The cries of distress and despair

 

The world sinks ever deeper into ever multiplying crises. The human civilisation, as we know it, is facing its worst catastrophe. Capitalism heaps misery upon misery upon backs of the toiling workers. For countless millions of human beings life today is a one of hunger, unbearable drudgery full of worries and anxiety. Everywhere fellow-workers look desperately for remedies. But they can find no cure.  Disease, and death has the daily lot of millions around the world and the difference between bare existence and non-existence is so slight for people who suffer terrible poverty, poor housing, poor food and pandemics of pestilence.

Nations are no longer isolated. Communications and travel have made us all neighbours.The sweat-shop factory system is one of torture and murder and is a disgrace to any one from anywhere.  There is no way out save in a complete overthrow of the capitalist system and the dawning of the new age of socialism. We are socialists because we believe that socialism will solve the misery of the world — give food and homes to the men and women who are hungry and without decent houses. We believe socialism is practical. Capitalism exacts a gloomy toll of death and destruction never before known in history.  Yet with  our own eyes we can see the great achievements modern civilisation could accomplish which could easily transfer millions out of  starvation, misery and insecurity throughout the world. We have unparalleled opportunities to achieve plenty for all. The purpose of the Socialist Party is the abolition of wage-slavery. Our goal is to achieve equality for men and women.  It exists to fight against the exploitation of those who toil by hand and brain, and to strengthen working-class organisation and political understanding of the need of ending capitalism and establishing socialism. We strive for worldwide working-class solidarity. We are engaged in a class war to end wage-slavery, to end capitalism with its evils of misery and degradation, a war to end war. And until we are victorious in this war it will not end and we do not want peace—because such peace will be the peace of the beggar and the slave.

The Socialist Party is the great foe of capitalism, with its degradation and destruction of humanity. The Socialist Party works to insure the workers own free development and their own liberation. It strives for the liberation of society. The capitalists are as a class, a useless, dangerous, parasitic minority that can be dispensed with. The only way out for the working class is to take power and bring the resources of the modern economy under a rational social plan. Having overthrown capitalism and established common ownership of the means of production and distribution, the working class will build towards a truly socialist society, in which at last the principle will be: “From each according to his or her ability, to each according to his or her need.”

The truth is that so long as the capitalists remain in power, so long as the destinies of every country are decided by the interests of those capitalists, monopolists and profiteers, the munitions makers and militarists there we will be without any prospect of peace or freedom for the people and the world will be soaked in blood; corpses heaped high; all remaining liberties will disappear. Nowhere do the ruling class offer the people a way out of the nightmare of suffering that has been imposed upon us. Capitalism threatens to plunge all humanity into barbarism. 

The aim of the Socialist Party is to overthrow world capitalism. A socialist society will abolish the class division of society, i.e., simultaneously with the anarchy in production, it will abolish all forces of exploitation and oppression of man by man. Society will no longer consist of antagonistic classes in conflict with each other, but will represent a cooperative commonwealth. Socialism will end destroying innumerable human lives and incalculable wealth in struggles between classes and nations. 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.

 The guiding principle will be: “From each according to ability, to each according to needs.” That is, the distribution of life necessities—food, clothing, 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 pinch-penny measuring and weighing. 

Independence

Choose your Route

 

There are two paths we can follow. We can say: “Let’s just deal with the easier day to day problems and just raise topics where we can be sure fellow-workers will agree with us. Talking about revolution and socialism and stuff like that turns them off.” Working people will declare “The system is just too big, too powerful to go up against. There is enough local problems in the factory, in the community and at home, so don’t talk about political things.”

The Socialist Party’s way is different.

We explain it is only by understanding how capitalism operates against the interests of working people, of how capitalism must be fought by the working class who can be united behind it and when the people are equipped with an understanding of capitalism as our enemy, we can advance towards revolution. Our choice is a future where we workers will run the factories, produce for our needs and not for the profits of the capitalist bosses. Only by completely getting rid of this system of wage slavery and its law of profits and the system in which the capitalists own and control everything can we achieve socialism. Only by getting rid of the all the sources of our problems, the system of capitalism, that we can build a new society run by and for the working class. It must be understood that distribution is always ultimately controlled by those who own and control production. Today the bosses own. Tomorrow,  the workers would own production and would therefore be in a position to control and direct distribution in the interests of the working masses.

The Socialist Party has no consciousness of impotence, no consciousness of smallness. We represent the future. We represent the conception of socialism. We stand should end of poverty and inequality. We seek to win working people from the fear of war and for peace to be enjoyed by all. We work for a world in which the exploitation of man by man shall cease. It is the capitalist system which produces misery and disaster. The Socialist Party is never more determined to achieve the goal of socialism than we are on this day. We see a future free from the anxieties and worries of today. The believe that conditions can be changed for the better if the people are willing to fight for this. Although they do not own or control the industry, they in fact are turning the wheels that keep all industry going. With the ending of capitalism the people would also decide how this industry was to be run. Everything created and valued by mankind, all wealth, has been produced as a result of human labour being applied to the materials supplied by nature. The Socialist Party believe that, just as in the past, no progress in improving the lot of the working class will be brought about without the struggle of the people. Decisions can never be left to others. The people must win state power. They must take it out of the hands of the capitalists to ensure that the transfer of the economy to the people is carried out. This capitalist society demands, not bandages but a blood transfusion.

The capacity of mankind to make use of the forces of science and technology has increased a hundred-fold during the last century. Yet, compared with this rapid growth, the prosperity among the people has been lamentably slow. There is no lack of the actual things for they exist and are available in abundance. Nor is their lack of hands and brains to turn raw materials and natural resources into finished articles for human use. Yet the people are not better off.

 Working men and women face innumerable hardships. On every side of them is distress and uncertainty, ever new threats to their security. Politicians make all kinds of promises for a future time but for the workers with their present troubles they have no help. The greatest need of to-day is clear understanding of the present conditions and the marking out of the path to travel. Where can it be found? Exposing the tissues of lies and the confusion of sham solutions has been the Socialist Party.  

If workers do not awaken in time a terrible fate awaits us. The greatest need of the workers in this country is a powerful potent socialist party. Socialism means the common ownership of all natural resources and of all social forces for the satisfaction of all social needs. It, therefore, involves not merely co-operation between individuals and groups of individuals, but also co-operation between peoples of other lands. The Socialist Party seeks to establish the co-operative commonwealth. Socialism is a system of universal co-operation for production for use. Capitalism and cooperation are incompatible. It is as idle and utopian to dream of establishing peace in the midst of capitalism. What all workers must understand is that their misery is due to exploitation carried on by the capitalist class. We must transform the economic struggle into a political struggle. We must overthrow the system of exploitation itself. We must abolish the wage system itself.

For A World Cooperative Commonwealth

 New polling shows huge support for independence among young voters, with 79% of 16- to 24-year-olds and 68% of 25- to 34-year-olds saying they would support leaving the union. 

Our position in the Socialist Party remains the same. Separatism and an independent sovereign Scotland will be a dead-end. 

Nationalism is the ideology which seeks to justify the capitalist division of the world into separate “nation-states”. We utterly reject this view of the way humanity should organise itself. We condemn all nationalisms equally. When countries achieved independence little changed except the personnel of the state machinery.

As socialists we re-affirm that all peoples should seek their emancipation, not as members of nations or religions or ethnic groups, but as human beings, as members of the human race. They should unite to abolish the division of the world into so-called nation-states and to establish a World Socialist Cooperative Commonwealth of which we will all be free and equal members - citizens of the world, not subjects of nation-states. 

The goal of the socialist movement is not to assist in the creation of even more states but to establish a real world community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. In a socialist society communities, towns and cities will have the opportunity to thrive – and people will no doubt feel an attachment to places that are real and tangible – but the nation-states will be consigned to the history books where they belong

"I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the World." - Eugene V. Debs