economy have always forced revolutionary changes in the social system. Economic revolution has always precipitated political revolution. Only by engaging in the sustained struggle for the hearts and minds of the fellow citizens can we win this social revolution.

Social reorganisation becomes inevitable because basic necessities of life must be paid for with money. We make money by going to work. If the robots do the work, then how will we get the food, housing and clothing we need? If there is going to be production without wages, then there must be distribution without money. We must guarantee that the technological changes result in a better life for people. We must guarantee the technological revolution reach the potential for common good through common ownership.

Capitalism is a society divided between those who own and those who work in the factories and in the fields and who produce the wealth. The contract between the workers and the owners can b explained thus: “I will buy your ability to work at its market value and pay you in money. You will use this money to buy back enough of your production to feed, house and clothe yourself and your family. In this way, you maintain your ability to work and create a new generation of workers. We can all get along if we maintain this contract.”

The essence of the contract is this: Both the capitalist and the worker must sell their commodities and buy each other’s commodities. The worker is not a commodity, but what he sells, his ability to work is. Like a chair or an automobile, his ability to work is worth the cost of its production. Like the chair or automobile, its cost of production is determined by how much labour went into producing it. The secret of profit is this: Labour produces more than it costs to create. Every worker knows, even if he or she can’t explain it, that labour cranks out more value than it consumes.

So the capitalist system is one in which everyone bought and sold. The capitalist buys the elements of production, the worker buys the elements of life. The worker sells his ability to produce, the capitalist sells the production. The producer must consume and the consumer must produce. So long as this interlocked buying and selling is not disrupted, the system works. It works unfairly, but it works.

Every employer understands that the surest way to increase profits is to have the worker produce more for the least amount of wages. Every advance in machinery made the workers more productive and made many of them unemployed. No longer is technology merely labour-displacing. It is now labour-replacing. Suddenly, there appeared in the workplace a producer who does not consume. Social revolution is beginning before our very eyes. Owning no property whatsoever, without employment or resources the throw-away workers — temps and casuals with no benefits, the part-time under-employed, the permanently unemployed, sometimes called the under-class or the precariat by progressive sociologists are now slowly but surely becoming conscious of itself, growing aware that it is the only class in modern society where “each for all and all for each” has any real political meaning, and where “from each according to ability, to each according to need” makes economic sense.

Suffering want in the midst of plenty, and increasingly alienated as being expendable to the emerging economy, the modern worker has no choice but to turn against the system of capitalist relations. If consumers can’t work and earn money. Already some liberals are talking about the universal basic income, a citizens wage, to placate people. Socialists present the revolutionary alternative - the necessaries of life must be distributed without money.

Onward and upward

For many generations, the long list of Utopians, Plato, Thomas More, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen, and Edward Bellamy, and many others have dreamed and planned ideal states of society. As mere speculations, they were disconnected from actual life and fell upon deaf ears. Today, the objective situation has become ever riper and the revolution no longer appears as an abstract theory and a mental projection. The objective conditions, in the shape of scientific knowledge and the technological means of creating material abundance, are already at hand in sufficient measure to do away with the menace of scarcity and deprivation to humanity. Automation and robotics releases productive forces strong enough to provide plenty for all and it destroys the whole accompanying capitalist baggage of ignorance, strife, and misery. But the trouble lies with the subjective factor. The will and determination to make such bountiful planet.

Capitalism has halted the evolution of the human species if it has not actually brought about a process of social regression. Capitalism, with its wars, wage-slavery, slums, famines and pestilence undermines the vitality and health of humanity. Socialism will not confine itself simply to thus developing the material conditions for a better life but will it turn its attention to the fundamental improvement of mankind itself.  Socialism can free humanity from the stultifying effects of the present struggle for sheer existence and opens up before us new horizons.  The socialist re-organisation of the economics of the world upon a rational and planned basis will bring the systematic conservation of the world’s natural resources, the beautification of the world, the liquidation of congested cities and their transformation into the convenience of country, and urban life, now hardly even imaginable.

People will not fear new technology. Anti-technology proponents in the environmentalist movement are the expression of the absurdity and despair of capitalism. Automation is to be seen as the emancipator from the drudgery and poverty of the past. We will have no dread of ensuing industrial crises and unemployment. We will control the machine; not be enslave by it as under capitalism. The creative impulses of people are not stunted by poverty and slavery, and the arts and sciences will not be hamstrung by the profit-making motive. Empowered by a free community and given the maximum cultivation of the intellectual and artistic powers—there will be no need to fear a society robotised by the machines. The unique stamp of individuality and originality will be upon everything. So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last forever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilization will die.

 As William Morris counseled us all:

 “Nothing should be made by man's labour which is not worth making, or which must be made by labour degrading to the makers.”

And that we should:

 “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” 

The battle is class struggle

“…the werewolf-like hunger for surplus labour” Marx

The Socialist Party aims to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social system from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated. In socialist society the means of production have ceased to be capital, that is, to be a means of exploitation. In a socialist society, there are no longer classes with a monopoly of property in the means of production arid classes deprived of property in the means of production. In the conditions of socialism, the means of production are social property. The conversion of the means of production into social property and the emancipation of the workers from all forms of exploitation signify the new socialist system. The present capitalist order is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth, by chaotic waste and instability; and in an age of plenty, it condemns the great mass of the people to poverty and insecurity. Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of financiers and industrialists and to their predatory interests, the majority are habitually sacrificed. When profit is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression in which the people’s normal state of insecurity and hardship is worsened.

Socialism is not some Utopian dream. Socialism will not mean government control. The state serves the interests of the ruling class. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism in the world. Today, there is social production but no social ownership. Socialism will bring social ownership of social production. Only socialism can turn the boundless potential of working people and resources to the creation of a world free from tyranny, greed, poverty and exploitation. By harnessing new technology, automation and robotics we could achieve an era of abundance for all, releasing us all from monotonous toil and drudgery. Capitalism has failed, and so have efforts to reform it. The needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of a socialist society. Under capitalism, labour is a commodity. Workers are used as replaceable parts, extensions of machines—as long as they provide dividends. Employers use their power of ownership to devastate the lives of workers through layoffs, shut-downs, and neglect of health and safety. Unions, despite their courageous efforts, cannot eliminate even the worst abuses of management power.

Capitalism, by its very nature, is a prolific breeder of crime. It is a system of legalised robbery of the working class. The whole process of capitalist business is a swindle and an armed hold-up. As Woody Guthrie sang “Some will rob you with a six-gun/ And some with a fountain pen.” In capitalist society what constitutes a crime and what does not is a purely arbitrary distinction. The capitalists do not recognise any line of demarcation for themselves. They do whatever they can “get away with.” The record of every large fortune and big corporation is smeared not only with the brutal robbery of the workers but also from the bribery of law-makers to plain murder. Wall Street is full of unprosecuted banksters. In a society where each grabs what he can at the expense of the rest naturally, government office offers a wide opportunity for corruption. It is not surprising that in a system of society where the aim is to get rich by any means, crimes of every kind should flourish. Capitalism blames crime upon the individual, instead of upon the bad social conditions which produce it. Hence its treatment of crime is essentially one of punishment. But the failure of its prisons, with their terrible sex-starvation, graft, over-crowding, idleness or forced labour, stupid discipline, ferociously long sentences and general brutality, is overwhelmingly demonstrated by the rapidly mounting numbers of prisoners and the long list of terrible prison riots. Capitalist prisons are actually schools of crime. The American prison system is particularly callous and fruitless. It is characteristic of capitalism to justify all the robbery and misery and terrors of its system by seeking to create the impression that they are caused by basic traits in human nature, or even by “evil acts of satan.” Mankind is pictured as an aggressive animal, and therefore capitalism escapes responsibility. This is all nonsense, of course. Mankind is by nature a gregarious and friendly species. He or she is not violent because he dislikes others of his own species, perhaps differing from him in language, religion, geographical location. His violence has always arisen out of struggles over the very material things of wealth and power. This is true, whether he has been living in a tribal, slave, feudal or capitalist economy. In a society in which there is no private property in industry and land, in which no exploitation of the workers takes place and where plenty is produced for all, there can be no grounds for crime. The interests of a socialist society are fundamentally opposed to the murderous and unnatural struggle of dog-eat-dog capitalism. The overthrow of capitalism will bring about the immediate or eventual solution of many great social problems. Some of these originate in capitalism, and others have plagued the human race for scores of centuries. Among them are war, religious superstition, prostitution, famine, pestilence, crime, poverty, alcoholism, unemployment, illiteracy, race and national chauvinism, the suppression of woman, and every form of slavery and exploitation of one class by another. Only a world socialist system can fully uproot and destroy all these evils.

One of the classical capitalist arguments against socialism is that it would destroy incentive; that is if private property in industry and the right to exploit the workers were abolished the urge for social progress, and even for day-to-day production, would be killed. Why incentive in the socialist society will be even greater is easy to answer. They own everything in it. There is no exploiting class to rob them of the fruits of their toil. They welcome better production methods because they get the full benefit of them. They will have broken the chain of capitalist slavery by building a new world of liberty, prosperity, and happiness for themselves and families. It is equally understandable why the producers in capitalism betray no such enthusiasm in their work. They are robbed of what they produce; for them improvements in production mean wage-cuts and unemployment. Incentive under capitalism is confined practically to the exploiting classes and their hangers-on. It is only with the advent of socialism that real incentive will develop. The apologists of capitalism declare that socialism destroys individualism. But when they speak of individualism they have in mind the right of freely exploiting the workers. They mean that the anti-social individualism of capitalism will go. Inside socialism no one will have the right to exploit another; no longer will a profit-hungry employer be able to shut his factory gates and sentence thousands to starvation; no more will it be possible for a little clique of capitalists and their political henchmen to plunge the world into a blood-bath of war. Such deadly individualism is doomed. In its stead, there will grow a new and better development of the individual. The society of socialism, by freeing people from economic and political slavery will, for the first time in history, give them all an opportunity to fully express their personalities. Theirs will be an individuality growing out of and harmonizing with the interests of all. It will not have the objective of one’s getting rich by robbing the toilers but will develop itself in the direction of achievement in science, culture, sports, etc. Only socialism can provide equality of opportunity, which means a genuine occasion for people to enjoy life and to exercise their latent talents and skills. Life in a socialist society will be varied and interesting. Individual will vie with individual, as never before, to create the useful and the beautiful. Locality will compete with locality in the beauty of their architecture. The world will become a place well worth living in, and what is the most important, the joys of it will not be the monopoly of a privileged ruling class but the heritage of us all.

The Socialist Party does not believe in change by violence. Social and economic transformation can be brought about by political action through elections. The Socialist Party aims at political power in order to put an end to this capitalist domination of our political life. It is a democratic world socialist movement. This wholesale reconstruction will be accomplished by democratising all levels of society, and by making workers’ self- management the touchstone of industrial relations. We call upon all Socialists to unite to secure humanity’s imperiled future. Socialism will unify the world into one great inter-connected, inter-linked and inter-dependent organisation. Global resources will be at the disposition of all the people of the world. There will be none of the barriers erected by capitalism – no borders, no nations. Socialism will have achieved Marx’s famous slogan, “Workers of the World, Unite!”

We want socialism

Up until the early 20th century, socialism commonly meant more or less the same thing as communism - a money-free wage-free state-free commonwealth based on common ownership of the productive forces. William Morris, Kropotkin, Marx and Engels all used socialism in this sense. Even Stalin described a socialist society as a society without buying or selling. The important thing to note is that state ownership for Marx and Engels did not constitute socialism. Lenin's view was quite different. He called socialism a "state capitalist monopoly" run in the interests of the whole people. Marx and Engels' views must not be confused with those of Lenin. Drawing up a detailed blueprint for socialism is premature since the exact forms will depend on the technical conditions and preferences of those who set up and live in socialism but we can broadly define the essential features of socialism.

Socialism is a system in which the means for producing and distributing wealth will be owned by society as a whole. Under capitalism, the land, factories, offices, mines, transport and other instruments of production and distribution are monopolised by a section of society only, who thus form a privileged class. Socialism will end this, for, with the means of life owned in common by the entire community, it will be a class-free society in which the exploitation and oppression of man by man will have been abolished. All human beings will be social equals, freely able to co-operate in running social affairs.

An authentic socialism must be built by the working class in such a way that they are empowered in social production and in control over the society, dismantling the class power of the capitalist class. It means people possessing control over planning about what is produced and the rules for the society. There would need to be the breaking up, the dismantling of the old hierarchical state machine, and its replacement by congresses of delegates controlled by general assemblies at the base.

Socialism is about radical democracy. It would give people democratic control over political as well as economic matters, rather than the system we have now that concentrates the control of these areas into the hands of a small group of people at the top of the socio-economic ladder. It means giving you control over your workplace rather than in the hands of some board of trustees, the stock-holders, or the bosses who are only interested in profit and not your livelihood. The economic basis of socialist society is the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and the eradication of exploitation of man by man.

Abolition of money and the prices and wages that go along with it should be part of the basis of socialism. "To each according to his ability, to each according to his need". NOT "let the workers starve if they can't pay".

Arguments for the retaining of this ridiculous system of distribution and exchange usually rest on some misanthropic claims about humans being the uncivilised greedy hordes who will deplete resources if everything was made free. If socialism will create a more abundant amount of resources, then certainly we won't need such extreme caution. The idea of hoarding goods only seems palpably tempting because of the society we live in. I think that money would just be more control in the form of a bureaucracy. There has to be someone to manage the prices and wages, to manage all that economic activity, to make sure everyone has jobs to pay them so they can buy the stuff on the "market".

Obviously, we cannot have a revolution right now because most people haven’t got an inkling about socialism let alone want it. But assuming they did, the Socialist Party would argue that electoral strategy has these advantages:

1) It is a reasonably good indicator of the strength of the communist movement. Which means we would we know we had enough support to go over to communism

2) It infuses the communist movement with the moral authority to proceed forward to communism. Opponents of communism would be less able to thwart it having been deprived of the moral authority to retain capitalism

3) It provides a convenient coordinating juncture for the changeover to a moneyless economy which by its nature cannot just be phased in

Common Sense Socialism

Socialists should explain their aim and describe the essential characteristics of socialism clearly so that it can be understood by everyone. Understanding socialism should be simple. Socialists believe that society is divided into two great classes by the present form of property-holding and that one of these classes, the wage-earning, the proletariat, is robbed by the other of the fruits of their labour by the capitalist. A multitude of people possess nothing – they are property-less. They can only live by their work, and since, in order to work, they need an expensive equipment, which they have not got, and raw materials and capital, which they have not got, they are forced to put themselves in the hands of another class that owns the means of production, the land, the factories, the machines, the raw material, and possess accumulated capital in the form of money. And naturally, the owning and possessing class takes advantage of this power. All  misery, injustice and disorder, results from the fact that one class monopolises the means of production and thus controls life, itself, and they impose their laws on the subservient class. The thing to do, therefore, is to break down this supremacy of one class. All differences in class must be abolished by transferring the ownership of the means of production and of life, which is to-day a power of exploitation and oppression in the hands of a single class, from that class to the whole of the community. The abusive rule of the minority must be substituted by the universal co-operation of citizens associated with the common ownership of the means of labour. And that is the essential aim of socialism - to transform capitalist property into social property. The object of socialism is to see society transformed, to be changed into something quite different from what it now is. It is a new society that we are working to achieve, not fixing up of our present system into a better, new improved smoother-working form of that same old social and economic order. The essence of socialism is that both the production and the distribution of goods will be carried on for the benefit of the community, instead of as now for the gain of individuals at the expense of the community.

Socialists long ago realised that the problems we face are in fact social problems, not natural ones or the vengeance of gods – social problems because they have their roots in the way our world is organised for production, that is production for profit, not need. If you think seriously about it, you’ll be hard pressed to find any aspect of our lives that is not subordinated to the requirements of profit. This is the case the world over. We are all of us at the mercy of the anarchic laws of capitalism.

Socialists advocate a world without borders or frontiers, social classes or leaders, states or governments or armies. A world devoid of money or wages, exchange, buying or selling. A world where production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit. A world in which people give freely of their abilities and take according to their own self-defined needs from the stockpile of communal wealth. A global system in which each person has a free and democratic say in how their world is run. Socialism, like capitalism, can only exist on a global scale, and that it will only come about when a majority of the world’s people want it and are prepared to organise for it peacefully and democratically, in their own interests and without leaders. No vanguard can establish socialism – “the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself”.

Capitalism cannot be reformed in the interests of the world’s suffering billions because reform does not address the basic contradiction between profit and need. The world’s leaders cannot be depended upon because they can only ever act as the executive of corporate capitalism. The expansion of democracy, while welcome, serves little function if all candidates at election time can only offer variations on the same basic set of policies that keep capitalism in the ascendancy.

Capitalism must be abolished if we as a species are to thrive if the planet is to survive. No amount of reform, however great, will work. Change must be global and irreversible. It must involve all of us. We need to erase borders and frontiers; to abolish states and governments and false concepts of nationalism. We need to abolish our money system and with it buying, selling and exchange. And in place of this, we need to establish a different global social system – a society of where common ownership and true democratic control of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources exists. A society where the everyday things we need to live in comfort are produced and distributed freely and for no other reason than that they are needed – Socialism.

It is now no utopian fantasy to suggest we can live in a world without waste or want or war, in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation. That much is assured. We certainly have the science, the technology and the know-how. All that is missing is the will – the global desire for change that can make that next great historical advance possible; a belief in ourselves as masters of our own destiny; a belief that it is possible to free production from the artificial constraints of profit and to fashion a world in our own interests. And how soon this happens depends on us all – each and every one of us

Socialists hold that because we can adapt our behaviour, the desire to cooperate should not be viewed as irrational. We hold that humans are, “by nature”, cooperative and that we work best when faced with the worst and that our humanity shines through when the odds are stacked against us. There are millions of cases of people donating their blood and organs to complete strangers, sacrificing their lives for others, of people giving countless hours of their free time to charitable work – all of this without financial incentive.

Socialists believe the only way forward lies in abolishing the money/wages/profit system that we know as capitalism and establishing a world socialist society or, in other words, a world of free access to the benefits of civilisation. Only then can we gain real control over our world and reassert control over our own destiny. Only then can we produce without polluting our world and only then can we enjoy a world in which there is no waste or want or war.

Scientific socialism

Socialists do not only want to interpret the world; they want to change it for the better.

In Capital, Marx developed the labour theory of value which proved “…the value of every commodity is determined by the quantity of socially necessary labour time spent in its production.” From this, Marx revealed the creation of surplus value as the basis of capitalist exploitation of workers. “The worker spends one part of the day covering the cost of maintaining himself and his family (wages), while the other part of the day the worker toils without remuneration, creating for the capitalist surplus value, the source of profit, the source of wealth of the capitalist class. “By destroying small scale production, capital leads to an increase in productivity of labour and to the creation of a monopoly position for the associations of big capitalists. Production itself becomes more and more social – hundreds of thousands and millions of workers become bound together in a systematic economic organism – but the product the collective labour is appropriated by a handful of capitalists. The anarchy of production grows, as do crises, the furious chase after markets and the insecurity of existence of the mass of the population.”

Socialism is scientific when compared to the visionary schemes of the earlier utopians. Scientific socialism differs greatly from the earlier visions of the utopian socialists such as Saint-Simon, Fourier and Robert Owen, who saw socialism mainly in terms of reforms and moral re-education to make capitalism more “humane”. It is scientific because it recognises the reality of class struggle as the main agent for change in society, as opposed to the concept of just changing individual attitudes. Marx identified the working class as the class created by capitalism, the class with “nothing to lose but their chains”, the class with the historical mission to liberate itself and all humanity from the tyranny of class rule forever. Socialists champion the cause of the working class for the abolition of classes and class society.

Marx developed the theory of Materialist Conception of History to explain the process of society change – the rise and fall of social systems, of different social classes, of political and religious ideas. Defining the economic base as the cause of social development and change does not do away with the role of human ideas leading to change, but it certainly does condition the scope and timing of these ideas. “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” (Marx 18th. Brumaire of Louis Napoleon 1852)

In other words, ideas don’t just fall from the skies. 

Marx defined socialism as a class-free and therefore state-free society, in which all people contributed to the common good, and in return received all their social needs; “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” (K. Marx Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875)

Socialism should not be confused with government-operated industries that function as modern capitalist economies. These exist as a means for the capitalists, as a class, to avoid the huge cost of providing all the capital for the construction and maintenance of infrastructure such as roads, railways, seaports, power grids, etc. Nor do they wish to pay for services considered unprofitable, such as education and medical facilities in working class suburbs, emergency services, armed forces, and so on. No, the whole of the capitalist class is forced to shoulder the burden for these things through taxation and government charges.

Socialism is a world society based on human cooperation without the divisions of class or nation. Reformism is based on acceptance of the permanence of capitalism. It is a major obstacle in the way of  socialism. The Socialist Party recognises the workers’ willingness to struggle to maintain and sometimes even improve basic wages and working conditions, as well as to protect hard-won democratic rights. This attitude is summed up in the slogan, “If you don’t fight, you lose!”

Trade union activities are only concerned with the day to day issues of wages and conditions. Reformism is reduced to half-hearted deals between the pro-capitalist parties and minor legislative changes designed to alleviate immediate problems. The Socialist Party differs from other political parties in that it completely wants to change the society’s economic organisation and advance the social emancipation of the working class. The imperfections of today’s society are the capitalist way of production. The interests of the working class are the same in every country with capitalism. With the development of world trade and the production for the world market will the position of the working class in one country become dependent on the positions in all other countries. The emancipation of the working class is thus a project, in which every people of the world must take part. With this the Socialist Party declare themselves being a part of the socialist movement in all countries. The most fundamental problem for the Socialist Party concerning the many workers’ organisations is that what they are pursuing is not socialism. What do people have to show for it? Have there been reforms? In many cases, yes – even significant ones like large-scale social welfare benefits. Has exploitation been ended, the enrichment of a few on the labour of the many? Hardly. Poverty? No. Is the economy planned to benefit the people? Of course not. Have workers gained self-management of their work-place. No. What is more, and this is crucial, all the workers’ organisations do not aspire to this! They are content with the continuance of class divisions and the dominance of the capitalists. Reformists do not seek to challenge the existing structures.

There is no longer an excuse for a hungry person. All the materials and all the forces are at hand and easily available for the production of all things needed to provide food, clothing and shelter for every man, woman and child, thus putting an end to the poverty and misery. But these materials and forces must be released from private ownership and control, to be socialised and democratised, and set into  motion for the common good of all instead of the private profit of the few. A capitalist world can never be a free world and a society based on division, strife and hatred cannot stand except by means of coercion and force.

Pollution or Profit - Cause And Effect

On September 27 The World Health Organization (WHO) said in a new report that 92 per cent of people worldwide live in areas with excessive air pollution, contributing to problems like strokes, heart disease and lung cancer. A similar report in May said one in nine deaths worldwide is linked to indoor and outdoor pollution. The latter is estimated to kill 3 million people per year. There is no evidence that face masks help.

 It's also evident to anyone that as long as they can make a profit capitalists don't care about anyone or anything else which is a good reason to strip them of their property ownership of the means of life. 

John Ayers.

Peace, Plenty and Prosperity

We want socialism. We want the land and the means of production and distribution held in common. We want a society free of the State—a society without rulers and ruled. We want political institutions created out of free association and not coercion. We want autonomy and self-government for all peoples and for all people. We want local, regional and global solidarity and mutual aid. We want the means of development provided to all. We want a society free of classes.

We are opposed to capitalism. The economic system based on private property and production for a profit literally creates poverty by depriving the poor of the means of subsistence. The poor are then exploited by the rich as a source of cheap labour. As long as there is capitalism, there will be poverty, misery, and exploitation.

We are opposed to war. Wars are fought to expand empires and to protect the interests of the rich in one country. Those who suffer and die are the poor in all countries involved. Nevertheless, we are not pacifists.

We are opposed to borders. Borders are artificial barriers that divide us and facilitate our exploitation. They allow the rich and their investments to pass easily while impeding the free movement of people. Borders allow humans to be labeled “illegal” and exploited as cheap labour.

The problems that make living so difficult today—problems of poverty, crime, unemployment, air and water pollution, and much more—have been with us for a very long time. These problems exist in varying degrees in every country in the world. Every politician who has stood for election has promised to do something to alleviate or eliminate these evils. Despite the promises, these problems have not only remained but often have gotten worse.  Recall these promises and ask yourself, has the general quality of your life improved or deteriorated? The truth is that these social ill evils are still present. In fact, conditions have gone right on getting worse and worse. Despite the best of intentions, no politician can prevent conditions for workers from worsening. Politicians persist in dealing with effects and ignoring the cause.

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 given the finest care possible. All this will be done without depriving anyone of a fair and more than adequate share. It will not be charity but the rightful share of every human being in the affluent socialist society. In the socialist abundance and cooperation, 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 anyone 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. In a socialist society, there can be no poverty or involuntary unemployment. The more producers, the better for all. Technological improvements 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 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 all that we produce. 

 Socialism is a society of peace, plenty, and universal freedom.

Duped and Doped

Socialism is shared abundance. We've got the abundance - we just have to transform the way we distribute it.

Capital is simply money and commodities assigned to create a profit and be reinvested. Profit is made by the "magical" addition of surplus value to the value inherent in the product. The "added value," the profit, is produced by workers. And this capital is born to expand or die. The value of a commodity comes from the labor invested in it, including the labor that manufactured the machinery and extracted the raw materials used to create the item. And the boss' profits do not come from his genius or his capital investment or his mark-up, but from the value created by labor - specifically, surplus-value. Surplus value derives from unpaid wages. The worker is never paid for the value of the product, only for the value of her or his labor time, which is considerably less, and which meanders widely depending upon the historical, cultural and social conditions of a country. Labor-power is miraculous. You get more out of it than you put in. Workers produce a commodity which has more value than what they get in wages to keep them functioning. This differential is surplus value, which is the source of capital. The secret of value, the labor theory of value, was unearthed by the classical economists and by Marx is what the money barons fear and hate. It is the secret that will set the world free. People will learn how to control the supposedly sacred, eternal, and inscrutable method of production and distribution that now controls us. Socialists will produce for use according to a reasonable plan and without a thought for the odious notion of profit. And with no insatiable parasitic class to maintain, socialist society will produce abundance for all. That's a fact. The global human family will arrange its standard of living as easily as affluent families do today.

It was Marx who pointed out the truly anarchistic nature of modern industrial capitalism - an irrational, disorganized hodge-podge operation that enormously rewards price-gougers, crooks, banksters, con artists, gamblers, speculators, stock manipulators, and all manner of corruption. It's a crazy and ruthless economy that survives by inflicting anguish on untold billions. Socialists will produce for use according to a reasonable plan and without a thought for the odious notion of profit. And with no insatiable parasitic class to maintain, socialist society will produce abundance for all, the global human family.

Proponents of socialism are bombarded with the objection that cooperative and mutually supportive relations among people are a fantasy and that homo sapiens are intrinsically individualistic, competitive, and egotistical. They tell us it's just the way we're genetically programmed. Survival of the fittest and all that. This knee-jerk response from apparently thoughtful folk is nonsense. The overwhelming historical evidence about our true nature amounts to an incredible chronicle of humankind's endless struggle to make life better - for everyone. Early humans lived in clans in which everybody contributed to the group welfare. The norm was the collective ethic. Things changed because different kinds of economic and social organisation create different kinds of people. Today, in a system designed to produce profits for the few at the expense of the many, we compete with each other for money, jobs, education, love, food, a place to live, recognition, self-esteem, everything. The poor rarely understand that they lack the basics because of the way capitalism works. They think they suffer because other cultures, races, religions and countries deprive them of what is rightfully theirs. So they resort to nationalism, patriotism, racism and xenophobia – all substitutes for revolutionary action on a global scale to remove the root cause of all the terrible division and in-fighting. The "we" is replaced by the "me".  For sure everybody loves to win on merit talent. But few like to beat others by cheating and unfair advantage. Nobody wants to degrade and impoverish millions in order to be a success.

All the evils - war, pestilence, poverty, religious bigotry, class and caste divisions are produced by a social machine that runs on exploitation. Capitalism poisons human ‘nature’.  Given the proper social system and access to the technology, we can write our own destinies. A shared and planned socialist world provides the material pre-conditions that impel us to do this.

Why have people not united and rebelled to make change?  Many don’t think it’s possible. Many have no clear image of a goal, of a different kind of social structure. Many are divided by fierce hatreds. Ruling classes have always promoted disunity in order to divide and conquer (through racism, sexism, homophobia, religious bigotry and caste distinctions). Many are demoralised, despairing or just plain exhausted from the sheer effort of trying to survive. It takes energy and time for thinking and planning to achieve change. Many are bought off with few crumbs flung to the hungry to keep them pacified with, as John Lennon sang, “Keep you doped with religion, and sex, and T.V., And you think you're so clever and classless and free”. Fellow-workers desperately need to be liberated from their self-imposed chains.

It remarkable that we have actually found the ways and means to overcome all these hurdles and achieved solidarity to engage in struggles against the established order.  

Let Technology Liberate Us

 Socialists can bring many important insights to the questions and concerns raised by the environment issue of climate change and global warming. Only in a socialist society democratically controlled by workers will it be possible to rationally assess how energy can be safely produced and harnessed. The primary problem with any technology under capitalism—even nuclear technology, which admittedly poses special problems—is not that it is inherently safe or unsafe, but rather that it is controlled by a ruling-class minority which manipulates technology to serve its narrow economic interests. The task of socialists is to consistently emphasise the need to free all technology from the fetters of capitalist productive relations. Socialists seek to transform society into one based on new social relationships that will allow the majority to become the master of technology, rather than vice versa. Socialist revolution will clearly sound the death knell of the profit-motive and militarism. To socialism falls the task of turning technology from the horror it currently is, into the benefactor of an emancipated working class. In a socialist society, workers could enjoy a material abundance without in any way compromising their health and safety or the well-being of the planet.

In industrialising the world to accumulate profit, the capitalist system carries in its wake environmental degradation and destruction. Scientists explain that the world will need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions but change will require restructuring the world’s energy and transportation systems. Such changes require massive investment and represent a threat to existing capitalist industries, their growth and profits. Capitalism requires profit and economic growth to survive. Capitalists want their profits now. The future has little meaning in a profit-driven society. Environmental reforms are not the answer. Capitalism has eroded even those feeble efforts of the past. The capitalist class and its government will never be able to solve the environmental crisis. They and their system are the problems. Capitalist-class rule over the economy explains why government regulation is so ineffective: under capitalism, the government itself is essentially a tool of the capitalist class. Politicians may be elected “democratically,” but because they are financed, supported and decisively influenced by the economic power of the capitalist class.

Reformists expect the outmoded, profit-motivated, competitive and class-divided capitalist system that has created the mess it has got us into, to get us out of it. If there are to be any changes they expect them to be made within the framework of the existing capitalist system. Of course, none of these intended cures ever contain a word about the great disparity between the tremendous quantities of wealth enjoyed by the idle exploiters, the tiny capitalist class that owns the means of life, and the hand-to-mouth existence of tens of millions of workers. Not a word will ever be said about the waste and destruction of raw materials and natural resources by the anarchy of capitalist production—its planless, senseless duplication of effort in a mad, competitive drive by each capitalist to “capture” the market—or the bulk of it—for himself. Never a word mentioned about the manner in which every corporation is trying to exploit the existing circumstances to destroy its competition and entrench itself more solidly as one of the few that control the overwhelming proportion of the nation’s resources and wealth. Silence is maintained about the incredible waste and destruction, not only of finite resources but of human life itself, through capitalist wars and continuous preparations for ever more destructive wars.

The issue confronting the workers is not the environmental crisis that threatens to grow worse. The real issue is, shall we continue to tinker with those effects or shall we get rid of their cause—the capitalist system and replace it with socialism—a system of social ownership, democratic management and planned production for use. The issue, literally, is survival. The harm and damage already done to all of us and to our environment by capitalism’s existence long past its progressive evolutionary stage are beyond exact calculation. If it is not abolished and replaced with a viable socialist cooperative commonwealth by the politically and industrially organised working class, it will destroy itself. And there is the distinct possibility that it may destroy humanity and the world in the process. It need not happen if all who understand the need for a socialist reconstruction of society were to join with us to appeal to our brothers and sisters, to organise their latent political and industrial might as a class to accomplish the revolutionary change to socialism and thus guarantee the future safety and well-being of the human race. As the many social problems of capitalism increasingly threaten the lives of workers, it becomes more and more imperative that they recognise the need to organise politically and economically to take control of the economy, abolish class-divided capitalism and administer production through their own democratic bodies.

The Socialist Party urges our fellow workers to organise to abolish capitalism and institute socialist production for use. Workers must use their political power and integrate into one movement with the goal of building a new society with completely different motives for production—human needs and wants instead of profit—and to organise their own political party to challenge the capitalists, express their mandate for change at the ballot box and dismantle the state altogether.

The new society must be one in which society itself, not a wealthy few, would commonly own the industries and transportation, and the workers themselves would control them democratically through their own organisations based in the workplaces. In such a society, the workers themselves would make decisions governing the economy, electing representatives to industrial councils and to a workers’ congress representing all the industries that would administer the economy. Such a society—an industrial democracy and cooperative commonwealth —is what is needed to solve the environmental crisis. By placing the economic decision-making power in the hands of the workers, by eliminating capitalist control and the profit motive in favour of a system in which workers produce to meet their own needs and wants, the necessary resources and labour could be devoted to halting global warming, employing the renewable resources we now have available and develop new ones, and clean up the damage already done. It is up to the majority of people who actually produce society’s goods and services and daily operate its industries, to end this crisis.

People Can Build a Better World

The Socialist Party struggles for the overthrow of capitalism and for a socialist society in which the state has been replaced by the self-organisation and self-administration of the people and their communities and work-places where the wages system has been abolished, where class divisions have been overcome, and where production is carried on cooperatively and democratically for social use, in the tradition of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. This can only be instituted through the revolutionary political and economic activity of the working class. Few can deny that the world today is in upheaval and chaos throughout the world. The Socialist Party has repeatedly demonstrated that the capitalist system does not and cannot work in the interests of the majority. It is a social system in which society is divided into two classes—a capitalist class and a working class. The capitalist class consists of a tiny minority—the wealthy few who own and control the instruments of production and distribution. The working class consists of the vast majority who own no productive property and must, therefore, seek to work for the class that owns and controls the means of life in order to survive. The relationship between the two classes forms the basis for an economic tyranny under which the workers as a class are robbed of the major portion of the social wealth that they produce.

The defenders of this economic dictatorship never tire of declaring it the “best of all possible systems.” Yet, today, after decades of a host of reform efforts, capitalism continues to present an obscene social picture. Millions who need and want jobs are unemployed. Others are under-employed, working only part-time or temporary jobs though they need and want full-time work. Billions aren’t earning enough to maintain a decent standard of living for themselves and their families despite the fact that they are working. Thanks to capitalism’s exploitation of workers poverty continue to grow. The malignant cancers of nationalism and racism are pervasive. The educational the health care system, despite improvement campaigns for years, still fails to meet the needs of hundreds of millions. Widespread damage and destruction of our environment are worsening. Capitalism is increasingly incompatible with freedom and democracy. People are losing their democratic rights and civil liberties at an alarming and accelerating pace. Fundamental freedoms are being eroded and taken away. Even the foregoing fails to give a full depiction of the plague of social and economic problems modern-day capitalism is inflicting on society. To save capitalism, its ruling class must destroy freedom and democracy. To save freedom and democracy, the capitalist system, the system of economic despotism, must be destroyed. Social democracy alone can fully guarantee lasting freedom. Against this irrational system, the Socialist Party raises its voice in protest and condemnation. We declare our present society is outmoded and must be replaced by a new social system. It must be one in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. It must be socialism.

Getting something for nothing is what capitalism is all about. That is what capitalists do best. Indeed, that is all they do. Capitalists do not earn, or create, or build anything. They live by profiting from the work done by others. They live off the labor of the working class. The names these two classes bear tell the story. Workers work and capitalists capitalise on the work that workers do. Capitalism exists and can only exist as a system of exploitation. Capitalists are the exploiters and workers are the exploited. When wages are down, profits are up. Increased profits come from the intensified exploitation of labour. Capitalism condemns millions to lives of poverty and despair just to enhance the worthless lives of a few. It is not the welfare claimants or the scroungers on the dole who bleed you. It is the capitalist vampire that is sucking the blood out of you.

Working people are the victims of an array of absurd contradictions. Basic needs like housing remain unmet while builders and construction workers remain idle. Commodities that could satisfy these needs sit in warehouses or storage lots, inaccessible to the working people who need but can’t buy them. Billions of dollars are being spent on weapons and arms while schools, mass transport systems, and other social services are being curtailed or eliminated for “lack of funds.” People are being told that we demand too much …too much improvement in air quality, too much job safety, too much retirement protection, too much health care, too much racial equality, too much housing, too much pay. Governments discarding their past empty promises that capitalism would provide “more,” and, instead, offer us less. Gone are the days of expansive government spending in the areas of social services and job creation. Austerity and cut-backs are, instead, the order of the day. Less pay for workers, fewer job benefits, less spending for job safety, less investment for pollution control, less spending for education, mass transit, and social services means a lot more in profits for the capitalist owners of industry. Even when a capitalist economy is relatively healthy and working “well”, the needs of workers are never met. This is so because the capitalist economy does not operate to meet workers’ needs. It operates for capitalist profit. That profit is generated through the exploitation of working people—that is, by paying workers’ wages that amount to only a fraction of the wealth they collectively produce.

In socialism, the workers’ condition would be the reverse of what it is today. Production would be for social use instead of for private profit. Through delegates democratically elected they would administer the neighbourhoods and industries and make all economic decisions. Resources would be allocated and production would be carried out on the basis of social needs and wants. A socialist economy would thereby free society of the limitations now imposed by capitalism. Such a society will not, of course, come into existence by itself. Nor will it come about if workers seek by turning to the Democrats, who also represent capitalist-class interests. If the working-class majority is to become masters of the nation’s economic forces, rather than its victims, workers must organise to wrest control from the capitalist class and to lay the foundation for a socialist society. Specifically, working people must break with the political parties of the capitalist class and organise politically around their common class interests.

Capitalism Must Be Abolished

The Socialist Party lays great stress on the need for the working class to understand what socialism is and the role the people must play in establishing it. In fact, promoting an understanding among workers of both what capitalism is and what socialism is and convincing them of the need for their explicit rejection of the former in favour of the latter is the main content of the Socialist Party’s political activity. Despite the poverty and misery afflicting billions of workers and their families, a world of peace, liberty, security, health and abundance remains within our grasp. The potential to create such a socialist society exists. However, that potential can be achieved only if workers act to gain control of their own lives by organising for socialism. The Socialist Party’s task is to convince workers of those facts. To do so effectively, it requires the conscious and active involvement of its members in widespread agitational and educational activities among workers. A political party that presumes to speak and work for a revolutionary socialist reconstruction of our society must have members who are convinced of the correctness and timeliness of that objective; who are dedicated to that cause; and who are willing to work for it. Accordingly, among the fundamental requirements for membership in the Socialist Party are the recognition and acknowledgement of the existence of the class struggle, a perceptive understanding of its social, political and economic implications, and a meaningful commitment to support the workers in that struggle. Aside from that, the Socialist Party’s membership requirements and admission policies, while specific in several respects, are minimal.

The Socialist Party’s goal is a class-free society based on common ownership and control of the industries and services, to be administered in the interests of all society. This revolutionary change from capitalism to socialism can only be achieved through the class-conscious action of the working class itself. The Socialist Party is the political party of the working class because it is the sole protagonist of the principles that the working class must adopt if it is ever to achieve its complete emancipation from wage slavery and, at the same time, save society from catastrophe. The Socialist Party is the only organisation demanding the abolition of capitalism and advocating the socialist reconstruction of society. The Socialist Party purpose is to serve and advance the interests of the working class. The Party has no meaning, no reason for existence outside that fact. As such a party, the Socialist Party embodies a Declaration of Principles that it is convinced fellow-workers must adopt if they are to emancipate themselves from wage slavery and the related economic and social horrors to which the present social system—capitalism— subjects them and their families. the Socialist Party is a working-class revolutionary party, a class-struggle party, an organisation of individuals who have come to a common understanding and conclusion regarding the cause and cure of our present society’s persistent social problems and have freely joined together for the common purpose of convincing our class—the working class—of the need to organise their latent political and economic powers to accomplish a socialist reconstruction of society. To pursue that objective in an effective manner, they have adopted a set of organisational policies and principles and agreed to be bound by a collective discipline. We not only want socialism for our class and for humanity, we also seek it for our families and for ourselves.

Deprived of ownership of land and the tools of production with which to work the lives, liberty and the fate of the workers are in the hands of the class that own those essentials for work and production. Ownership of the means of life is today held by a tiny minority in society, the capitalist class, a system of economic despotism that is essentially destructive of the happiness of the majority. Against such a system the Socialist Party raises the banner of revolution and demands the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class. While supporting the working class in its day-to-day battles with the capitalist class, at every appropriate opportunity we also insist upon the urgent need for workers to organise for a revolutionary change to socialism.

It should also be clear that the Socialist Party rejects the concept that socialism can be established by “socialist” politicians taking control of and operating any or all of the political state apparatus, or by gradually reforming capitalism. It should be equally clear that the Socialist Party just as firmly rejects the Leninist/Trotskyist concept that socialism can be established by a “vanguard party” of elite revolutionaries substituting itself and its own political state apparatus for the capitalist class and the capitalist state apparatus. It should be clear that the Socialist Party’s concept of socialism had nothing in common with the so-called “socialism” that was once proclaimed to exist in various parts of the world. The fact is that no nation in the world today is a socialist nation. That is to say, there is no nation in the world where society itself owns the economy and where the workers control and administer it in the collective interest. That to accomplish the socialist goal the worker majority must form its own political party to advocate the change from capitalism to socialism; to articulate the need for workers to organise into a class-wide economic organisation; to challenge the political power of the ruling class; and, finally, to capture the existing state machinery in order to dismantle it.  Neither nationalisation, The Welfare State, kibbutz-style communal living, cooperatives, party-run bureaucracies nor reforms are socialism or even stepping stones on the path towards socialism. Our understanding that socialism means the elimination of the wages system, the elimination of economic or social classes, the elimination of the state, the complete abolition of capitalist economic relations, and the transfer of all social power—political and economic—to the workers.

Socialism - Leisure and Pleasure in Ample Measure

According to the basic principles of socialism, a "workers' state" is a contradiction. The socialist’s sole mission is the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by a free, classless society without any form of a state. The natural resources and the means of production now in the hands of the few and which are the source of their economic and political power must be taken from them to become social property owned in common by all. The grip of the employing class by means of their ownership and control of the means of life, their domination of government to maintain their power to rob and rule can, must, and will be broken. Since there is no difficulty whatsoever in creating wealth far in excess of our requirements, with the application of labour-saving technology the motto, “From each according to ability, to each according to needs,” has ceased to be utopian and has become a reality. The problems of society no longer need be affected in any way by money values. Work, after all possible amelioration, that remains dangerous or difficult will be shared by all of the community who are fit, instead of being relegated to a class. Leisure where there is no more toil means, not idleness, but an agreeable exercise of mind and body. The standard of life for each and all will be far higher than anything ever yet attained or suggested. The best possible conditions will be so obviously to the general benefit that the elevation of the level of society will be the aim of each individual as of the whole community. Nearly all crime are property crimes. Remove the incentive and the crimes will vanish.

The aspiration for socialism grows within the working-class movement. Our every step will be in the direction of the co-operative commonwealth. If people go hungry it is a not a result of the shortage of food, but of its distribution. The problem for humanity human numbers, is how existing society determines the allocation of the planet’s wealth. This world of ours can easily sustain twice its present population if our technology is deployed to meet real human needs, rather than its subordination to the blind accumulation of capital. Social reorganisation is the work we are called upon to begin and carry out.

Some people believe that the struggle over ideas is a waste of time, that this is a harmful intellectual exercise. They argue that what really counts is building the mass movement and not debates carried on with “abstract” Marxists that will only isolate us from the masses as dogmatists or sectarians. The failure of capitalism to meet the needs of all society creates questioning, dissent, and socialists. Socialism, therefore, is not dependent on the small number politically active in the Socialist Party. There is no inevitability about the establishment of socialism but capitalism can never be made to work in the interest of the working class. Without socialists, there can be no socialist political organisation and no socialism. There are no intellectuals in the Socialist Party, only better informed men and women who share the same class interests. The case for Socialism against capitalism is a reasonable case directed at the working class majority of the world who do not own the means of production. Time and time again socialists come against a wall of political ignorance in the form of ruling class ideas like religion and nationalism.

Nationalism gives the false idea that workers have an interest in the country they live in. They believe it is “their” country, and are periodically willing to kill and be killed in its wars.

Nationalism is a false set of ideas and beliefs. And for a number of reasons. The working class does not own trade routes, they do not own means of production, they do not have spheres of influence to control and they do not have any raw resources to protect. As Marx pointed out the working class has no country. The working class is made up of men and women throughout the world who do not own the means of production. Workers are forced into employment to sell their ability to work for a wage or salary. Workers in India, Pakistan, and China, for example, have identical class interests to workers in France, the US and Britain. Workers share the same class problems of class exploitation no matter where they live in the world. A world working class faces a world capitalist class over the ownership and control of the means of production. Under capitalism, workers have to compete for jobs, housing, and other necessary goods. It is easy to blame other workers for particular social problems like loss of jobs and poor housing but it is wrong and only benefits the capitalist class. Immigrants, economic migrants, workers in foreign countries belong to the same exploited class and all are potential socialists. In fact, workers faced a shortage of housing and hospitals before large-scale immigration; these social problems have their root in capitalism and exist all over the world, whether a country loses workers as emigrants or accepts them as workers.

Religion is an intellectual poison. It is degrading and infantile to worship an abstraction created by men and women to further class control. Religion gives the false impression that there is a better world after death. In reality, workers should be looking to changing society to create a better world on Earth. Materialism means that Gods, Angels, all spiritual manifestation and anything “beyond nature” are myths. You cannot be a Socialist and hold religious ideas. To hold religious ideas is mental slavery. Socialists reject leaderships of all kinds whether leaders are politicians or priests. Socialism can only be established by a politically conscious working class. Spiritual leadership is just as debilitating as political leadership. A socialist is not a person on their knees to God, Allah, Buddha or Krishna. A Socialist thinks and acts in their own interest. When workers understand and desire Socialism they will act in their own interests and will not need leaders to tell them how to think and what to do. This includes religious leaders. Religion supports capitalism, as it has supported other property societies. Religion can either offer reaction or reform, but not socialist revolution. Religion is conservative because it encourages workers, who are oppressed and exploited, to suffer social problems while placing their faith in heaven. This is a confusing doctrine because it diverts workers’ attention away from gaining the necessary understanding and knowledge to establish socialism.

Scotland and Robotics

Automation may threaten 88,000 (one in every six jobs) Scottish public sector jobs within 14 years, says report.

Business advisory firm Deloitte said administrative and operative roles were at greatest risk.

Much has been made in the past that robots would create more leisure time for society in general but outside of the automotive industry, little of this has come to fruition. Unfortunately, in this economic system, the benefits of automation accrue to the profits of the employing class at the expense of the laid-off workers rather than it being an asset to society as a labour-saving device that would lessen the work-load of all.

For humanity's sake, the future is socialism

Socialism is the only alternative system of society that can meet the essential needs of the people and humanity as a whole, provide the basis for ending all forms of exploitation and oppression. Billions lack adequate nutrition, sanitation, healthcare and education. The world faces a catastrophic environmental crisis. Wars continue to devastate the lives of millions. The Socialist Party hold capitalism responsible, for taking the planet and its peoples towards the edge of the abyss. Capitalism denotes the type of society in which the few who own industry and commerce shape the economic, social, cultural and political developments and uses its power to extract surplus value from the working class. The capitalists, who own the means of production (industrial and commercial plant and machinery, land, energy and raw materials, etc.), pay workers a wage in return for their labour power. But human beings have the capacity to produce more value through their labour than the value of the wage they need to buy life’s essential commodities. This ‘surplus’ value accrues to the employer when the products of that labour are sold as commodities at normal market prices. It is the source of capitalist profit, which funds share dividends, loan interest, commercial rent, expanded investment, etc. The extraction of surplus value is the essence of capitalist exploitation. In their drive to maximise market share and profit, capitalist employers fight to raise productivity and hold down wages. The same drive also takes place in the public sector in order to minimise taxation of private sector profits and wages. Here is the primary economic basis for the class struggle: between the monopoly capitalists and their state striving to maximise profit on the one side, and the whole working class striving to maximise wages and improve living standards on the other.

Capitalists invest where they can get the biggest profits. In its quest for maximum profit, capitalism threatens humanity. Our planet must be rescued before it deteriorates beyond repair. The productive technology which exists could, if planned and rationally utilised, lift everyone out of hunger, poverty, sickness and ignorance. It could meet human needs and ensure sufficient food, nutrition, healthcare and education for all rather than maximising capitalist profit. For as long as capitalist ownership of the economy exists, whether or not it is the ‘free market’ or state-operated, it will produce crises, destruction, inequality and waste on an enormous scale. Capitalism’s drive to maximise profit leads it to turn every area of human need – food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, education, leisure, even sex – into a market for the production and sale of commodities for profit. However, when sufficient profit cannot be realised, even the products and services to meet society’s most vital needs will not be produced. Capitalist competition invariably means unnecessary whole economic sectors are created that perform little or no useful function in society, except to promote the interests of and, ultimately, to transfer income to it from the working class - advertising, property and management consultancy. Pointless and wasteful competition and duplication would be eliminated with socialism. The development and deployment of society’s productive forces would be planned in order to meet people’s real needs and aspirations. Jobs, houses and vital useful goods and services would be created as the primary purpose of planning and production, not as the incidental consequence of maximising profits for shareholders. Social ownership of economic property puts an end to the exploitation of the working class, whereby surplus labour is performed for the benefit of the capitalist class.

The aim of the Socialist Party is to replace capitalism with socialism. The liberation of the working class can only be achieved by the action of the working class and the people themselves. The emancipation of the people cannot be bestowed from outside or above - it has to be fought for and won by the overwhelming majority of the population. Socialism will have to be built with the maximum participation of people at every level. Workers must have real powers in workplace decision making. It will be essential that new forms of popular participation and direct democracy arise in the workplace, localities, and regions.

With the end of private ownership and the exchange economy, wages and money lose their usefulness, as more of life’s essentials become free. Of course, the production, distribution and deployment of society’s economic output will have to be planned to ensure that needs are met and the environment and eco-system are safeguarded. Without exploitative capitalists and landowners, the division of society into antagonistic social classes will cease to have any material basis. In place of class conflict and social discrimination, social cooperation and equality will predominate. As the amount of human labour required to produce society’s needs decreases, every citizen will have the time and facilities to develop her or his skills and talents to the full. The basis for many social problems and tensions will be removed, while resources of every kind are devoted to solving or alleviating individual problems and incapacities. The Socialist Party does not accept that such a society is impossible to achieve or that there is a ‘human nature’ too negative to allow the development of socialism. People’s thoughts and behaviour have been shaped by their existence in class-divided societies. Even so, human beings have always displayed an enormous capacity for compassion, cooperation, courage, and commitment to the creation of fairer and more just human societies. There is no reason why people should not comprehend that we share this Earth in common, that we are interdependent, that the individual good of the vast majority requires the collective good and that cooperation and unity are better than conflict and division. It is capitalism that seeks to make a virtue of greed, egoism, exploitation and inequality while claiming that these are the ruling characteristics of ‘human nature’. It is capitalism that creates so much misery, destroys so many lives and now threatens the very future of human existence on this planet. In a socialist society, the social relations between people will be collective care and concern for every individual and for the full, all-round development of the human personality. For the sake of humanity, the future is socialism.