The Socialist Party and the Workers' Future

“All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.” - Communist Manifesto

Socialism at its core does not depend on theory or programmes but is based on real life. Socialism expresses the desire for a free, non-governed society, which offers freedom, equality and solidarity for its members. Our oppressors do their best to distort the ideal of socialism. The idea of socialism is bound up with mankind's awareness of the suppurating sore of injustice in capitalist society. Capitalism is for the preservation of the Master/Slave relationship. It is the lash of hunger which compels the poor to submit. In order to live we MUST SELL OURSELVES every day and hour. The greed for wealth is closely associated with the greed for power. Wealth is not only a generator of more wealth, it is also a political power. The goal of a world in which the working class organises and controls its own destiny can only be achieved through the combined development of socialism in individual nations. Socialism cannot be imposed from outside – it can only be made by, and for, the working class. Working class unity makes it impossible for the capitalists to go on in the old way of divide and rule. Working class unity enables us to combine our tactics for defending our class with the strategy of liberating our class. Working class unity is revolutionary.

The socialist movement will not advance significantly until it regains the initiative and takes the offensive against capitalism and all its agents. What is needed is not a propaganda device or trick, but a formulation of the issue as it really stands; and, indeed, as it has always stood with real socialists ever since the modern movement was first proclaimed. Our task, as socialists living and fighting in this day and hour, is simply to restate what socialism means. This restatement of basic aims and principles cannot wait; it is, in fact, the burning necessity of the hour. There is no room for misunderstanding among us as to what such a restatement of our position means and requires. It requires a clean break with all the distortions of the real meaning of socialism. A return to the original formulations and definitions, the authentic socialist movement, as it was previously conceived Nothing short of this will do.

Marx and Engels never taught that nationalisation signified the establishment of socialism. That’s not stated by Marx and Engels anywhere. Still less could they have imagined the monstrous idea that socialism would be without freedom and without equality, controlled by a ruthless police-state. Marxists defined socialism as a class-free society—with abundance and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state. Capitalism under any kind of government, is a system of minority rule, and the principal beneficiaries of capitalist democracy are the small minority of exploiting capitalists; scarcely less so than the slave-owners of ancient times were the actual rulers and the real beneficiaries of the Athenian democracy. To be sure, the workers have a right to vote periodically for one of two sets of candidates selected for them by the two capitalist parties. And they can exercise the right of free speech and free media. But this formal right of free speech and free media is outweighed rather heavily by the inconvenient circumstance that the small capitalist minority happens to enjoy a complete monopoly of ownership and control of all the press, and of television and radio, and of all other means of communication and information. We who oppose the capitalist regime have a right to nominate our own candidates. That is easier said than done. But even so, with all that, a little democracy is better than none. We socialists have never denied that. After the experiences of fascism and of military and police dictatorships in many parts of the world, we have all the more reason to value every democratic provision for the protection of human rights; to fight for more democracy, not less. The socialist task is not to deny democracy, but to expand it and make it more complete. That is the true socialist tradition. 

Without freedom of association and organisation, without the right to form groups and parties of different tendencies, there is and can be no real democracy anywhere. The Marxists, throughout the century-long history of our movement, have always valued and defended bourgeois democratic rights, restricted as they were; and have utilised them for the education and organisation of the workers in the struggle to establish full democracy by abolishing the capitalist rule altogether. The right of union organisation is a precious right, a democratic right, but it was not “given” to the workers. It took mighty and irresistible labour upheavals to establish in reality the right of union organisation. In the old days, the agitators of the IWW—who were real democrats—used to give a shorthand definition of socialism as “industrial democracy”, the extension of democracy to industry, the democratic control of industry by the workers themselves, with private ownership eliminated. That socialist demand for real democracy was taken for granted in the time of Debs and Haywood. The class struggle of the workers against the capitalists to transform society is the fiercest war of all.

Our Goal Remains Socialism

“...all creatures have been turned into property, the fishes in the water, the birds in the air, the plants on the earth; the creatures, too, must become free.” - Thomas Münzer, cited approvingly by Marx

Socialists did not invent human aspirations for a just, egalitarian and free society; men and women have cherished that dream for a long time. What socialists did was to take these ideals and shape them into a revolutionary objective to achieve the better society to which all humanity desires. Socialism is not an authoritarian creed despite the history of those dictators who called themselves socialist. Socialism is a society without a government. It is a free society; a society without rulers and ruled, leaders and led, masters and slaves. Socialism is not only on the side of freedom but is equivalent to freedom.

Working people are losing trust in the existing institutions, and realize that they are defeating the very purpose they were supposed to serve. The world is at a loss for a way out. Parliamentarism and democracy are being challenged and salvation is being sought in right-wing populism and “strong man” political leaders. The employer is in business to make a profit. The lower his costs, other things remaining the same, the higher his profits. Now, labor cost is one of his principal costs. Therefore, the lower the wage, the higher the profit. The primary function of racism is in keeping wage and salary earners split, economically and politically. It is one of the principal weapons on the “divide and conquer” arsenal. If their ability to join together in unions is cut down, then their ability to raise their wages or prevent cuts will be impaired. Thus, their wages and working conditions will be worse than if they worked together. The lower wages represent higher profits for the employer. Racism benefits the bosses and hurts the wage earners of all races.

The function of the Socialist Party is to expose and fight false ideas, to open minds to the possibility of the construction of the free and class-free society. We are convinced that socialism is the only hope of the workers. Neither reforms nor palliatives can in any way remove the great economic contradictions inherent in capitalism. The time has now arrived when all revolutionary workers must either join hands with the Socialist Party or strengthen the hands of the reformists. Socialism can only win the workers when the Socialist Party has been so strengthened that it can carry out its work upon an even larger scale. To that end our organisation appeals for members where he or she can best assist the socialist movement. Outside the Socialist Party your efforts are probably being exhausted in a wrong efforts; inside the Socialist Party your energy will be directed upon the greatest work in history—helping in the emancipation of the working class and the freedom of humanity. Our goal is to lift the working class everywhere from wage bondage to dignity, and self-liberation. Capitalists are on one side of the class war, workers on the other. To inaugurate the era of freedom, harmony, and love involves a social revolution. The land and their resources and the machinery of production must become the property of the people, owned in common by them and democratically controlled by them. 

To make the means of production common property, the only possible solution of the problem, the working class must secure control of the government machine. Then only can it exercise its political power and execute its will. This is why the class struggle is a political struggle and why the lines must be shaped and uncompromisingly drawn between the Socialist Party, representing the exploited working class, and all others, including reformist parties, that represent the exploiting capitalist class. Socialism alone promises escape from the despotic and grinding exploitation of the present system. It is in the workers' own enlightened self-interest to secure to the collective people all the means of wealth production, thus achieving industrial democracy and creating the socialist commonwealth.

Scottish Racism

Racial harassment is a "common experience" for staff and students at Scottish universities, according to a new report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission which says some institutions are "oblivious" to how big the problem is. The report also says there are also examples of anti-English sentiment expressed at Scottish universities.

The figures suggest incidences of racial harassment are lower among students at Scottish universities than at institutions in England, however. The report says this may reflect the fact that England has a more ethnically-diverse student population.

NUS Scotland's black students officer, Franklin Jacob, said: "It lays bare the unacceptable scourge of racial harassment experienced by staff and students at university.

"To read that 24% of students surveyed had been the victim of racial harassment whilst 20% of students had been racially attacked. is damning. The figure in Scotland (11%), whilst lower, still shows the work that must be achieved by the entire sector."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-50141372

Our Message to Fellow-Workers

Whether Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom or becomes a separate sovereign state will make no difference whatsoever to the basic structure of society where a privileged class monopolises the means of production while the rest have to work for wages and where wealth is produced not to satisfy human needs but for sale with a view to profit. It won’t even make much difference to your present standard of living in terms of wage levels, housing, unemployment and the other problems you face. It is this class structure of society — which exists equally in England, Northern Ireland, Wales and in Scotland — that is the basic cause of the economic and social problems faced by the great majority of society, those who, whatever their religious background, depend for a living on earning a wage or salary. This is why a mere constitutional change will make no difference.

 Look at the Twenty-Six Counties of the Irish Republic which achieved “Independence” in 1921 after a bloody war against the British Army. What difference has this made to the position of wage and salary earners there? It has merely provided a different political framework within which they can suffer the problems of capitalism, governed by Irish, instead of British, politicians representing capitalist interests. Not of course that staying part of the United Kingdom is going to make any difference to these problems either.

The only change that will is a world-wide social revolution that would make all that is in and on the Earth the common heritage of all mankind to be used to provide an abundance of wealth to which all could have free access according to need. This essentially peaceful revolution can only occur when the great majority of wage and salary earners in all countries are in favour of it and organise democratically to carry it out. It involves a rejection of all nationalism and all attempts to solve problems on a national scale. In the context of Scotland it requires you to reject both nationalism and unionism.

The Socialist Party has no desire for social chaos, that vision of despair would drift into nothingness if people could only be brought to understand— to understand themselves and the social system under which they live and which makes them the unhappy beings that they are. We are endeavouring to give our non-socialist fellow-workers an exposition of life as it now is as it might soon be, and as, eventually it will be. What we desire is a sane and healthy system of society, to be created on the dead ashes of the system which is passing, wherein no man shall be called upon to sacrifice his ability and no woman her body in order to obtain the wherewithal to live; wherein the workman, the artist, the scientist (possibly a trinity in one person) may unite with and dovetail into one another in the production of wealth, which would be the property of an appreciative and enlightened humanity; not, as now, the property of a few unworthy and unappreciative parasites.

Capitalism, as a system geared to producing profits out of which those who own the means of production accumulate more and more capital, is quite incapable of serving human interests, mankind does have the technical knowledge to provide for much more than its present numbers. The problem is not overpopulation, but the underproduction and waste that are built-in to capitalism. The plundering and pollution of the world is not caused by modern technology but by its misuse in the service of profit. If the resources of the Earth, natural and man-made, belonged in common to all mankind they could be used in a conservationist and non-polluting way to provide for the needs of all. If overpopulation were ever to become a potential problem in a socialist world, then mankind also has the knowledge of how to control births.

The theory of The Socialist Party is Marxist in the sense that certain of our key ideas about society, economics and politics are derived from Karl Marx. Although our case rests entirely on its own merits and not on what Marx may or may not have said, we have always been ready to defend Marx’s views where we believe them to be correct against criticisms based on an ignorance of what he wrote.

A Call to the Scottish People

Nationalism has nothing to offer you — other than a change of masters. Your problems will still continue, will still confront you—worrying you and causing you many a headache—while the present system of society lasts. To solve those problems—which never leave you, be you still in Britain or a separate sovereign Scotland—you’ll most certainly have to struggle for a decent way of life and a liveable standard of living. So let your struggle be one against the real origin of your problems, against the system of capitalism, and against those who support it. Struggle against the system which condemns all workers, regardless of the place of their birth to a life-time of toil and poverty, from cradle to grave. Struggle against the wealthy few who, because they own the factories, mines, railways and all of the means and instruments for producing wealth, compel you—because you own nothing—to labour for their benefit.

Any capitalist class is an enemy of the working class, and that includes Scottish capitalists. Left-nationalists argue that their promotion of national sovereignty is not be reactionary in the Scottish context. The friends of the Scottish workers are the English and the Welsh working class, who are oppressed in common with them and live under the same political system. Just what is the degree of difference in the exploitation of ou fellow-workers in England, Scotland and Wales? It will be detrimental for Scottish and the Welsh workers to fight the British state machine in isolation. it is the task of the Scottish, English and the Welsh workers to unite in a revolutionary world socialist movement to overthrow the rule of the global ruling class.

Your struggle, in common with the struggle of workers everywhere, to be successful must be a revolutionary one. Your aim? To take away from the capitalist class its ownership of the means of production and make them the common property of all mankind. When you’ve achieved that—when you’ve won that revolution — living will really be worthwhile then, it will be a joy and an adventure.

Then things will be produced because people need them and not in order to sell for the purpose of making profit; then poverty will disappear, insecurity vanish, and wars will be nothing but memories. That will be socialism—so, speed the day!

The SPGB - the liberation party

The Socialist Party has never embraced the belief that capitalism would inevitably, with scientific certainty, lead to the socialist revolution. We have insisted that socialism is not inevitable but desirable. It is the task of socialist organisations to bring the vision of socialism to life. "The emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves". No "saviours from on high" will free it.

 Socialism requires the constant, conscious and permanent participation of the great majority. There is no automatic socialist future, no guaranteed progress and no “final crisis of capitalism” leading by itself to the socialist utopia: the choice between socialism and barbarism is still open, and its outcome depends on each one of us. 

It is the Socialist Party's view that the interests of all men and women are represented by the working class – the only class which had nothing to lose from the destruction of capitalism. In other words, the abolition of classes, allowing for the free development of all people, would be possible only following the triumph of one class – the working class. The working class (in the broadest meaning) is a decisive and central component. 

A social revolution can only take place providing the working class itself is conscious of the need to change society and is prepared to struggle. The overthrow of exploiting society is not a military operation to be planned by a secretariat of armchair generals. Its success is dependent on the disintegration of the capitalist institutions more than on their military overthrow but unless the military can either be won over or neutralised, then the taking of power is impossible. 

Socialists must help break down the false divisions between workers. Most people do not at present see the need for socialism. Is a future socialist society Utopian? We completely reject this idea. We believe that people engaged in class struggle and from their experience of it do draw conclusions which are fundamentally socialist in content. Men and women want to be something more than well-fed servants. The desire to be free is not some sort of pious desire. The pre-condition of this freedom is, of course, freedom in the field of production - workers' self-management. There can be no real freedom and no real future for humanity in an exploiting society. 

The path to freedom lies through the socialist revolution. The resentment of working people today against the stifling and degrading relations imposed upon them by class society provides the strongest driving force towards the socialist future. Exploiting society constantly seeks to coerce people into obeying its will. It denies them the right to manage their own lives, to decide their own destinies. The real challenge of socialism is that it will give to men and women the right to direct their own fate in a spirit of free association.

 Socialist consciousness demands more than a knowledge of history. It demands an understanding of today's reality and not through those self-appointed and self-perpetuating leaders who "interpret" the Marxist canon and relate them to today's events. 

When the running of an organisation by its members is replaced by control from above, vitality is lost and the determination decreases. 

Resisting Capital

Why have previous attempts to build a better world failed? In our view the terrible events of the twentieth century are in part a consequence of the fact that most of those who sought to ameliorate the lot of the majority had no clear alternative distinct from some form of the system of nations. of wage labour and capital, of money, prices, profits, of buying and selling. They had no clear understanding of the dynamics of capitalism. They had illusions about the politics of gradualism or insurrection or about revolutionary vanguards and state-capitalism. They clung to their illusions in the face of the facts of Labour administrations of capitalism or of the brutal dictatorships over the workers. As a result of their unsound theories these "practical" men and women diverted the enthusiasm, unselfish devotion and energies of millions into political blind alleys. The advances that have been made are largely those made by workers themselves in producing in greater quantities and in organising to obtain more of the products. However, while capitalism is allowed to exist gains made are not necessarily permanent.

When confronted by the programme of socialism, “left-wing" reformists (apart from seldom being in favour of it) always pose the question: “What do we do in the meantime?" — never waking up to the fact that the appalling present is the "meantime" which their political activities, in opposition to the vigorous pursuit of socialism helped to bring into being. In any event, the attitude of genuine socialists is not one of passivity, awaiting a socialist millennium. it is one of active informed organisation for a better way of life.

The more reformists abandon their illusions and inadequate activities, seek to understand the nature of genuine socialism and play their part in building a strong World Socialist Movement, the more effective we can be against capitalism now, prior to an early transformation of society. Such a movement, with the clear objective of taking the means of production out of the hands of a minority and making them the common property of society, would become much more influential than the present parties of the “Left".

Today many aware of past political errors, propose different approaches to the problems of humankind. They put forward schemes which though rightly concerned with holistic, ecologically benign, locally democratic, “human scale" production are still seen as being within the framework of money, wages, prices and profit. These proposals are attractive to a new political generation, which, failing to identify correctly the process responsible for our major problems, are likely to become a new wave of reformists.

The vast bulk of social wealth in Britain and the rest of the world is produced, distributed and administered by the wage and salary slaves who comprise the working class. But it is one of the great ideological achievements of capitalism that the reality of this situation continues to be inverted in a large number of peoples’ minds. Instead of the owning capitalist class being seen as a bunch of socially useless scroungers they are revered as the “real achievers" in society, possessing a mystical quality known as entrepreneurial skill. What is more important from the working class point of view is that, even in phases of the capitalist trade cycle when output and productivity have been rising, all sectors of society do not automatically benefit. The working class is responsible for increased production of goods but has to struggle to obtain any benefit from this changing situation — and the owning class, needless to say, try to stop this from happening. For instance, most of the industrial and employment legislation was designed to reduce the effectiveness of trade unions and therefore restrict workers' abilities to offset both the depreciation of real wages due to inflation, and attempts to obtain benefits from increased productivity. Thankfully, this industrial legislation hasn't been nearly as effective as the employing class hoped. Indeed, ever aware of the potential power of an organised working class, the employers have attempted to use aspects of their economic policy to diffuse the class struggle. The most notable of these has been the privatisation of state-owned sectors of the economy along with the promotion of “popular capitalism".

Capitalist wealth or a Commonwealth?

Most workers find it hard to imagine how mankind could possibly live without money. Some argue that we must have money because we have always had money. Men have therefore become obsessed with money, which has attained the position of a god, since it is money which, in the capitalist system, becomes the real life power. Without it men and women must starve. But what of money in the next stage of human evolution — Socialism? Why should it not still be required? When men produce for their own needs, and not for the benefit of a handful of exploiters as they have done since primitive times, when national boundaries disappear and the world’s wealth is owned in common, when competition gives way to cooperation, then exchange relationships disappear. And so, as money can only exist in a private society, it must vanish with private property.

Capitalism may sometimes be depicted as civilised, but it is by nature predatory and cannot be tamed. Capitalism has long functioned without a conscience. The basis of capitalism is the ceaseless struggle between the "haves" and the “have-nots". Socialism embodies a future more humane and liberating than what many imagine possible.

Rather than changing the configuration of the pieces creating the climate problem, change the world instead. The problem is capitalism, not corporations per se. And the problem with capitalism is political, not technological. Geo-engineering solutions to climate change address the problem in isolation and provide no indication that the unsolvable problem of unintended consequences is understood.

The Socialist Party is often accused, when we argue with the Left and reformers, of splitting the workers. They claim it would better serve the interests of socialism if we stopped being puritans and joined them in the day-to-day campaigns. Our answer to these assertions is, and always has been, that we will join with any organisation provided it devotes its activities entirely to socialism. For us socialism can have only one meaning; i.e., a system of living under which the means of production-land, factories and machinery, etc., are in the COMMON holding of the WHOLE community. The wages system will cease to exist, there will be no classes, and instead of buying and selling for the profit of the few, goods and services will be freely available for USE by all. We further hold that this can only arise as the result of the conscious political triumph of the world working-class in their struggle against their only real enemy, the world capitalist class.

While the left wingers clamour for a change of government, we concern ourselves with what really matters, not a change of office boys, but a change of system.We maintain that the wages system the world over is proof of workers being exploited, either for the benefit of private shareholders or government bondholders. It is a fundamental difference between ourselves and all other parties that they embrace LEADERSHIP while we reject it. Workers only need leaders while they do not, know either the objective or the method; no “spearhead” or “thinking minority” can ever lead the working-class to Socialism, because leadership implies the ignorance of the followers. Like Marx and Engels, we have always maintained that the movement for Socialism is the “conscious movement of the immense majority in the interest of the immense majority.” (Communist Manifesto).

We find our work of propagating Socialism made very much harder by the confusion spread amongst workers by these “left wingers.”

"Freedom” has been the battle cry in countless revolutions and revolts throughout the ages, and recent events across the World but presently in the situation of the Kurdish against Turkey must have recalled past sacrifices immortalised by poets, such as Byron's “Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn but flying, streams like the thunderstorm against the wind.” At the present time the conscience of the world is being stirred by the heroic but unequal struggle of the Kurds against the might of the Turks. The iron fist closes and the rebels drown in their own blood as another paragraph is completed in the history of Middle East —another event in a chapter of foreign invasions. Western media have mostly made statements sympathetic to the rebels. The tragic bravery of the Kurdish should not blind the workers to the fact that it is not in their interest to support the struggle of either.

We believe that you share our concern for the well-being of people in our society, and for the welfare of the planet itself. As members of a long-established independent democratic movement which seeks by persuasion and world-wide peaceful political organisation to transform our present society into one fit for humankind. we say the problems of our world cannot be solved within the existing structures of production and government. Our world is divided into national areas dominated by class minorities in each country, which, either by private or corporate ownership or by state bureaucratic parties monopolise the means of production. These ruling classes and their political representatives, by reason of a combination of historical circumstances, governmental, military and ideological control or influence, are able to keep the majority of the world's population in subjection. In the decisive areas of the world this domination takes the form of people being denied access to the means of living except on the basis of working for a wage or salary. In the major countries of the world, the people who, in the widest sense, produce what we need to live, are wage-slaves. 

Our access to food, clothing, shelter and other needs is rationed by money. It is a world-system based upon the class monopoly of the means of production where things are produced and services rendered as commodities for sale at a profit. Labour-power also is a commodity: its price is what we receive as a wage or salary. Each enterprise or grouping of capitalism, in competition with others in the market, must strive to increase the profit surplus which it makes after the investment of capital. If it fails to achieve sufficient profit to re-invest in new machinery and techniques it will lose out to more powerful groupings or nations.

The class interests, values and drive for profit of the world-system have been the underlying reasons for the unprecedented destruction of life and resources throughout this century. This appalling process, made worse by new forms of pollution, including the spread of artificial radio-activity and the cutting-down of the rain forests, to say nothing of the possible effects of secret weapons, the existence of which it is reasonable to assume. This uncontrolled madness will continue unless we take the necessary democratic action to transform our way of life throughout the planet.

We believe that socialism can only be brought about by an overwhelming majority of the population, a majority which understands why capitalism must be replaced by socialism. If we are to bring into being production solely for use. where needs are self-determined, we must have a clear idea of how such a society could be established, organised and sustained. We must also ensure that the values and methods of the World Socialist Movement are fully consistent with its aims.

Socialism is a new world society where the means of production are commonly owned and where governments and systems of exchange, whether barter or money, have been replaced by democratic administration at local, regional and world levels: a society where there could be decentralised co-ordination of production with free access according to need.

Organise for a Better Life

WEAR WITH PRIDE

 

Gaelic Disappearing

The number of Gaelic speakers in Scotland’s island communities has plummeted in less than a decade, according to a leading Highland researcher who believes the language is on the point of “societal collapse” across Scotland.

Although just over 58,000 people reported themselves as Gaelic speakers in the 2011 Scottish census, Prof Conchúr Ó Giollagáin, the director of the Language Sciences Institute at the University of the Highlands and Islands, will publish a study next year following extensive fieldwork in the Western Isles, Skye and Tiree that estimates that the vernacular group on the islands, where speakers are most heavily concentrated, does not exceed 11,000.

Gaelic “will continue as the language of school and heritage but not as a living language”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/18/gaelic-disappearing-from-scottish-island-communities

What is needed is socialism

Socialism from ‘above’ always appeals to those who seek a system of domination, hierarchy and exploitation. The “practical” person sneers at socialism as visionary, unattainable, and without any immediate social value, judging the world from the limited horizon which they afford, they fails to perceive that socialism is the only vital economic, political and moral force of modern times. Socialism is practical, in the best sense of the term; a living, vital force of inestimable value to society.

The Socialist Party stands for the self-emancipation of the working class. Thus we are open about our goals with our fellow workers. Socialist society will be state-free. With private property in industry and land abolished (but, of course, not in articles of personal use), with exploitation of the toilers ended, and with the capitalist class finally defeated and all classes liquidated, there will then be no further need for the State, which in its essence, is an organ of class repression. The guiding principle will be: “From each according to ability, to each according to needs.” That is, the distribution of life necessities—food, shelter, education, etc.—will be free, without let or hindrance. Socialist production, carried out upon the most efficient basis and freed from the drains of capitalist exploiters, will provide such an abundance of necessary commodities that there will be plenty for all with a minimum of effort. There will then be no need for penny-pinching measuring and weighing. Mutuaol aid and solidarity will be quite sufficient to prevent possible idlers from taking advantage of this free regime of distribution by either refusing to work or by anti-social waste. Socialism will bring the greatest advance in culture and general well-being of the masses in the history of the human race. Culture, emancipated from class ends, will pass to new and higher levels. Socialism is the guarantee of a new life for the needy and exploited of the earth.

Under capitalism, the capitalists own the means of production. Workers are forced to sell their labor power and the capitalist exploits and oppresses them. With socialism, the main means of production are owned by the community. Thus, the distribution of products and the social surplus created by the producders is in their hands. Socialism properly implies above all things the co-operative control by the workers of the machinery of production. Public ownership by the State is not socialism – it is only state capitalism. We repeat, state ownership and control is not necessarily Socialism – if it were, then the Army, the Navy, the Police, the Judges, the Gaolers, all would all be socialist functionaries, as they are State officials – but the ownership by the State of all the land and materials for labour, combined with the co-operative control by the workers of such land and materials, would be socialism. Schemes of state and municipal ownership are but schemes for the perfectioning of the mechanism of capitalist government-schemes to make the capitalist regime respectable and efficient for the purposes of the capitalist. They represent the class-conscious instinct of the business man who feels that capitalist should not prey upon capitalist, while all may unite to prey upon the workers.

Capitalism has failed to provide a full and happy life for all everywhere throughout the world. Politicians of all shades of political opinion have tried to control capitalism; they have used all kinds of political and economic devices to try and iron out its contradictions and make it function smoothly; they have founded new parties and concepts — they have even tried calling it “socialism” and “communism” — but the system defeats their efforts. We don’t have to call on economic theory to prove capitalism’s innate contradictions and inability to function in the interests of all. The evidence of our contention stands blatantly forth throughout the entire world of capitalism: nowhere has capitalism, despite the fantastic development of its wealth producing techniques, solved any of the basic social problems that afflict humanity and, often, when some slight amelioration of these problems is effected by some puny scheme of social reform new problems are created, often greater than those at which the reform was aimed. The fact is that capitalism is a social system based on the exploitation of the overwhelming majority, the majority in fact that produces all wealth, the working class. This is the nature of the system and no form of political management can make the system run contrary to its nature.

Throughout the world the competition among the working class for their needs in a system of organised scarcity becomes a weapon in the hands of politicians anxious to secure the support of the workers. Group features like religion, colour and ethnic origin are conveniently related to this competition by some politicians who accuse “them” of being responsible for “our” problems while other politicians disguise the real source of the problem by blaming it on the tensions, bigotries and prejudices induced by these bigots or racialists.

There is one group of organisations that does not make the claim that it has the ability, sincerity, wisdom and all the other qualities—claimed, by implication, to be the monopoly of the various contenders for political office—to run capitalism in such a way as to eradicate poverty, slums, unemployment, violence, etc. That organisation is the World Socialist Movement. It explains how capitalism is the cause of the problems wage and salary workers face today and how only socialism will provide the framework within which they can be solved for good. It points out how, in modern political conditions, the way to socialism is through the democratic political action of a majority of convinced socialists using the ballot box and parliament to win political control. It exposes as futile the policy of trying to deal with social problems by means of reforms of capitalism and shows that nationalisation is merely state capitalism. The relatively backward countries present no barrier to the immediate establishment of socialism throughout the world, the WSM explains, because the modern industrial system that now covers the world is quite capable of turning out an abundance of wealth for all the world’s population, wherever they live, to enjoy. And what about human nature? This too is answered by showing that the view that man is born lazy, greedy and aggressive is nonsense. Human behaviour depends on the society human beings live in and nothing anthropologists and other social scientists have found shows that human beings are incapable of co-operating on the basis of common ownership to produce an abundance of wealth from which they can take freely according to their needs.

The WSM. and its companion parties overseas, claim that, no more than all the other political parties could they run the present system to the satisfaction of all. Hence our struggle is not to win a mandate to run capitalism’s production for profit scheme, with or without amendments. Our struggle is to bring to our fellow members of the working class an understanding of the only alternative to capitalism, socialism, and provide a revolutionary party for the use of that knowledge. We do not ask the working class to vote for us to reform capitalism; we ask them to vote with us to abolish it!

Is Socialism necessary?

To-day we are faced with the necessity of abolishing servitude, of shattering every institution by which privilege and exploitation are upheld. Such a change implies, by its very nature, the conscious self-assertion of the mass, the workers themselves. Neither from above nor from below can we look for assistance in the hour of social revolution. That task obviously requires the active co-operation of the disinherited millions. So long as those millions are content to accept their enslaved state, so long as they are prepared to go on piling up wealth for their masters, the bosses can afford to smile at those who fancy themselves as the workers' leaders. On the other hand, once the mass awakens, once it realises its social power and importance, those same “leaders” will be swept away.

Some scorn on the educational work of the Socialist Party and it arises from the habit of looking only on the resources of the propagandists as the sole force helping the Party’s work. The influence of the social environment in shaping the outlook of the class, preparing it as a soil for the socialist seed, is ignored. The inertia of the mentality of the mass is insisted upon almost as a religious dogma. A psychological miracle is postulated. We are asked to believe that the human mind in the mass is an organism which fails to act according to the laws of its own development. The socialist reviewing history sees that as each class in turn has been thrust to the surface by economic evolution, that class has acquired a consciousness of its identity and interest. It has developed its own political organisation necessary to smash the institutions which stood in the way of its advance and to establish others which favoured it. By degrees the workers to-day are losing the illusions which bind them to their masters’ interests; they are groping, not for a lead as we are often told, but for knowledge which will enable them to dispense with "leaders.” It is the task of the Socialist Party to spread that knowledge.

The present-day means of production are capital, the modern form of property; that is to say, they are used by their owners, a small class in society, for the purpose of obtaining profit.

The capitalist, owning a certain sum of money, uses it to purchase machinery and raw material with a' view to selling the product at a profit. For this purpose he needs to buy a special commodity, labour-power, which, applied to the raw material and machinery, produces useful articles of a value greater than that of the combined, value of the original factors. The value of the labour-power used is determined by the time socially necessary to reproduce it. This applies to all commodities. Labour-power, however, plays the active part in the creation of value, and consequently of surplus value, which is that part of the value created which is kept by the employers. Surplus value is that part of the product left over after paying for labour-power and the cost of raw materials, wear and tear, etc.

Now, how comes it that the capitalist finds this extremely useful commodity, labour-power, to hand? The labourers have no means of living except by the wages they can earn. The land, factories, railways, etc., are owned by the capitalist class. The majority of members of society to-day are propertyless. In order to live, therefore, they must sell the only commodity they possess, their own energy.

The separation of the labouring class from their means of life was a prolonged process in history. The enclosure of common lands, the forcible ejection of the peasantry, the introduction of large-scale workshops, and later on of machine-factories, all played their part in making the workers dependent upon their present-day masters. At the same time, all other classes but these two have vanished from social life. Of the aristocracy and middle-classes of the mediaeval world, nothing is left but their titles and prejudices. The capitalist class preserve both as a means of displaying their power and duping the workers.

To-day, therefore, the social stage is set for the struggle between the last two classes to emerge in.the course of social evolution.

To-day, however, the means of production unite the workers-in vast world-wide organisations. In the effort to cope with the effects of the capitalist system the workers develop a measure of solidarity undreamt of under the systems of former ages. Railways, post, printing press and platform enable ideas to spread with greater rapidity than ever.

The struggle between the capitalists and their wage-slaves over the wealth produced by the latter results in ever-worsening conditions for them. Every improvement in machinery or methods strengthens the owning class by increasing the number of unemployed and the competition for jobs. This competition enables the capitalists to push wages down ever nearer to the physical limit, the bare subsistence level.

For the workers, therefore, there can be but one hope—a complete change in the ownership of the means of production and in the motive for which industry is carried on. The interests of the capitalist class lead that class to fortify their position by every means in their power. The interests of the workers demand that they shall attack that position. The mature social character of modern industry has rendered poverty unnecessary and a drag upon further development.

With the abolition of private ownership the profit-seeking motive will cease to operate. This is what our capitalist opponents mean when they say that there will be no incentive under Socialism. They can conceive of no other incentive. The workers, however, will still need food, clothing and shelter, and, having in their hands the necessary means, will go on producing these things in greater abundance than ever. The productive forces, freed from control by competing interests, will be utilised by society as a whole in accordance with a common plan, democratically determined in the interest of all.

Science and art to-day are the hired mistresses of Capitalist interests. Adulteration and advertisement of articles of sale, these are their most obvious functions. The elaboration of instruments of murder and plunder, and the idealisation of such processes on a national scale, are others.

With the freeing of the workers, science and art will acquire new meanings; they will become vested with a social purpose. Knowledge and beauty will be embodied in the actual material environment as well as the brains and bodies of mankind.

Women will no longer be under the necessity of providing heirs for property nor embryo hirelings for the labour market. Secure in a social heritage they will no longer need to offer their sexual attractions in return for the means of subsistence. Common property in the means of production will involve, therefore, the disappearance of both vice and virtue, dull respectability and its garish complement, monogamy and prostitution.

Thus every human being from birth onward will acquire a new social status. His or her own development will provide the basis for the maximum degree of social efficiency. The interests of society and individual are only antagonistic under a system based upon private property. Consequently the ethical conflict which forms the basis of moral codes will likewise disappear. Where the interests of each and all. are identical, abstract moralising will be simply so much waste of time. The object of existence will be to be happy, the place to be happy will be here, and the means of happiness will be to hand for all. Hence none will need to seek in the realm of shades for the forces with which to guide their lives. A life hereafter will no longer offer consolation for non-existent misery; while ghosts and gods will become as meaningless as fairies and hobgoblins. A rational outlook will accompany a rationally-ordered social life.

There remains to be considered the central power of the capitalist, i.e., the State; its seizure by a revolutionary working-class cannot fail to alter its entire character. From an instrument for maintaining private property it will become the agent of its abolition. Wrenched from the control of their present masters, the armed forces will be reserved only so long as any danger of counter-revolution remains. 

As the reorganisation of society proceeds, the need for repression of anti-social elements, the relics of the dying order, will gradually disappear. The political character of society, that is, its organisation for the purpose of government, will give way to economic functions. The administration of things in the interests of all will render unnecessary the constant supervision of personal relations by the public power. Once these personal relations lose their pecuniary basis and become purely voluntary, their arbitrary regulation by an outside force becomes absurd. Hence it is clear that the entire organisation of society as we know it to-day will be sprung into the air with the uprising of the working-class. What will take its place we can only express in the most general terms. The mission of the workers is to destroy the existing obstacles to their own development. For that purpose we call upon them to organise into a political party in opposition to all forces assisting to maintain the present social order.