Only Socialism Will Do

When workers are unable to get employment, they are barely able to survive.  The state now makes sure that they do survive — just — which at least prevents the streets being blocked by destitute people. This is the pressure upon workers to practise thrift, to put something by for a rainy day, to organise their budget, to accept the rightness of their place on the lower rungs of the social ladder. Put in another way, this is the pressure on the subject class under capitalism to comply with that social system with its private property, its degradation and its insecurity. Most workers view the stigma of their class uncomplainingly, even cheerfully. Most of them regard their exploitation as natural, when in reality it is inhuman and distorting. Day to day, year to year capitalism goes from one crisis to another crisis. And it is the workers, the majority of people in this world, who suffer. As capitalism survives it will continue to cause hardship, anxiety and stress to the working class.

Modern states exist because of the conflict of interests in modern society. This conflict is due to the capitalist ownership of the economic resources of society. The international capitalist class is divided into competing groups endeavouring to secure control of the raw materials, trade routes and markets of the world. The most powerful of these groups use the machinery of the various states as weapons in the struggle. 

The solution of the conflict lies not with an ‘amorphous’ people but with a working class organised to emancipate itself, internationally. In the place of capitalism, with its economic chaos and political strife, it will establish a social order based upon the common ownership of the means of life and their democratic control in a class-free community.

Capitalism will always bring problems to the working class. Although the other parties claim to be able to do something about them, experience tells us that these problems are insoluble within capitalism. We live in a social system which is based on the class ownership of the means of wealth, production and distribution. One effect of this is that the wealth we turn out is made, not to satisfy human needs, but to serve the interests of the class who own the means of production.

The interests of that class are in the production of wealth to be sold so as to yield them profit with which their capital can be developed and expanded, and so buttress their privileged position in society. This process takes place through the exploitation of the other class — the working class, who do not own the means of production and who have to sell their labour power in order to live. The lot of this class is one of exploitation and poverty. 

Whatever the wealth they consume it is always restricted to what they can afford from their wage. And it is always inferior, sub-standard, made so that it comes within the purchasing power of a wage packet. This is what is meant by working class poverty. At no time under capitalism will the working class have the freedom to enjoy the best that society can produce, and have unrestricted access to it. Yet without that freedom, they must always be said to be living in poverty.

Housing, for example, is a continuing sore which the parties of capitalism cynically aggravate in their drive to pick up votes. Yet inadequate housing afflicts only those who can afford nothing better; it is not a problem experienced by the capitalist class. Medical and social services are also restricted when they are applied to the working class (not that the capitalist class need the attentions of social services; they have their own ready-made version). But the point is that the workers must always rely on the less-than-best, and very often the downright shoddy. Yet they are the class which produce all the world’s wealth; they make the very objects and services to which they are denied access. The outcome of all this is disillusionment and despair. At one election after another, the working class turn to various parties in blind faith that their promises mean something and that somehow capitalism can be made to work in their interests. When these hopes are shattered, there is often a deeper disillusionment, with democracy itself or with the principle of political action to change society. The only reason some governments seem to be more successful than others is that some have the luck to come into office when a depression is lifting. The unlucky ones come in at the start of a depression. 

Socialism, in contrast, is the idea of hope. Socialists do not offer themselves as leaders, putting forward a better version of the same old discredited policies. Our case is that the working class can get rid of their problems; to do this they have to abolish capitalism and replace it with a society based on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. We go further, and say that the working class can and must do this for themselves; no leaders can drag them by the nose into the new society.

Until that is a reality, socialists have no interest in the drab machinations of capitalist politics, except to offer them unremitting hostility and to expose them for the sham they are.

We Must Change

For those working for a fundamental change in our social system, clarity is important. we need to be clear about what we’re trying to leave behind (capitalism) to have greater clarity about what it is that we’re moving towards socialism. We can understand those who seek a just and sustainable world and hope such a goal can be achieved by reforming capitalism. We, however, disagree that it is possible. Transferring control or ownership of the economy to the State or to co-operatives does not serve the needs of all the people. It is not the door to a better future beyond capitalism.

One characteristic alone does not make an economy capitalist. For example, markets pre-date capitalism by thousands of years. The same goes for commodity production—production for sale, rather than use.

Capitalism’s mode of production lies in its division between the class ownership by the capitalists of the means of production (land, buildings, technology, transportation, etc.) and the non-owning workers who sell their labour power to the capitalists to produce goods and services. Capitalists maximise profits in many ways by squeezing the workers. Capitalism’s drive to “accumulate.” The failures of capitalism—from blind growth to the increasing concentration of wealth and power around the world to the destruction of the environment—are becoming more and more evident. The climate crisis is perhaps the greatest challenge humanity is facing. it threatens civilisation’s existence. The present pandemic has left the market and many governments badly shaken. COVID-19 has shown us the fairy tales of mainstream economics, exposit it as serving the interests of the 1%. The outbreak of Covid-19 brought havoc for all sectors of economy and ushered unprecedented and unpredicted disasters.

We need a bold transformation of our politics and economics and that requires a far greater imagination. The “lesser evil” argument is a pervasive poison which inevitably leads to a vicious and continuous election cycle. We must once and for all reject the false notion of a lesser evil. The United States is essentially a one-party state, the business party, with two factions, Democrats and Republicans. Likewise in the United Kingdom political power is shared by the Tories and the Labour Party. The media is complicit in denying the depth of their unity.

Capitalism to-day must answer to the charge of acting as a brake upon the wheels of progress. The class which benefits from its continuance must prove that it is any longer of social service or produces what it receives. The Socialist Party is able to show that it does not do this and that it is this fact that is sapping the social organisation,

Socialist revolution is the most radical break with oppression and exploitation in history. Socialist society is the first society that no longer proceeds in chaos, but based upon the planned fulfilment of genuine human needs. The system of wage labour will be abolished and the guiding principle will be “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The ownership of the means of production will be held in common and private property will be eliminated. Private property offers a choice illustration. At one period there was a justification for the individual ownership of property. When each worker took the raw material and made his or her tools, and then with these tools manufactured cloth or shoes or tilled the ground, each thing that was produced was to a great extent the product of individual work. To-day this method no longer exists. All things are produced collectively, and still there survives the idea of the sacredness of private property. It is to-day the corner stone upon which rests the whole superstructure of capitalist society and class rule. Private property for the worker is but a farce, since the class that preaches most of the virtues of private property is the one that takes from the producing class all that it produces except a scanty subsistence.  

As pointed out by Marx and Engels the whole history of civilisation has been the history of the rise and fall of classes. The interests of each dominating class while it existed made for social progress. Each class fulfilled its function, became useless and disappeared from power. Further, a most significant fact, different ideals of right and wrong have at all times prevailed for the ruling and subservient classes. With the abolition of classes and class distinctions, all social and political inequality arising from them will disappear. The conflicts of interest between workers and farmers, town and country, manual and mental labour will disappear. As classes will not exist, the state will not be necessary as an instrument of class rule and will wither away.  The subservient class has been lulled into acquiescence in its enslavement through the persistent inculcation of the “virtues” of self-sacrifice, humility, reverence, docility, frugality and patriotism. The abolition under socialism of these warring class interests would necessarily carry with it the abolition of these contradictory codes of values. In a socialist society all are equally able to exercise their self-interest. The reconciliation of the individual and society, ever discussed and never answered, because of their blindness to the fact of class antagonisms, will at last be solved by the abolition of these antagonisms in the co-operative commonwealth.

There are no solutions within capitalism

There has never been a free people in any nation. Human society has always consisted of masters and slaves. Working people are not content to remain wage slaves of the capitalists. If the working class is to free itself from wage slavery it cannot be repeated too often that everything depends upon the working class itself. Political parties are reflect the interests of those who finance them. This is the infallible test of their character These parties are the political expressions of the divisions within the capitalist class. The donors who fund all these parties do so for only one the reason, that they represent their interests. Professional politicians of whatever party are very much alike in one respect, they serve their masters. The simple question is, can the workers, by education, organisation, and co-operation to take control of the productive forces and manage industry in the interest of the people and for the benefit of society where there would be no “bosses” but free men and women, employing themselves co-operatively under regulations of their own, taking to themselves all the products of their labour and shortening the work-day as technology increases their productive capacity. Such a change would be benefit all. The bosses would disappear; all would be useful workers and have fit houses to live in, plenty to eat and leisure time enough to enjoy life. That is the socialism, plain and simple, and what the Socialist Party is striving towards. This is not a mere fanciful Utopian theory. All the workers have to do is to recognize their strength and fit themselves social freedom, transforming society. The servile lackeys and prostituted puppets all insist that working men and women can never be anything else other than employees. It is the task of the Socialist Party to open the eyes of our fellow-workers and widen the horizon of their vision so that they may find their way to freedom. Our fellow-workers should be not waiting for some so-called “great leader” or “good man” to do it for them, but prepare to do all things for themselves. No more bosses. All they have to do is to unite, think together, act together, vote together, never ceasing to forget that they are one, and that the world is theirs for them to take possession of.

The history of the working class has been a history of unremitting struggle against exploitation and oppression by the capitalist class. Born in violence, the capitalist system can only end with the overthrow of the parasitic ruling class by the working class, the creators of all wealth in society. Under the rule of the capitalists, there can be no freedom for the workers – only freedom to be exploited as wage slaves. Humbly and meekly we have come every day to the factory or office begging for the privilege to toil and pile up profits for our heartless masters.

Work is a means not only for creating goods and products that support the existence of man and society, but also for the self-improvement of the individual and of mankind. There is no really human existence imaginable without work. But wage-slavery is the enemy of human dignity and self-development. Blessed be the day does away with wage slavery!

We appeal to you then, fellow-workers, to rally around the only banner that symbolises hope – the banner of socialism. Otherwise all hope ends with the grave. The Socialist Party is absolutely the only party of the exploited workers in the factories and mines, on the farms, at the offices, workers of both sexes and all nationalities and colours, in fact, the people and demanding that industries shall be taken over by workers who shall operate them for the benefit of the whole people. We demand the machinery of production in the name of the workers and the control of society in the name of the people. We demand the abolition of capitalism and wage-slavery and the surrender of the capitalist class. We demand that that all children born into the world shall have equal opportunity to grow up, to be educated minds, to have healthy bodies and to develop and freely express the best there is in them in mental and physical achievement. We demand complete control of industry by the workers; we demand all the wealth they produce for their own needs. We demand the Earth for all the people. Let our slogan be the common ownership of the means of life.

Killing Sea Lions. Profits Legal and illegal.

Dozens of headless sea lions are washed up on the coast of British Columbia every year, about 80 of them, so far, in 2020. Fishermen say its because some people are taking advantage of the growing market for sea lion skulls, for which their is no legal supply as the Canadian government have banned hunting for sea lions. 

Furthermore a male sea lion with all its parts intact goes for about $4,000 in the underground market and a pelt would fetch $500. A set of whiskers which could be used in native ceremonies would go for $700 and oil from sea lion blubber, rich in omega-3 fatty acids is worth $100 a gallon to the pharmaceutical industry. One native Canadian said he has recently received 120 emails from taxidermy enthusiasts interested in buying sea lion skulls.

 Some seal and sea lion meat could be sold for human consumption or to the pet food industry. The fact is they are being killed for a profit and whether a profit is made legally or not it is still a fundamental of capitalism, which can only be abolished by abolishing the cause.

S.P.C. Members.

Capitalism Is The Oppressing Foe, Not Fellow Workers!

An article in the Toronto Star of July 11 focused on the abuse many Canadian's of Chinese decent had been subjected to since the COVID began. The Star said 8 per cent of their respondents had been physically attacked by strangers. Another poll conducted by the University of Alberta, said 29 per cent of their respondents had. One may add to this those who have been verbally attacked, which according to the latter poll was 43 per cent. 

All this because they happen to be of Chinese decent. It is disgusting that at a time where their should be some working class solidarity, workers turn on innocent members of their own class. Shades of Nazi Germany. 

Workers of the World “Wake-Up” – Capitalism is the oppressing foe, not fellow workers!

S.P.C. Members.

We Demand the Earth for All

The capitalist system continues to produce miseries for many and prosperity for the few

Wage-labour is wage-slavery. Socialism is the release from servitude to employers. When the production of all the material necessities of life and means of culture will be taken over by automation and robotics, requiring the minimum of superintendence, humanity will be freed to develop its distinctively human capacities and relations to the full on a truly human basis. Wealth of all kinds will flow as freely as water and is as abundant as air and compulsory labour is supplanted by free time. Free-time enjoyed by all will be the measure of wealth, the guarantee of equality and harmony. This is the goal of socialism, the promise of communism.

There has never been a free people, a civilised nation, a real republic on this earth. Human society has always consisted of masters and slaves. We all need to unite – rather than thinking as a country, we need to think planetary. The world would be better for billions of dispossessed people if we did. Socialism is not government ownership or control of industry. Socialism struggles for the dismantling of the State, not the enlargement of its functions. Socialism, in the words of Engels, is not the government of persons, but the administration of things. Socialism adopts a policy of unrelenting antagonism toward nationalism. State capitalism is not an abandonment of capitalism: it is a variation of capitalism. Socialism rejects the state ownership as a phase of socialism. State capitalism is not socialism and never can become socialism. 

Under chattel-slavery the slave was bought and sold and became the property of the buyer. Men, women, and children were sold by auction like cattle. Traders in search for wealth did not hesitate in capturing people from Africa to be sold like cattle to plantation owners in the Americas. This odious traffic in human beings was of course a most profitable one. Consideration and compassion for the unfortunate slaves was of no importance. Father, mother and children were offered for sale individually and sold to different slave masters. Husband and wife, parents and children were offered for sale individually and sold to different slave masters. Separated, husband and wife, parents and children would never see each other again. That is how the “civilised” gentlemen who hailed from “Christian” Europe treated the “backward” peoples.

Under the system of wage-slavery, the LABOUR POWER of the individual worker is bought, a wage is paid to the worker by the employer, and the employer only takes an interest in the welfare of his workers in so far as it helps him to make profits out of them. This is THE NEW FORM OF SLAVERY and its menace in reality is to a great measure by far more serious and abominable than this slavery abolished. Under chattel-slavery the slave was oppressed by the slave master and slave rebellions took place time and again led by the instinctive urge for freedom. The wage-slave workers of today are exploited by the capitalist employers. As under the system of wage-slavery, so under capitalist slavery, workers are constantly struggling for better conditions and for the ABOLISHMENT OF CAPITALIST SLAVERY. The struggles of the industrial workers takes on more and more a bitterly conscious fight for the OVERTHROW of this FINAL slave system and for the establishment of a society controlled by all toilers. This shows that the fight for freedom, economic, and political is yet to be continued.  THE SOCIALIST PARTY’S AIM IS THE BUILDING OF SOCIALISM — OF A CLASS-FREE SOCIETY. Our goal is the emancipation of humanity from all forms of slavery and oppression and FREEDOM FROM CAPITALIST EXPLOITATION. The capitalist class freed the chattel-slaves in order to transform them into wage-slaves; the WAGE-SLAVES WILL FREE THEMSELVES, IN ORDER TO FREE HUMANITY.

Who Do You Work For? $200 million Lawsuit.

Amazon Canada is facing a multi-million dollar law suit which claims that its huge network of subcontracted delivery drivers are Amazon employees who have not received the wages owing them. 

The lawsuit seeks $200 million in damages and was filed on June 26 on behalf of more than 2,500 drivers employed by courier companies contracted by Amazon to deliver their parcels. The suit says that despite the use of intermediaries, Amazon retains effective control over those drivers and is their true employer. The class, (no pun intended), action alleges the drivers routinely failed to receive payment for their hours worked, overtime pay, vacation pay and meal breaks. A spokesperson for the company said, ''We disagree with the allegations and expect to fully disprove them.'' 

Of course, how can 2,500 drivers be right?, how ridiculous can it get? 

It isn't the first time a company has tried to cheat sub-contracted workers on the basis of them, ''Not really being our employees.'' Wonder why Amazon are being so chintzy?, maybe they ain't making much of o’profit!

S.P.C. Members.

Capitalist Swindling Terms.

Stats-Canada recently released the gloomy news that household debt rose in the first quarter as the COVID-19 pandemic began to impact the economy. There was $1.77 in credit market debt for every dollar of household disposable income.

 Stats-Canada added that annual trends show that lower income households tend to have higher debts, which in capitalist swindling terms is pure genius! Wonder how they figured that out? Overall it said credit market debt totalled $2.33 trillion at the end of the first quarter including $1.53 trillion in mortgage debt and $802.1 billion in consumer credit and non-mortgage loans. And that, folks is the first quarter. 

At the time of writing we don't know what the figures for the second quarter will be, but you can bet they'll stack up, as usual, not in favour of workers’ interests.

S.P.C. Members. 

Toward A New Society

The Socialist Party, part of the World Socialist Movement, appeals to you to join it to engage in the fight for working-class emancipation and socialist freedom. We have the right to call upon you to enter our Party, for we have never flinched from the struggle against capitalism and never forsaken the principles of socialism. There is a comradely place for you in the Socialist Party. We present ourselves as a friend and a comrade to the exploited and oppressed peoples all over the world. We wants no slaves anywhere. We have no other interests save those of the working class itself. We seek nothing more than to be part and parcel of tomorrow’s political movement to build world socialism. We are convinced that the working class will soon start to take mighty strides along the road of independent political action in its own name and under its own flag. The very idea of the workers breaking away from the capitalist parties and forming their own class party is so revolutionary that it terrifies the owning class.

The plundering and enslavement of working people is open and shameless. To all those who refuse to resign themselves in helplessness and hopelessness to the barbarism of capitalism, to capitalist tyranny, to the horrors of the capitalist system, to all those who have confidence in the working-class and the future of mankind - the Socialist Party is your organisation and we extend the welcoming hand of comradeship. Peace, security and freedom are yours to take. We prepare ourselves now for the coming years with the conviction that the working class will fight against the conditions of its existence, that it will win its way to the principles of our party because we will win our way to its heart and mind by our participation in the fight, until we achieve our ultimate vindication in the triumph of socialist freedom.

The world today is in a sorry mess. This is the condition society will inevitably take so long as capitalism exists. These social evils are not bred in the heart of man; they are bred by capitalism, and by nothing else. Capitalism always seeks to intensify exploitation. As democratic socialists, we reject completely as incompatible with our principles and our aims any and all regimes, even if they proclaim themselves as “socialist” that are in actuality totalitarian and state-capitalist. The Socialist Party alone told the truth. Our party stands vindicated by world events. The capitalist system came into being only after a number of revolutions and half-revolutions. The period of its birth lasted for decades, The change from the feudal system to capitalism was not as drastic as will be the change from capitalism to socialism, for the latter implies not the change of one system of exploitation for another, but the elimination of all exploitation and class rule.

But just suppose you do not join in the fight for socialism. Suppose you do not organise and work for its victory. Will the society we live in remain just as it is, will it move forward, or will it slip backward? This question is of vital concern to everyone. It is most important to understand what will happen to capitalist society if it is not replaced by socialism. Capitalism drives society to a new barbarism. From the builder and producer, it has become the great destroyer. From the bearer of civilization and culture, it has become the relentless devastation of civilisation. It has become the seed-bed of regimentation, and totalitarianism rather than the bearer of democracy. From the liberator of the feudal serfs, capitalism has created of tens of millions of modern wage-slaves.  Upon socialism, depends the happy future of humanity and of civilisation. Working people are called upon to save the world from barbarism, the only alternative to socialism. That is the road to human freedom.