Monday, September 27, 2021

For the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class

 


Misery and discontent, by themselves, will not move the people. Socialist education and action are what is needed. If misery were sufficient to build a revolution, surely here were misery enough. But misery lacks that sufficiency by many a length. Misery is not enough; it must lead to discontent. Discontent is not enough; it must be enlightened on the causes of its misery, and the cure. Enlightenment is not enough; it must be organised to effect the revolution. There is misery aplenty in the world today. No need to wait for more. Education and organisation are now the needs of the time.

The fundamental principle of the Socialist Party is that freedom for the workers is not possible while the system of wage slavery lasts. Hence socialism has for its mission the overthrow of the capitalist system of private ownership of the machinery of production and the establishment of common ownership in its place.

The theory put out by reformists that socialism can with safety depart from the hard and fast line of its ultimate goal and follow the lure of "something now" has been a self-defeating strategy. History bears testimony to the fact that the fate of the movements that followed reformist opportunism led to their demise.

We are told that before the final overthrow of capitalism, which is the constant demand, there will be many immediate demands -- shorter hours, higher wages, better conditions, etc. Does it not follow that this political party will and must have an immediate demand platform?

No; it does not follow.

The reasoning that, until the "constant" demand of labour, the overthrow of capitalism, is attained, "immediate" demands are bound to appear on the platform of the true political party of labour, proceeds from a confusion of the term "demand" as used in the two instances.

The overthrow of capitalism - that is a DEMAND - it is THE demand - it belongs in the platform of a truly socialist party. Reforms are intermediate stepping stones, to be discarded soon as possible in the onward march. They have no place on the platform.

The demand is ONE -- it is the proclamation of the goal. The so-called "immediate" demands are legion. The specification of them, or of any of them, is superfluous.

The importance of the distinction lies in its practical bearing. The moment things that are not in the nature of a demand, because they are not the goal, are raised to the dignity of a "demand," they are apt to be and generally are, confused with the goal itself. A political party that sets up "immediate" demands by so much blurs its constant demand or goal. The presence of these "immediate" demands in a socialist platform reveals pure-and-simple politicians -- corruption, or the invitation to corruption.

Only the economic organisation may and must reach out after crumbs -- "improved conditions" -- on its way to emancipation. The very nature of the organisation preserves it from the danger of "resting satisfied." of accepting "improvement" for "goal." The economic organisation is forced by economic laws to realise it can preserve no "improvement" unless it marches onward to emancipation.

Otherwise with the political organisation. It must be "whole hog or none." The very nature of its existence -- itself only a path clearer for the economic organisation, and only a temporary means -- renders the political organisation prone to "rest satisfied" with incidentals and "improvements."

No socialist is a "state socialist." "State Socialism" is a contradiction in terms. We shall either have socialism -- and that means that the State shall have vanished; or we shall preserve the State, and then we shall have no socialism. Socialism and the idea of "lessening poverty" are contradictions in terms. If the best that could be done with poverty was to lessen it, Socialism would lack a foundation. Socialism's aim is, indeed, great; the aim, however, is not to "lessen," it is to "abolish" poverty, that is, involuntary poverty. Material conditions have changed so radically that, so far from insufficiency, there is today the material possibility of abundance for all. The mechanisms and the methods of production are such today that the leisure, the freedom from arduous toil for the necessaries of life, the emancipation from the clutches from the fear of want, all of these prerequisites to mental and spiritual expansion, one-time enjoyable by some, are today possible to all. Today, all statistical researches combine to demonstrate, people can have an abundance at their disposal with no more exercise of physical energies than is requisite for health. Under such material social conditions, Socialism spurns the goal of "lessening poverty" like a miserable reform, as a betrayal of mankind's opportunities.

If the aim of socialism were to be made the getting of "something now" and socialism later, socialism would have to be sacrificed to any sign of progress. Hence for a Socialist to preach "something now" discredits socialism, and only helps to prepare the workers as voting sheep for capitalism, when capitalist parties, by "stealing," by taking up the "something now" demands, promise their immediate realisation. The only something worth striving for now by socialists is the laying down of as solid a foundation as possible for the conquest of capitalism. The sufferings of a ruled class change, they are not abolished by a change of rulers. Let not socialist efforts be turned away from the practical to the sentimental. The world is ripe for the socialist cooperative commonwealth.



Sunday, September 26, 2021

Revolutionising

 


Capitalism has fulfilled its economic mission: the World is now ready for socialism. Wage slavery and oppression is inevitable lot of the working class -- under capitalism. Working-class advancement is only possible when the working class, acting in conjunction with industrial evolution, rise en masse, economically, politically and socially, for the overthrow of capitalism.

Capitalism does not consist merely of the private ownership of the necessaries for production. If such ownership were the determining feature and quality of capitalism, then capitalism reigned in the days of serfdom. The serf owned his tools, the feudal lord owned the land -- two necessaries for production. Yet that was not capitalism. Capitalism is that social system under which the tool of production (capital) has grown to such mammoth size that the class that owns it rules the land and sea like a despot, inaccessible and undethronable by economic competition, and steadily swelling the number of its slaves, the wage slaves, thereby itself recruiting the forces that will overthrow it, and push civilization onward to socialism -- That is capitalism, not anyone or set of seemingly capitalist manifestations.

So with socialism. It does not consist merely in the overthrow of private ownership in any or all of the necessaries of life. If such overthrow of private ownership were socialism, then the overthrow of the one-time private ownership of military forces, and the present state-ownership of the same, would be socialism. Obviously, that is not socialism. A limb of a human being is not a human being. Socialism is that social system under which the necessaries of production are owned, controlled, and administered by the people, for the people, and under which, accordingly, the cause of political and economic despotism having been abolished, class rule is at an end. -- That is socialism, nothing short of that capitalism answers its critics with labels, slurs and innuendo, not fact, reason and logic. Socialists wear these labels proudly, knowing that they are badges that attest to capitalist intellectual bankruptcy. The tendency to confuse socialism with reform of one sort or another -- an attitude assumed, on the part of its unwise friends, to make it "respectable" and palatable to capitalistically trained minds, and by its enemies, on the other hand, to sap it of its essence and run it into the ground -- compels the Socialist Party again to draw clear and true the old line of cleavage between socialism and social quackery, between reform and revolution.

Socialism means but one thing, and that is the abolition of capital in private hands, and the turning over of the industries into the direct control of the working people. Anything else is not socialism.

Socialism is not the establishment of laws on working hours, not the abolition of sweatshops, not the enforcement of the food laws. None of these, nor all of them together, is socialism. They might all be done by the government tomorrow, and still, we would not have socialism. They are merely reforms of the present system, mere patches on the worn-out garment of industrial servitude. Socialism is the common ownership of production which would bring in its wake all the other improvements in conditions.

Therefore, while not opposing any reforms or improvements which may be secured under capitalism, the Socialist Party steadfastly sets its face against taking time away from its main battle, for revolution, in order to carry on the struggle for reform. It refuses to be manoeuvred into abandoning its main demand -- the tools of production for the producers -- in order to fritter away its energies chasing ever-elusive immediate demands. It turns its back to the tempting baits dangled before the noses of the working class to lead them astray into side issues and blind alleys. The one demand of the Socialist Party is socialism, unadulterated and undiluted -- the unconditional surrender by the capitalist class of the machinery of industry.

So many critics of the socialist goal instruct us that the fundamental error of socialism consists in thinking that human nature can be revolutionised. Socialism does not think that human nature can be revolutionised; socialism does not aim at revolutionising human nature; socialism builds upon human behaviour. It is not human nature that socialists seek to revolutionise, we seek to revolutionise human thinking. Socialists know that the moment when men and women are rid of the ignorance which capitalism instils them full of, the moment when men and women have been revolutionised to the point of realising that the parasites of the capitalist class, crawling over mankind is not inevitable and can be gotten rid of, in that moment socialism will assert itself and wipe the capitalists off the face of the earth. We will tear down the deathtrap of capitalist society.

The only cure is to eradicate the cause of the evil by making the means of production common property, so that it may serve as a blessing, instead of a means of competitive destruction and thieving profit to private individuals, as at present. With technology common property, the hours of labour and the stress of occupation will be proportionate to the progress of invention and the general well-being of society. Benjamin Franklin, even in his day, estimated that four hours of labour would be ample to supply the needs of all mankind under a proper social system employing machinery.

Socialism will not abolish private ownership of household and personal possessions, namely, because these are not engines of social production, and confer no exploiting powers. They confer no arbitrary powers over the lives of others. These are not wealth sources, they are not concerned with production. It can exploit no one by retaining them. Society could have no interest in depriving any individual of them. Hence people will be allowed to keep just as much of their private property under socialism as they were under capitalism. Nay, more, for socialism will multiply a hundredfold each person’s power of acquiring, this sort of private property.

The capitalist apologists sneer at socialism as visionary, unattainable, and without any immediate social value,  judging the world from the limited horizon which they afford, they fail to perceive that socialism is the only vital economic, political force of modern times. The day will come when we see the international flag of socialism waving over the ruins of capitalism, and binding humanity with the bonds of cooperation.

 


Saturday, September 25, 2021

Invention and Innovation

 


When a social system such as capitalism has outlived its usefulness, efforts to improve it are a waste of energy and only postpone the desirable features of the improvements sought after.

 Marx said:

"Although the Liberals have not carried out their principles in any land as yet completely, still the attempts which have been made are sufficient to prove the uselessness of their efforts. They endeavoured to free labour, but only succeeded in subjecting it more completely under the yoke of capital; they aimed at setting at liberty all labour powers, and only riveted the chains of misery which held them bound; they wanted to release the bondman from the clod, and deprived him of the soil on which he stood by buying up the land; they yearned for a happy condition of society, and only created superfluity on one hand and dire want on the other; they desired to secure for merit its own honourable reward, and only made it the slave of wealth; they wanted to abolish all monopolies, and placed in their stead the monster monopoly, capital; they wanted to do away with all wars between nation and nation, and kindled the flames of civil war; they tried to get rid of the state, and yet have multiplied its burdens; they wanted to make education the common property of all, and made it the privilege of the rich; they aimed at the greatest moral improvement of society, and have only left it in a state of rotten immorality; they wanted, to say all in a word, unbounded liberty, and have produced the meanest servitude; they wanted the reverse of all which they actually obtained, and have thus given a proof that liberalism in all its ramifications is nothing but a perfect utopia."

The "sacredness of property" is one of the most favourite mystifications of the capitalist class. Socialism, say they, violates this sacredness; "the safety of property is the cornerstone of civilisation," etc., etc.  Capitalism violates The property of the working class, the product of its labour, does not remain in its hands to enjoy; it is stolen from it by the capitalist class. Thus at the very root of capitalist production there is violation of the sacredness of property: the wealth the capitalist class lives on, and thus the existence of the capitalist class itself, is a flat denial of the property's sacredness. This wrong is upheld by the whole property-holding class.  The capitalist class care little how the working class is robbed as they are the beneficiaries of the theft.

We are living in a time when the comforts of life, and all the material wealth needed to bring happiness to every human being, can be produced in abundance. There is no need whatever for one human being to go hungry, homeless or naked. Mankind's inventive genius has developed the tool to that point, and guided the natural forces to that degree, that abundance is possible to all. But between that abundance and its enjoyment an obstacle is interposed. That obstacle is the modern social system, capitalism, and its defenders and beneficiaries are the capitalist class. Thwarted from accessing this  abundance of wealth which the capitalist class forbids them to touch, workers young and old, male and female, black and white, instead of fighting the capitalist, with wealth and freedom as the prize at stake, fall to fighting each other; and the stakes in that conflict are: death to the loser; poverty, misery and wage-slavery to the winner. This has for a result the survival of the slave. A more brutal and demoralising spectacle cannot be conceived.

The capitalist class misrepresents socialism as a scheme of society, whose adoption would destroy individuality! "Socialism," it declares, "would degrade us all to one dead level regardless of individual aptitude or merit. Capitalism, on the other hand, exalts the individual, promotes his rights and duties, and all else that appertains to him and his happiness. Down with socialism! Up with capitalism!"

Capitalism is a fraud within a fraud. Proclaiming itself individualistic, it organises collectively in order to promote the aims of a few. Socialism, on the other hand, is genuineness itself. Believing that industry is collective in organisation and operation, it proclaims itself in favour of collective ownership and control. With freedom from the economic pressure due to the capitalist control of industry, such as socialism alone can provide (since it is in accord with evolution), individuality will achieve proportions hitherto unattained.

Whenever the position of a defender of capitalism against the attacks of socialism becomes desperate, he drags forth the inventor. "What are you going to do with the inventor, the man whose genius has created the great machines which make wealth and civilisation possible? Are you going to despoil him - to rob him?" To this the socialist generally retorts by showing that it is capitalism that robs the inventor.

 Times a-changing, so much so that it may be said that the individual inventor had become as much of a myth as the individual captain of industry - who, it is alleged, directs the work of thousands of wage slaves. Today industry is so ramified, so colossal, that it is an impossibility for one man to direct it. Corps of trained subordinates, executive, engineering, and other boards meet in frequent consultation to devise ways and means for the safe conduct of the consolidated industries over which they preside.

And so it is with the inventor. Invention has become social in scope and methods. With the various branches of industry so closely related, the mechanical changes in one branch of production must be considered in their relation to other branches. The result is that today the inventor is no longer an isolated being, developing himself and his ideas in some dismal garret.

The inventor is today the product of a scientific school or a great establishment, which, while specialising in his abilities, has given him a well-rounded education. The inventor is today a part of a corps of technical experts, men rarely heard of outside their own spheres, who, with the finest mechanical equipments and extensive chemical laboratories at their command, work in cooperative unison for the production of new and interrelated inventions,a nd the improvement of old ones.

The inventor today is one of a multitude of workers who are asked to drop suggestions for improvement into boxes placed about the factories in which they work; suggestions that have, in the aggregate, produced new types of machines and so transformed the original inventions as to make them entirely new creations; suggestions that have immensely enriched the capitalists to whom they were given, while the reward of the workers making them was a few paltry prizes, which are far from being commensurate in value which the things they are supposed to represent.

The poor lone inventor whom socialism would rob is a myth, and, like all myths, is adorned with the poetry of bygone ages. Like modern industry, modern invention is social. And, since the social characteristic of industry demands the social ownership of the means of production and distribution forming its basis, so does the social nature of invention demand the social ownership of its creations.



Friday, September 24, 2021

Unite for Socialism

 


Mankind is literally in a race with catastrophe. The climate crisis and the terrible threat of environmental destruction are the warnings history is giving us to build a new society.  Join us in the great cause of human liberation-and to save civilisation from disaster.

 Socialism is a form of society in which the land and the technology of production are owned collectively. In short the industries, being administered through the socialist associations of these producers, who today are wage workers. This precludes the existence of political government. The Socialist Party wants to focus the working class's attention on where political power is situated in order to remove the economic power of the employers to exploit and pursue commodity production for profit. In a socialist society, we shall be able to enjoy the material well-being our productive capability makes possible. 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.

The task confronting workers is to organise their political forces into a Party of their class, and to consolidate their economic power into One Big Union -not to demand higher wages, but to demand the abolition of the wage system and affect an orderly socialist reconstruction of society.

It is a historic fact that the unions were born out of a hard, bitter, often violent, struggle between capital and labour. The focal point of this struggle was the division of labour's products into wages and profits. As long as the capitalists could deal with workers individually, the workers were pretty helpless. It was to end this woeful helplessness that the workers combined into unions.

Exploitation did not cease and the struggle over the division of labour's product continued unabated. The unions only enabled the workers to resist partially these encroachments of capital. The capitalist owners of the means of social production, acting under the compulsion of the profit motive and of competitive necessity, strove constantly to keep wages as low as possible and to get even more production out of the workers. The workers, on the other hand, driven both by sheer necessity and by normal ambition to rise above a state of chronic want, resisted and sought to force wages up. But it was like dividing an apple into two parts. If one part was larger the other had to be smaller -- and this was the case whether the capitalist "apple" was big, as in boom times, or small, as in periods of depression. The class struggle, therefore, has been inherent in and inseparable from the capital-wage labour relationship.

Despite the indisputable conflict of interests between labour and capital, trade unions have accepted capitalism as a permanent system. Instead of concentrating on building a classless society, they limit their aspirations to a vague "fair day's wage for a fair day's work." The rest has followed logically. Under capitalism, labour -- or labour power -- is a commodity, a mere "means" of production that the capitalist buys in the labour market just as he buys raw materials in the raw materials market. Now, note this: Acceptance by present-day unions of the capitalist system as a finality means also acceptance of the principle that labour is doomed eternally to this commodity status. Corruption has followed inevitably. Most union leaders started out as sincere and honest men, but the harsh realities of capitalism quickly disillusioned them. The more hopeless the plight of the rank and file appeared, the more the union leaders turned to feather their own nests. Careerists and opportunists rose to the top, exploiting the workers' instinct for solidarity to promote their own bureaucratic interests.

In the new society, production and distribution will be socially controlled. There will, accordingly, be no further need for the tricky means of exchange, inflatable money, required by the capitalist system of private control over production and distribution. A basically simple and entirely feasible method of free access will deliver to every person the full social equivalent in goods and services of the work he or she has performed. And there won't be any danger of chiselling or shortchanging because social control of the economy will be democratically exercised by the workers themselves. We must organise politically to contest the politicians committed to continuing capitalism, to educate for the need for socialist change and to openly and painstakingly gather our forces in as peaceful a manner as possible.

No faction of the capitalist parties will represent workers' interests. For too long workers have relied on capitalist politicians to be their spokesmen. A political party that expresses our collective class interests,  aimed at a socialist goal- that is a weapon that we have only begun to be built. The job of educating and organising is immense. But any postponement of the task is a postponement of the only solution we have -- a reconstruction of capitalist society along socialist lines. There are no other ways out and no one but the workers to do the job.

The working-class answer must be to scrap the whole capitalist system. Not sometime in the future, but now. We must build a movement that will give the workers control of the economy. Production for profit must be replaced with production to meet people's needs. The capitalists should no longer control the things that we need in order to live. Workers must rely on their own strength. No one else will save them. For too long, workers have trusted politicians who are working for the capitalists' interests? Maybe you've heard many negative things about socialism. If you have, it's because the capitalists don't want people to know that there is a better and fairer way for society to be organised. They don't want socialism because socialism would mean that they would have to give back all the wealth they've made off the backs of working people. So they spread a lot of lies and confusion about socialism. If you want to know what socialism is really about, get in touch with the Socialist Party. 




Thursday, September 23, 2021

Petty Powerful Capitalist Powers.


On August 10, China sentenced Canadian businessman Michael Spavor to 11 years in a Chinese prison for spying. He will also have to pay a fine and be deported from China, though they did not say when that would be. 

Spavor and another Canadian Michael Kovrig were arrested days apart in 2018, shortly after Canadian authorities arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver, at the request of the U.S. where she is wanted on fraud charges. 

The general feeling is that it is a case of mess with us and we'll mess with you which, if that is the case, shows how petty powerful capitalist powers can be - another area the working class have no stake in.

S.P.C. Members.

Socialism and Economic Freedom

 


The Socialist Party asserts using the language of the American constitution the inalienable right of mankind to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Socialist Party raises the banner of revolt and demands the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class. No reform measures will suffice. Having outlived its social usefulness, capitalism must give way to a new social system. We will put an end to the existing barbarous class society by placing the land and all the means of production, transportation and distribution into the hands of the useful producers as a collective body, and creating the Socialist Cooperative Commonwealth.

Ruling classes have always exploited ruled or subject classes. In the ancient world, chattel slaves were exploited openly by being made to produce more than was needed to feed, clothe and house them. In the feudal era, serfs were forced to turn over part of their product to their feudal master or to toil for him so many days each year. But under capitalism, exploitation is cloaked by the wage system. The capitalist buys the worker's labour-power for a price (wage), and it appears as if a fair bargain had been struck. Actually, the working class produces all social wealth and performs all necessary social services. The wages it receives in return represent but a small fraction of the social wealth it alone produces. The capitalist class, by virtue of its ownership of the tools, appropriates the balance (by far the larger portion) of the social wealth. Thus, the wage system disguises the true nature and extent of capitalist exploitation, which has been well described as the "greatest robbery in history." Under capitalism, production is carried on for sale and profit. As in capitalist society, the great mass of workers receives A BARE LIVING WAGE. A minority of specially trained workers share some of the privileges that dribble down to them as prizes and bonuses

The State is a government based on territory and having special coercive powers (police, army, prisons, etc.) that are beyond democratic control. Historically, the State has always been an engine of ruling classes for holding down the ruled. The ancient State was the State of the slave owners, the feudal State was the State of the feudal lords, and the modern State is the executive committee of the capitalist class.

"Democracy" is not a synonym for "capitalism." In even the most "democratic" of capitalist countries, there is economic despotism. The capitalist is an absolute master. He can replace workers with technology. He can close down until business gets better and force his workers into unemployment. Or he can move his plant to another city or a different country and leave his employees abandoned. The truth is that capitalism is not only an economic despotism -- it is also a foe to political democracy. Wherever worker unrest arises, and the capitalist rule is threatened, the capitalists are quick to jettison political democracy and establish authoritarian rule.

Socialism is the direct opposite of capitalism.  It means completely new administrative institutions through which to direct democratically the social production of our modern age in the interests of all society. Socialism does not now exist, and it never has existed anywhere in the world.

In socialism, the land, factories, mines, and all the other means of social production, distribution and services will be owned, controlled and administered, not by private persons, and not by a State, but shared in common by all the people. There will be no economic classes in the socialist society. With the elimination of private (and State) ownership, the division of society into exSocialism means abolition of the wage system. Instead of wages, the useful producers under Socialism will get back directly and indirectly (indirectly through social services-public health, education, recreation, etc.) all that they produce. Private (and State) property and profit having been eliminated entirely, there will be no way for social parasites, capitalistic or bureaucratic, to exist. In short, it will no longer be possible for any individual or group to secure the economic power that would make possible the exploitation of another human being and exploited classes will end. Everyone will have the same basic material interests.  We shall collectively produce the things we need and want. New techniques and inventions, and the elimination of anarchy and waste in production, will greatly increase the wealth available. And such technological improvements will not result in unwanted surpluses and unemployment -- they will enable us to reduce drastically the hours of work. Socialism will, therefore, give us the leisure time to develop our faculties and live healthy, happy, useful lives. 

In the class-divided world of today the primary consideration is: Does it pay? In world socialism of tomorrow, the chief question will be: Is it needed, desirable and socially beneficial? In short, Socialism means the production of things to satisfy human needs and wants and not, as under capitalism, for sale and profit.

Socialism will be a society wherein we will make the fields yield an abundance without arduous toil; wherein the factories, mines, transport and communication networks, etc., will be the safest, the most modern, the most efficient, the most sustainable possible, and productive beyond our wildest dreams without laborious work; wherein our educational institutions will have the finest facilities and be devoted to developing complete human beings; wherein our medical and social services will concentrate on creating and maintaining the finest health and recreational facilities conceivable; wherein, in short, toil and drudgery, poverty and social misery will be banished forever.

 It will be a democracy solidly based on that PRIMARY freedom which is the foundation of all freedoms -- ECONOMIC FREEDOM.

 


Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Understanding Change

 


Many people have become convinced that the present system, capitalism - with its basis in competition and expansion doesn’t actually work for everybody that it is as good as it gets because of our 'human nature'. We're told that 'co-operation' is for dreamers, idealists and while it sounds nice, at best it's a utopian fantasy. Yet we intuitively understand that our present path is leading to disaster and that change must happenThe idea that we can actually progress and better our lives is an increasingly difficult argument to make. Too many have grown deeply cynical and disillusioned with politics. While we accept that conditions have much improved, from technology to human rights, we are still convinced that when it comes to real social or economic progress, positive change is impossible.


 In fact, research now supports the fact that our 'human nature' is not 'fixed' or simplistic by any means, and we are as 'hard-wired' to cooperate for our survival as to be competitive. There is the Golden Rule, "do unto others as you would do unto yourself'  as we 'see ourself in others'. Rather than the conviction that greed and aggression are what makes us tick", we need to be aware that these are behaviours that have been overstated as 'natural' to survival because they supported an 'engine', a class system. Our very survival as a species is now being threatened by too much insistence on individualism and thoughtless disregard for the future.  We have an economic system that is causing tremendous pain, lost hope and lost futures and it is posing a threat to civilisationWe need to create a more constructive and sustainable path. We have very real options, real and achievable. We can make peaceful, profound, positive changes. We still possess the vote.


What is becoming clear is the need to change to an economy based on human wants and needs rather than profit and competition. The only way is to end the tyranny and power of the very few, over the lives of us all. Rather than a system based on division and so much inequity, socialism would become focused on solving social problems, offering the best health, providing education and child-care, creating more leisure time for recreational pursuits, for the community. We -the majority- would make profit, exploitation and wages, private ownership of production, distribution, banking and credit, obsolete. Our system would be based on people, not profit. 


Capitalism is the fundamental cause of our social ills, and that the institutions it rests on must be replaced. We don't want the jobs most of us have now. Bank tellers, bookkeepers and cashiers - all those who handle money: Because we want a world without money: Free access to the necessaries of life. We don't want cops, lawyers and judges and prison guards either. Nor all the rest uphold and enforce the exploitation and poverty of working people. We do want to be useful productive members of society. But first, we must be free. And that means a revolution to Socialism.  It means the end to poverty, war, famine and tyranny: And the beginning of the true brotherhood of man. Can we make a peaceful revolution? We think so. The only real issue is the private ownership of the means of production and distribution. In one word, that issue is capitalism. Our opponents will ignore this basic issue because they hate the idea of a socialist revolution. Instead, they will focus on such diversionary issues as jobs, welfare, taxes, crime and spending. Despite the fact that their legislative programme of reform is causing only more suffering, they persist in opposing the coming socialist revolution.


The despotic system of capitalist economics is the direct opposite of our democratic system of politics, can plainly be traced to the existence of a privileged class. Through the perversion of democracy to the ends of plutocracy, labour is robbed of the wealth which it alone produces, is denied the means of self-employment, and, by compulsory idleness in wage-slavery, is even deprived of the necessaries of life. Human power and natural forces are thus wasted, that the plutocracy may rule. Ignorance and misery with all their concomitant evils are perpetuated, that the people may be kept in bondage. Science and invention are diverted from their humane purpose to the enslavement of men, women and children.


Against such a system the Socialist Party once more reiterates its fundamental declaration that private property in the natural sources of production and in the instruments of labour is the obvious cause of all economic servitude and political dependence. We call upon the people to organise with a view to the substitution of the cooperative commonwealth for the present state of unplanned production and social disorder, a commonwealth in which every person shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his or her faculties.